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This paper looks at the trade performance of the UK building materials and components industries. In particular it analyses recent trade performance and trends from 1980 to 1993. The recession has caused many UK manufacturers and suppliers of building materials and components to go out of business. Faced with the present slow recovery, the remaining UK companies must consider their competitiveness and ability to meet the growing demands of the domestic and overseas markets. Import penetration has left the construction materials and components industries with small capacity, less able to invest in the research and development necessary to compete effectively in the world market and to provide for increasing demand as growth in the economy picks up. The balance of trade in these goods is likely to worsen with a consequent detrimental effect on the UK balance of payments.

Information technology (IT) has been widely applied across many economic sectors in order to increase competitiveness and reduce costs. This paper identifies that uptake of IT within construction is low. It is argued that significant barriers preventing construction organizations from investing in IT include uncertainty concerning the identification and measurement of benefits associated with applications. In particular, it is argued that difficulties in quantifying benefits associated with improved information availability and decision making prevent effective IT cost/benefit analysis. Existing approaches to evaluating IT within construction are reviewed. A framework is presented which identifies metrics by which IT impacts both management and operational processes within construction in order to deliver value. An evaluation methodology tailored to one specific IT application, high‐density bar coding in maintenance management, is presented to illustrate the quantification of both the costs and benefits of applying IT.

The construction industry is a very important part of the Malaysian economy. The government's aim is to make the industry more productive, efficient and safe. Small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) are at the core of the Malaysian construction industry and account for about 90 per cent of companies undertaking construction work. One of the main challenges faced by the Malaysian construction industry is the ability to absorb new knowledge and technology and to implement it in the construction phase. The purpose of this paper is to consider absorptive capacity in Malaysian construction SMEs in rural areas.

The research was conducted in three stages: first, understanding the Malaysian construction industry; second, a literature review on the issues related to absorptive capacity and discussions with the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB); and third, multiple case studies in five construction SMEs operating in a rural area to validate the factors influencing absorptive capacity.

Nine key factors were identified influencing absorptive capacity in Malaysian construction SMEs operating in rural areas. These factors involved: cost and affordability; availability and supply; demand; infrastructure; policies and regulations; labour readiness; workforce attitude and motivation; communication and sources of new knowledge and; culture.

The key factors influencing absorptive capacity presented in this paper are based on validation from the case studies in five construction SMEs in Malaysia. The research focuses on how they operate in rural areas; however, the research results have wider application than just Malaysia. The key factors identified as influencing absorptive capacity can serve as a basis for considering knowledge absorption in the wider context by SMEs in other developing countries.

The objective of this paper is to give a brief overview of the techniques for life‐cycle costing and attempts to make a case for the need for chartered surveyors to become more proficient in the use of life‐cycle costing techniques. It also considers the importance of the client's role in life‐cycle costing; and discusses the assumptions that need to be made about the ‘life of the investment’. The paper also deals with the subject of discounting techniques and how they are influenced by inflation in prices, interest rates and risk. It includes discussion of the various costs and values which need to be considered in any life cycle costing study. In conclusion, there is a brief discussion of how life‐cycle costing techniques support an investment appraisal of a number of options that may be open to a client.

Project failure is the result of one or a combination of several causes of risk factors that are very important to identify for effective performance. This study aims to focus on studying the fundamental relationship between internal risk factors and the negative effect on oil and gas project success in Yemen using the partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) method.

Data collection was carried out using a formal questionnaire survey of the oil field sector in Yemen by companies involved in mega-oil and gas construction projects. A hierarchical model for determining causative internal risk factors and their effects was developed and evaluated using SEM method by SmartPLS3 software technology.

The findings of analyzing model indicate that all categories have a significant effect on project success, while the most significant affected categories in the internal risk factors are project management factors, feasibility study-design and resources-material supply with a path coefficient value of 0.213, 0.197 and 0.186, respectively. Moreover, for the hypotheses test, the positive relationship means that all experimental hypotheses are accepted according to path coefficient value analysis. In addition, the internal risk factors research model shows the ranking of effects on project success starting with project stoppage (loading factor 0.841), cost overruns (loading factor 0.818), time overruns (loading factor 0.726) and project target failure with loading factor 0.539.

The research was limited to the oil and gas construction projects in Yemen.

Interpreting the relationship between internal risk factors and their impact on the success of construction projects in the oil and gas sector will assist project team and oil companies in developing risk response strategies and developing appropriate plans to mitigate the effects of risks, which is presented in this paper.

The paper explains the relationship between cause and effect of internal risk factors in oil and gas projects in Yemen, and is expected to be a guideline for the oil companies and future academic research in the risk management area.

The oil and gas construction projects are affected negatively by the drop in oil price in recent years. Thus, most engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) companies are opting to optimize the project mainly to mitigate the source of risks in construction to achieve the project expectation. Risk factors cause a threat to the project objectives regarding time, cost and quality. It is additionally a vital component in deviating from the client's expectation of productivity, safety and standards. This research aims to investigate the causes of risk in the oil and gas construction projects in Yemen.

A comprehensive literature review from various sources including books, conference proceedings, the Internet project management journals and oil and gas industry journals was conducted to achieve the objectives of this study. This initial work was predicated strictly on a literature review and the judgments of experts to develop the risk factor framework for the oil and gas construction projects in Yemen.

The authors found a few studies related to risk factors in oil and gas construction projects and shared a similar view about general construction projects. However, only a fraction of the factors accepted have included the variances of other studies on a regional basis or specific countries, such as the Yemen situation, due to the differences between the general construction industry and oil and gas industry. Moreover, the factors of these attributes were still accepted due to their applicability to the oil and gas industry, and no significant variances existed between countries. Research has indicated that 51 critical factors cause risks in the oil and gas construction projects in Yemen. Such risk factors can be divided into two major groups: (1) internal risk factors, including seven critical sources of risks, namely client, contractor, consultant, feasibility study and design, tendering and contract, resources and material supply and project management; and (2) external risk factors, including six sources of critical risk factors, namely national economic, political risk, local people, environment and safety, security risk and force-majeure-related risk factors. A risk factor framework was developed to identify the critical risk factors in the oil and gas construction projects in Yemen.

This research was limited to the oil and gas construction projects.

Practically, this study highlights the risk factors that cause a negative effect on the success of oil and gas construction projects in Yemen. The identification of these factors is the first step in the risk management process to develop strategic responses for risks and enhance the chances of project success.

The identification of risks factors that cause the failure of construction projects helps develop response strategies for these risks, thereby increasing the chances of project success reflected in the oil and gas sector, which is a main tributary of the national economy in developing countries.

This research is the pioneer for future investigations into this vital economic sector. Given the lack of resources and studies in the field of construction projects for the Yemeni oil and gas sector, the Yemeni government, oil companies and researchers in this field are expected to benefit from the results of this study. The critical risk factors specific to the oil and gas construction projects in Yemen should be further investigated with focus only on Yemen and its oil and gas industry players.

The very contextual nature of most mitigating evidence runs counter to America’s individualistic culture. Prior research has found that capital jurors are unreceptive to most mitigating circumstances, but no research has examined the capital sentencing decisions of trial judges. This study fills that gap through a content analysis of eight judicial sentencing opinions from Delaware. The findings indicate that judges typically dismiss contextualizing evidence in their sentencing opinions and instead focus predominately on the defendant’s culpability. This finding calls into question the ability of guided discretion statutes to ensure the consideration of mitigation and limit arbitrariness in the death penalty.

1. INTRODUCTION The recent proliferation of literature on the problems inherent in inflation, unemployment and incomes policy does not lag far behind the rate of inflation that initially prompted it. Before we get into the discussion of incomes and prices policies, it will be advisable to (a) present some evidence on the wage‐price‐unemployment behaviour in selected industrialised countries and (b) discuss theoretical and empirical results which have led to the conclusion that monetary and fiscal policies will not be adequate to meet the current inflationary problems. The first should provide substance to the claim that inflation has increased over time and has now become a more critical problem; the second should throw some light on the nature of current controversy on inflation and why mixed economies should need to supplement monetary and fiscal policies by other policies to provide themselves with a better trade‐off between inflation and unemployment. Accordingly, we will (1) describe recent wage‐price‐unemployment experience in selected industrialised countries, (2) discuss theoretical and empirical issues involved in the study of wage‐price‐unemployment behaviour, and (3) present the rationale advanced for an incomes policy, and discuss the past experiences of countries which have experimented with incomes policies and conclude with the suggestion that incomes policy and manpower policy be considered as complementary.

This chapter argues that aspiring hegemons face a wide array of complex and distinct military challenges. Managing scarce military resources requires a subtle and complex global strategy that is likely to generate cognitive overload for the political system. As a result of cognitive overload, aspiring hegemons are likely to flail around, rapidly shifting from one global strategy to another. Such strategic flailing will occur independently of whether or not the economy is in crisis, though clearly economic crisis will exacerbate the tendency towards strategic incoherence. The chapter examines U.S. global strategy since the end of the Cold War, looking at the focus on “rogue regimes,” a growing concern with “global chaos,” worry about the rise of a peer competitor (China), and the debates about the root causes of, and best strategies to mitigate, terrorism. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the role of culture and notions of national identity and their role in the formulation of grand strategy.