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The purpose of this paper is to evaluate project activities' efficiency in different execution modes for the optimization of time–cost-quality and environmental impacts trade-off problem.

This paper presents a parallel Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method for evaluation of project activities with different execution modes to select the best execution mode and find a trade-off between objectives. Also, according to the nature of the project activities, outputs are categorized into desirable (quality) and undesirable (time, cost and environmental impacts) and analyzed based on the DEA model. In order to rank efficient execution modes, the ideal and anti-ideal virtual units method is used. The proposed model is implemented on a real case of a rural water supply construction project to demonstrate its validity.

The findings show that the use of the efficient execution mode in each activity leads to an optimal trade-off between the four project objectives (time, cost, quality and environmental impacts).

This study help project managers and practitioners with choosing the most efficient execution modes of project activities taking time–cost-quality-environmental impacts into account.

In this paper, in addition to time and cost optimization of construction projects, quality factors and environmental impacts are considered. Further to the authors' knowledge, there is no method for evaluating project activities' efficiency. The efficiency of different activity modes is also evaluated for the first time to select the most efficient modes. This research can assist project managers with choosing the most appropriate execution modes for the activities to ultimately accomplish the project with the lowest time, cost and environmental impacts along with the highest quality.

This paper studies the determinants for the desirability of the public-private partnership (PPP) mode in infrastructure development.

The author manually collects data on over 12,000 PPP projects in China, and regard the successful transition and abnormal termination as signals for the mode’s desirability and undesirability, respectively. Then, guided by relevant theories in the literature, the author investigates the impact of various project characteristics on the projects’ successful transition and abnormal termination.

First, execution-stage projects in industries where government support is indispensable, or where quality improvement is more important than cost reduction, face higher likelihood of abnormal termination. But such negative effects are mitigated if state-owned enterprises (SOEs) participate in the social party. Second, the structure of social party matters. The participation by private firms in the social party increases the termination likelihood, while the decentralization of the social party decreases it. Third, pre-execution projects with government payment or subsidies are more likely to enter into the execution stage.

Regulations on participation by SOEs in PPPs, such as policy [2023 No. 115] announced by State Council, should take industrial heterogeneity into consideration.

Using a large sample, the author empirically tests the seminal PPP-related theories in the literature. The author also uncovers some unique stylized facts about PPPs in China, especially the impact of SOE participation in the social party on PPP survival.

Games are an effective teaching and classroom training tool, since they allow students to practise real‐life events. In the area of project management, most games focus on the planning phase of a project. The current paper aims to describe a new game, called PEG – Project Execution Game. The uniqueness of this game is its focus on real world problems during the project's execution.

The Project Execution Game provides the “players” with a set of realistic, but unexpected events that occur during a project, in order to enhance their problem‐coping capabilities and decision‐making skills as well as hone their general reactions. The game is designed for either one or several teams competing among themselves. The game's validity was tested on 185 undergraduate students in their advanced project management course. Statistical results about the simulation's contributions are presented in relation to several aspects of project management.

The conclusion from the study is that a game is an effective tool for teaching the unstructured area of project execution, and gives the student a taste of real‐life experience.

The Project Execution Game can be implemented with students in project management training sessions. With this game, the students gain more practical relevant experience, as compared to alternative teaching techniques. Furthermore, the game can be used in organizational training to improve project managers' techniques and experience in reacting to unexpected events. Finally, it can also be used with project managers practising before the actual execution of a big project.

This paper suggests effective and interesting ways of teaching project management in order to better train project managers. By simulating realistic competitive conditions, the concepts learned and solutions generated in the classroom can be transferred to the outside business environment.

Projects are an inherent part of implementing strategies. Still, the challenge is to connect a long-term strategy for larger ecosystem development to the individual projects being undertaken. The purpose of this paper is to test the ability of seven project management office (PMO) roles to achieve strategic planning in large society development public organisations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The questionnaire survey that was employed for data collected from 450 project members in 19 project-based public organisations having PMO unit had a response rate of 60 per cent. The received data analysed quantitatively by using multiple regression.

The survey data revealed that PMO enhanced the achievement of the strategic plan for better development of the business ecosystem. The analysis outputs, as expected, have indicated that 95 per cent of the targeted organisations established their own PMO for developing business ecosystem.

Despite there are PMOs hosted by private organisations, the study is limited to the PMO within the context of the government and semi-government organisations in the UAE.

These findings further utilised in developing the conceptual PMO model that would be flexible to be applied to similar project management methodology in various business settings, as well as pave the way for further scholarly investigations.

This work is both exploratory and causal study, which concentrates on investigating the effectiveness of seven proposed PMO roles (as independent variables) in carrying out the strategic plan (as the dependent variable) of the public-sector organisations in the UAE for the development of business ecosystem.

Risk management has become an integral part in businesses around the world. In the construction industry, risk management has also been introduced and has been mainly entrusted in the hands of the project team to go through a laid down risk management processes to identify possible risk events, which may occur during the project execution and the impact they may have on the project deliverables should they occur. It is, however, believed that small construction firms do not take risk management as a serious exercise even though most of the project risks are transferred to them as subcontractors. The purpose of this study was, therefore, to investigate risk management processes in the small construction companies and the impact of risk management on their project deliverables.

A case study of a single construction company was used for this study. Data were collected through structured questionnaire to 16 respondents who are involved in the project execution in the case study company. Two managing directors of the case study company were also interviewed. In total, 11 project site meetings were also attended to observe meeting proceedings and to record issues discussed. In total, 15 monthly project reports and project close-out reports were also studied. In total, One hundred and five completed projects of which 58 per cent were renovation projects, 27 per cent were new projects and 15 per cent were civil/structural works were also examined. The data were then analysed using excel analytical tool and the content analysis method.

The findings indicate that small construction companies with respect to the case study company do not have a specific laid down risk management processes that project team are made to go through before and during the execution of their projects. There is, however, no conclusive evidence regarding the impact of risk management on project performance as a significant number of projects done were able to meet a successful project performance indicators even though risk management exercises were not done. Some of the identified risk events that caused project failures are payment delays, labour related issues, subcontractor/main contractor related issues, insufficient contingency reserves/plan, etc.

Only one construction company was used as a case study for this research and all sources of data were related to a single company. The results may, therefore, be not generalisable.

The research has discovered that projects outcome could have improved tremendously if proper risk management exercises were implemented before project execution as most of the causes of project failures could have been identified through the risk management processes. This study, hence, gives an insight as to why small construction firms like the case study company should take risk management seriously in their projects execution to improve on the performance of their projects.

The research has discovered that projects outcome could have improved tremendously if proper risk management exercises were implemented before project execution as most of the causes of project failures could have been identified through the risk management processes. This study, hence, gives an insight as to why small construction firms like the case study company should take risk management seriously in their projects execution to improve on the performance of their projects.

In responding to global issues of creating sustainable development, the Indonesian government has enacted regulations (i.e. Ministry of Public Works and Housing No. 05/PRT/M/2015) on the implementation of sustainable construction in infrastructure project execution. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the means of implementing sustainable principles in the execution of infrastructure projects in Indonesia by the main construction service providers and their partners. A lesson-learned is presented as a source of knowledge to underpin the extensive implementation of sustainable principles in the construction of infrastructure projects leading to an integrated approach in creating a sustainable infrastructure that fulfills the requirements of sustainable development.

The method used is questionnaire surveys with Indonesian construction practitioners who are working on building construction, road and bridge construction, water facilities construction and house and settlement construction.

From the results, the practices of sustainability principles by construction service providers in infrastructure project execution are imperative from the project procurement phase. The evaluation continues to the phase of construction project execution, which reveals the inconsiderable performance of sustainability indicators due to current constraints on the implementation of sustainability principles.

This research looks into the existing gaps between sustainable construction principles and their practical implementation in Indonesian infrastructure projects. This will foster a holistic approach in the practice of undertaking sustainable procurement processes, thus reinforcing project management techniques in the phase of sustainable construction project execution. This also strengthens the interrelated roles and responsibilities of project stakeholders by taking into account principles of safety, balance and the harmony of infrastructure and the environment.

The purpose of this paper is to set out to identify key team factors associated with the fast implementation of capital projects. Although scholars theorise that project success depends as much on the effective management of project personnel as on technical management, the project literature is virtually silent on which team practices are pivotal.

Using a model‐based quantitative research design, the impact of team management variables on the speed of two different phases of capital project implementation were examined: project execution and project construction. Multi‐method data collection included 252 individual surveys, archival documents, and whole team interviews conducted at the closeout of 56 capital projects implemented in four continents by 15 Fortune 500 companies in the process industries.

Empirical analysis revealed that only some of the variables predicted from other literatures (project manager – PM continuity, cross‐functional team integration, and PM incentives) were significantly linked to fast schedule outcomes. Some key drivers differed according to temporal phase.

Limitations of this study included its cross‐sectional design, modest sample size and sampling frame, but the findings clearly demonstrate the value of further research into key team factors for project success.

The results suggest that strategic management of project personnel can drive project speed. Phase‐linked key team practices are identified for improving time performance in capital projects.

This study breaks new ground by exploring whether key team practices are generic and phase‐specific, and by identifying specific team drivers of speed for two capital project phases using objective outcome measures.

Federal and State Governments began to explore more subtle alternatives for accessing private sector resources in the delivery and operation of public facilities. The purpose of this paper is to examine the types of infrastructural projects most suitable using public‐private partnership (PPP) for executions and identify the critical success factors in PPP on infrastructural projects with a view to strengthening the partnership between the public (government) and private sector. The overall goal is to enhance infrastructural projects delivery in Nigeria.

The primary data consists of survey questionnaires, drawn based on the identified factors on existing literature on critical success factors (CSFs). The structured questionnaires were administered on participants that were involved in the execution of PPP projects, either during the initial stage, construction stage or maintenance and operating stages in Lagos State.

The results of the mean score ranking indicate that transportation, which include roads, rails and airports construction ranked highest followed by provision of electricity and water. Real estate and educational construction projects ranked lowest in terms of suitability of execution using PPPs. However, the result of the one‐way analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicates that, there was no significant difference in the suitability of PPP for execution of the types of infrastructural projects delivery. The paper further identified nine CSFs in public‐private partnerships as follows: competitive procurement process, thorough and realistic assessment of the cost and benefits, favorable framework, appropriate risk allocation and risk sharing, government involvement by providing a guarantee, political support, stable macroeconomic condition, sound economic policy and availability of suitable financial market. The study, however, showed that well organized and committed public agency; social support; project technical feasibility and multi‐benefits objectives are the CFSs that are most important to the private investors. On the other hand, factors such as transparency in the procurement process; shared authority between public and private sector; thorough and realistic assessment of the cost and benefits; commitment and responsibility of public and private sector and strong and good private consortium are the CSFs that are most important to the public clients.

The results indicated that there was no significant difference in the suitability of PPP for execution of infrastructural projects delivery. This shows that PPP is suitable for all types of infrastructural projects. What needs to be done is to ensure that all the success factors responsible for successful implementations of PPPs are well structured in a way that its optimum performance can be guaranteed. Also, in identification of the critical factors in PPP it would help to develop a body of PPP knowledge. This knowledge would help in the establishment of relevant laws, regulations and guidelines and in the development of efficient frameworks for best PPP practices.

The purpose of this paper is to enhance the understanding of what project complexity is, what drivers and factors that influence complexity and how consequences for organizational performance can be assessed.

The research is explanatory and based on literature review, model development, interviews and case studies. The model is validated through a case study.

The findings are a model for identifying and analyzing complexity drivers and complexity factors. The model starts with generic complexity drivers such as ambiguity, uncertainty, unpredictability and pace. These drivers are in each project influenced by nature and by socio-political, economic and technological surroundings to result in complexity factors that are specific to the project analyzed. The model can be used to analyze project complexity and to define requirements for the organization of the project and guidelines for the execution.

The research is limited to large projects with a technical delivery of some kind of facilities.

The model can be used to assess the required capability of the organization for successful project execution.

The contribution of the research is a new model for understanding project complexity. The distinction between project complexity drivers and factors is essential as well as the taxonomy for the factors building on and adding to already published research.

The purpose of this paper is to present a hybrid simulation approach for predicting the value of labor productivity taking account of various continuous influencing factors and the interactions between different agents involved in the project.

The various continuous factors affecting labor productivity are simulated using system dynamics (SD). The heterogeneity of different agents involved in the project and their interactions is accounted using agent-based modelling (ABM). The developed ABM and SD models are finally integrated to simulate the value of labor productivity taking account of all the influencing factors.

The proposed hybrid simulation tool is implemented in a real project to evaluate its perfomance. The value of labor productivity is simulated by taking account of all the influencing factors. The most appropriate execution strategy is then selected using the developed hybrid SD-ABM approach to improve productivity. It is shown that the number of working groups and their movement patterns affect the severity of the groups’ interferences which will in turn affect the value of labor productivity.

This research helps project managers to predict and improve the value of labor productivity taking account of all the influencing factors.

It is believed that the proposed hybrid SD-ABM simulation approach offers a novel and robust tool for modeling labor productivity because the effects of various continuous influencing factors and the interactions between different agents are taken into account through the combination of SD and ABM. Many complex problems faced in construction projects involve interacting elements of a different nature, and the integration of SD with ideas from ABM offers potential to combine the strengths of the two methodologies to solve the problem.