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Historically, citizen input into the capital budgeting planning and project selection process has been sporadic and often limited to the most politically-attentive, “connected” individuals and groups. The near-sightedness of such an approach has become apparent as the public’s cynicism toward government has intensified, along with its reticence to support bond referenda, and its propensity to file equity-oriented lawsuits criticizing capital project decisions. To combat these problems, local governments across the U.S. are broadening constituent involvement in their capital budget process, especially at the front-end where possible projects are identified and selected for inclusion in the capital improvement plan. This article examines the four major approaches that are being utilized: decentralizing public hearings; using community-wide public opinion surveys to gauge public support for various projects and revenue-raising options; expanding citizen access and input to, and feedback from, government interactive data bases; and creating more formalized roles for citizens on capital budget planning committees. Each of these approaches has its own assets and liabilities which are delineated.

This article highlights key aspects of capital management, including capital planning, capital budgeting, capital financing, decision making and capital spending outcomes. We provide a background discussion of public sector capital management, followed by a summary of the articles that comprise this symposium. Combined, these articles illustrate the complexity of and challenges to capital management at the state and local government levels. We discuss common themes that emerge from reading these articles as a collective symposium, including: (1) modest progress in applying and empirically testing theoretical frameworks; (2) the variety of actors and institutions; and (3) the deteriorating condition and poor performance of public infrastructure. We use the articles to illustrate gaps in the research and offer suggestions for future research on capital management theory and practice.

Building cost planning was originally developed in the framework of traditional procurement methods with conventional documentation, tendering and administration processes. With the advent of alternative forms of procurement with more fluid approaches to design stages and documentation, the need for sound cost planning does not appear to diminish. As a process established on solid theoretical foundations, cost planning should be robust enough to adapt and flourish in a variety of procurement environments. However, little documentation and analysis of transformed and adapted forms of cost planning appear to have been made. This case study of a design‐construct company in Melbourne, Australia, presents and explores a contemporary form of building cost planning integrated into a design cost management approach adopted by a construction company experienced in alternative forms of procurement. The article traces this process on a design‐construct project from inception to the end of the design development stage and tender. Whilst the fundamental framework of cost planning remains intact, the focus and detail in each of the stages are guided by the company's priority for greater financial control over the cost and value implications of design and other decisions. This recently established working model of design cost management in this company has been designed to deliver added value to the client through a better balance of time, cost and quality in each project.

The purpose of this paper is to describe an approach to information technology (IT) strategic planning for libraries and institutions of higher education.

The “why, what, and how” of IT strategic planning for libraries is explained, to show the efficacy and value of long‐term IT planning and budgeting. The organization, design, processes, templates, and methodologies of IT strategic planning practices that have been proven and constantly refined through projects with academic, public, and national libraries are described.

Principles described for IT strategic planning as a team‐based enterprise learning process apply as well to the design and conduct of major IT procurements, where the organization also seeks best value IT outcomes for the long term. The approach is scalable with respect to the human resources and time required (e.g. three months, six months); the design and steps of the process; the methodologies employed; and the number, design, format, components, and contents of internal working documents and the published report(s).

IT strategic planning educates the institution about choices and consequences, decides on technology priorities and investments, makes informed decisions with confidence, and delivers consensus‐based outcomes and stakeholders' buy‐in.

In their recent client engagement experience and benchmarking research, the authors have found that successful management models for corporate real estate (CRE) organisations begin with integrated, robust processes, and not well designed organisational charts. As corporate missions can quickly change focus from high growth to cost reduction, the key to successful integration of all CRE elements is engaging in a strategic planning process that not only aligns the facilities infrastructure with the core business, but also drives CRE organisational initiatives relative to processes, people and enabling systems. This paper attempts to capture a practical framework for CRE managers to evaluate changes to the core business and determine what implications these changes will have on both the CRE portfolio and organisation.

Adoption of a separate capital budget in local governments receives little attention in the literature. It is important to look at various capital budgeting practices in local governments since a separate capital budget as different budget format and structure affects budgetary decisions, thus leading to different levels of investment in public infrastructure. This paper examines factors that facilitate or impede adoption of a separate capital budget by using time series data. Results show that local governments are more likely to adopt a separate capital budget in order to reflect local demands such as growth rate in capital spending.

This paper aims to investigate the gap between the declarations regarding participatory planning and its actual implementation in practice within the Israeli spatial planning context.

The paper explores the gap between theory of participatory spatial planning and its implementation in practice by a comparative analysis of three participatory case studies in the Israeli planning context. The data collected to analyze the case studies is secondary data, including previous research on the three case studies and their re-evaluation on the basis of indicators for participation.

Participatory spatial planning processes are not often implemented in the Israeli context, as they are not required by law. All the three case studies explored in this paper deal with local spatial plans at the neighborhood level, but each expresses a very different participation mode: one is a national, government-led program; the second is a residents-led opposition to a municipal plan; and the third is a third-sector initiative offering an alternative plan to an existing one. The findings suggest that there is a correlation between the initiating body, its commitment to participation and the level of success of the participatory process.

This paper focuses on three specific participatory spatial planning projects in Israel. Further exploration of additional participatory projects may prove useful to verify or refute the conclusions reached in this paper.

There is very little exploration and evaluation of participatory spatial planning processes in Israel. This paper provides a valuable, although limited, analysis, linking participatory planning theory to practice within the Israeli context.

The construction sector has a global reach, and construction professionals worldwide often encounter challenges in delivering a project on time and within the assigned budget. Hence, this paper aims to investigate the preproject factors that most affect the performance of construction projects.

A literature review was conducted to identify these factors from previous research, after which a questionnaire was developed and distributed to construction industry professionals worldwide. The response data were collected and analyzed using several methods, including Cronbach’s alpha, Relative Importance Index (RII), Kruskal–Wallis test, and Spearman’s and Pearson correlations.

The results highlight four categories of significance, namely design, stakeholder, engineering, and procurement, with 31 factors being assigned to these categories. The relationships between each factor based on the categories established in the survey are then presented. With the help of data analysis, focusing on these significant preproject factors will help management teams to evaluate and improve the preconstruction process to achieve a higher project success rate.

This study differs from other studies in the literature by gathering all relevant preconstruction success factors by an extensive literature review. Finally, highly ranked factors are studied in detail for a better understanding of the impact of preconstruction factors on project performance. This study is supported by powerful tests such as Kruskal–Wallis test and Spearman’s correlation to study the perception of different groups on preconstruction factors. Furthermore, the data analysis will help in identifying and avoiding the failure part of the previous projects and will improve the planning and/or forecasting of the new projects.

Numerous core concepts in the field of strategic management lack a clear definition or receive relatively little attention in most traditional strategic management classes with the concept of “implementation” being chief among them. The authors explore and describe one of the most important steps of implementation, the strategic plan launch project. It is the first impression that stakeholders have of what changes the company will be making to its business model, which businesses or departments will receive increased or decreased financial support, and the sense of urgency and prioritization the company is attaching to its new program.

Based on extensive executive and consulting experience, plus a review of existing scholarly literature, a seven-step model is described and explained that includes best practices for the final steps of formulation through the initial phase of implementation.

The authors could not find any academic literature on how companies finish the formulation process and transition into an efficient and effective deployment of the plan. It is critical to clarify at least two kinds of budgets and clearly designate authorities prior to gaining board approval. Thereafter, a well-developed dissemination and launch project is necessary for clear communication of strategic intent and objectives.

This paper fills in a critical gap in scholarly literature while providing practitioners with a foundational model to help organize and monitor the successful launch of a new organizational strategy.

Analyzing factors of delays in construction projects and determining their impact on project performance is necessary to better manage and control projects. Identification of root factors which may lead to project delay and increased cost is vital at the early or planning stage. Better identification of delay factors at the early stage can help the practitioners to reduce their impacts over the long run. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to propose an intelligent method to analyze causal relationships between delay factors in construction projects. The proposed approach is further validated by a real case study of the construction projects in West Azerbaijan province in Iran.

During the first phase, the fuzzy cognitive map (FCM) is drawn to indicate the causal relationships between the delay factors and the evaluation factors. For this purpose, the causal relationships between 20 delay factors and four evaluation factors are considered. Afterward, the effect of each factor on management goals is evaluated by using a hybrid learning algorithm. Delay factors are further prioritized by applying fuzzy data envelopment analysis (FDEA). In the second phase, an interpretive structural modeling (ISM) is employed to determine the root causes of delay factors.

Results of the first phase show that “supervision technical weaknesses for overcoming technical and executive workshop problems” and “Inaccurate estimation of workload, required equipment and project completion time” are the most significant delay factors. In contrary, “non-use of new engineering contracts” has the lowest impact on the management goals. Meanwhile, the results of the second phase conclude that factors like “Inaccurate estimation of workload, required equipment and project completion time” “weakness of laws and regulations related to job responsibilities” and “lack of foreseen of fines and encouragements in the contracts” are the most significant root factors of delay in construction projects.

This paper integrates three methods including FCM method, FDEA and ISM. In the first phase, FCM is drawn according to the experts’ opinions and concerning management goals and delay factors. Later, these factors are prioritized according to the results of running the algorithm and using the FDEA model. The second phase, the seven-step in the ISM methodology, is done to identify the root factors. To ensure that the root factors of the delay are at a lower level of hierarchical structure, delay factors are partitioned by drawing the ISM model.