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This paper reports the developments of a project cost control system (PCCS) for construction projects to (1) measure its current level of cost control maturity, (2) examine the relationships between elements within PCCS processes and (3) identify improvement areas.

This study adopts a mixed approach of descriptive analysis and partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to measure the current maturity level of PCCS and evaluate the relationships between elements within PCSS to identify improvement areas. Further importance-performance matrix analysis (IPMA) of priority constructs was conducted to improve a target construct and identify the most important areas of specific actions at indicator levels. The results of IPMA revealed the contrast that has the greatest importance on the performance of others so that the recommendations can be made accordingly. Data collected in New Zealand were used to develop the research model.

This study develops structural and measurement models with the constructs including pre-control, in-control and post-control processes, enablers and their proposed interrelationships. Then, data from survey of 184 experienced project cost control team members reveal that post-control has the lowest maturity or weakest areas in the PCCS. Data analysis facilitated by PLS-SEM confirmed that all the constructs in the structural model have positive and significant relationships with each other and suggested that systematic cost analysis reports, communication, skills and experience, defining roles and responsibilities, and top management's support should be the highest priority for improving the PCCS in a more effective manner.

This study presents one of the earliest attempts to develop and test an integrated model that links sub-processes in PCCS and their enablers. Secondly, this research adds to the construction project management literature by empirically verifying the roles of enablers in enhancing maturity level of PCCS.

Given the cruciality of construction workers' safe behaviors, the possible influential factors on workers' behaviors should be studied, and one of these factors is characteristics. The authors identified emotional intelligence (EI), motivation and job burnout as characteristics that might affect a worker's safety behavior, and the aim of this study is to investigate these possible relationships.

Workers' EI, motivation and job burnout status were assessed by a structured interview. Furthermore, workers' safety behaviors were assessed by a checklist derived from national codes, regulations and other research studies. Then, the researcher's observations took place, and the data were acquired.

EI and motivation of workers were able to predict safety behaviors, and the effect of job burnout on safety behaviors was not significant. In addition, motivation's influence on job burnout was not significant. Therefore, in order to promote safety behaviors, the EI and motivation of workers need to be taken into consideration.

The results indicate why construction managers should consider the workers' EI and motivation competencies and how this consideration could lead to safer and better performance in construction projects.

The possible effects of EI, motivation and job burnout on the safety behaviors of construction workers haven't been paid enough attention. Moreover, the authors couldn't find a study similar to the present one that was conducted in Iran. Also, an original model was presented, and safety behaviors were studied through fieldwork rather than using questionnaires.

The success of construction projects can be indicated by measuring their performance. For effective project performance (PP), the successful execution of a construction projects is very important. A systematic review of the literature on performance areas and performance assessment models was undertaken. The purpose of this paper is to develop a mathematical formulation for construction PP areas to suit the Indian context by modifying the current project quarterback rating (PQR) model.

Based on the literature, the PQR model has not been validated for suitability in the Indian context. To validate the PQR model and modify the same for the Indian context, a survey instrument was used to collect data on performance areas and a multivariate data analysis technique was carried out to develop a modified model. Delphi technique was used to assign the weights for each performance metric in performance areas.

This study concluded the importance of three additional performance areas, namely, productivity, stakeholder satisfaction and environment for assessing PP for Indian construction projects. It also identified the interrelationship between the performance areas and the PP.

The developed modified PQR model (MPQR) will guide the concerned stakeholders to take corrective actions for improving the performance of construction projects.

The MPQR proposed in this paper covers ten areas and is a comprehensive single score that can be used to benchmark and compare performance over different projects to achieve continuous improvement.

Research on green certificate rankings in the MENA region primarily focuses on building scale, relying on the certified project count. This assessment approach overlooks the spatial factor, failing to capture their influence on the urban built environment, thus potentially undermining other efforts not reflected by the project count. This research aims to rank countries in the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) region based on their ongoing efforts regarding green neighbourhood certification.

This study employs a three-phase methodology to rank MENA countries' adoption of green neighbourhood certification systems: content analysis, multicriteria analysis (MCA) using the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and spatial analysis.

Based on the content analysis, four major performance indicators were identified and the conventional ranking using projects count was presented. Using AHP, the MCA could rank the countries in the region according to their unique performance indicators score, clarifying the differences between conventional and AHP-based rankings. Finally, the spatial analysis phase uncovers shortcomings in the traditional ranking method, revealing inaccuracies and misrepresentations for several countries.

The study presents an innovative ranking methodology to monitor the green neighbourhood actions of countries in future development and establish a pioneering framework to evaluate the impact of green certifications within the region.

This study aims to explore the innovation deployment of construction contracting firms through exploratory–exploitative learning and organisational ambidexterity.

Firstly, a literature-based conceptual framework was developed to explain innovation implementation through exploratory–exploitative learning and organisational ambidexterity. A prominent Hong Kong construction contracting firm was then selected as the case study to explore its innovation deployment at different organisational levels (i.e. firm and project levels). Qualitative data were attained by conducting 12 semi-structured interviews with industry experts and document analysis. The thematic analysis using NVivo 12 software was adopted to analyse data.

Findings reveal that the case study firm successfully fosters innovation when ambidexterity is achieved through the balance between exploratory (i.e. radical innovation) and exploitative learnings (i.e. incremental innovation).

Establishing uniform ambidexterity (i.e. 50:50) at the firm or project level is not mandatory to deploy innovation successfully. The ratio can vary based on the characteristics and requirements of construction firms.

This paper shall motivate construction practitioners to adopt radical–incremental innovation ambidexterity in firms and ultimately enhance the productivity and efficiency of the construction industry.

Previous construction innovation research has frequently explored firm or project-level innovation separately. This study identified a multi-level focus on innovation. Through the lens of exploratory–exploitative theory, different forms of innovation ambidexterity for different levels are suggested rather than one specific ambidexterity.

Given the growing concern about employees' well-being, numerous researchers have investigated the causes and effects of occupational stress. However, a review study on identifying existing research topics and gaps is still deficient in the extant literature. To fill this gap, this review study aims to present a bibliometric and science mapping approach to review the state-of-the-art journal articles published on occupational stress in the construction industry.

A three-fold comprehensive review approach consisting of bibliometric review, scientometric analysis and in-depth qualitative discussion was employed to review 80 journal articles in Scopus.

Through qualitative discussions, mainstream research topics were summarized, research gaps were identified and future research directions were proposed as follows: versatile stressors and stress model; an extended subgroup of factors in safety behavior; adaptation of multiple biosensors and bio-feedbacks; evaluation and comparison of organizational stress interventions; and incorporation of artificial intelligence and smart technologies into occupational stress management in construction.

The findings of this review study present a well-rounded framework to identify the research gaps in this field to advance research in the academic community and enhance employees' well-being in construction.

This paper examines the direct and indirect effects of CEO intellectual capital on sustainable growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in China.

It adopts a quantitative approach based on 3,474 unbalanced panel data in 836 Chinese listed SMEs from 2008 to 2017.

The findings reveal a significant positive relationship between CEO intellectual capital and sustainable growth of SMEs. The findings also reveal that dual innovation (exploitative innovation and exploratory innovation) has a partial mediating effect on the relationship.

It further provides an original contribution to identifying and testing the mediating effect of dual innovation on the relationship between CEO intellectual capital and sustainable growth of SMEs.

In contrast to most of the extant literature, which considers intellectual capital as a whole at the organizational level or focuses on employee intellectual capital, this paper highlights the role of CEO intellectual capital for SMEs’ growth. It provides an original contribution to identifying and testing the mediating effect of dual innovation on the relationship between CEO intellectual capital and sustainable growth of SMEs.

Although many health and safety (H&S) studies have widely examined safety risk perception in the construction industry, few studies have explored how this perception influences site workers' risk-taking behaviours during construction. This study aims to examine how construction site workers perceive and judge safety risks in risk-taking behaviours of site workers for intervention safety policy framework that may encourage safe work.

The study employed Pictorial-based Q-Methodology, which documented 63 picture scenarios of risk-taking behaviours from building sites and submitted them for validation from H&S inspectors. In total, 33 pictures emerged as having great potential to cause harm. After using these 33 pictures to elicit data from randomised site workers, the study used Frequency Tabulation, Relative Importance Index (RII) and Kruskal–Wallis Test to analyse the collected data. To fully explain the analysed data for deeper understanding, the study conducted Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) with these site workers to share the thoughts of site workers on these pictures.

Two distinctive pictures emerged from these analyses: one showing risk-taking behaviour likely to contract internal and skin disease and the other likely to fall from height. One of the implications is that construction site workers are unfamiliar with the dangerous contaminants in the materials the site workers use to work, which can potentially harm the site workers' skin and internal organs. Hence, site workers continue engaging in risk-taking behaviours. The other is that site workers are aware of and can mention catastrophic physical injuries attached to site workers' jobs. However, site workers continue engaging in risk-taking behaviours because of site workers' safety plights and rely on the favour and mercies of a supreme being as coping strategies to escape from these physical injuries.

This study is original in that the study uses picture scenarios of risk-taking behaviours to amass an empirical-based understanding of how site workers perceive and respond to H&S risks during construction. This piece of evidence is missing in the numerous research studies in this area. Again, the findings contribute to the state-of-the-art literature regarding risk-taking behaviours on construction sites.

Leaders' behavior has a critical impact on workers' safety behavior. However, previous studies have shown contradictive views on the effect of different leadership styles on safety behavior. One reason may be that the effectiveness of leaders' behavior varies according to diverse contexts. This study examines the effect of transformational and transactional leadership (TsL) on the safety behavior of on-site workers under different levels of social capital in construction projects.

Safety behavior is divided into three types: safety compliance (SC), organizational-oriented safety participation and individual-oriented safety participation (ISP). Questionnaire survey data were collected from 302 construction workers in the Chinese construction industry.

The results indicate that the positive effect of transformational leadership (TfL) of frontline supervisors on the two types of construction workers' safety participation is enhanced when social capital is high, although TfL has no significant effect on SC behavior. In contrast, TsL can promote construction workers' SC behavior and organizational-oriented safety participation and social capital positively moderating these relationships. TsL has no significant effect on ISP, but its interaction with safety behavior is positively related to ISP.

This study explains the inconsistent findings of previous research related to the role of leadership in safety behavior by introducing the social capitaltheory and distinguishing safety participation into two typesThis study is confined to one specific country, future research may benefit from investigating whether the conclusions of this study will be different in other nations with diverse cultures.

The findings of the study provide frontline supervisors with new insights into improving workers' safety and the efficiency of leadership in safety management.

This study explains the inconsistent findings of previous research related to the role of leadership in safety behavior by introducing the social capital theory and distinguishing safety participation into two types.

Integrated project delivery (IPD) project that does not use multiparty agreement is identified as IPD-ish. The use of IPD-ish arrangement by incorporating integration practices in conventional contract can be viewed as the part of the adoption process of IPD. Moreover, inappropriate integration practices invite new forms of risks and the absence of multiparty agreement adds to the challenges of risk management in IPD-ish projects. This study discusses such challenges and proposes the use of joint risk management to address the potential pitfalls in IPD-ish arrangement.

A mixed research method was applied. First, the criticality of IPD-ish general and integration-specific risks was examined through a survey. Second, a real IPD-ish project was used to exemplify the use of joint risk management (JRM) to manage IPD-ish risks.

Two types of risks, namely integration risks (IRs) and general risks (GRs), are identified in IPD-ish projects. Two major findings for the IRs: (1) the most critical IRs are related to unbalanced incentivization and inefficient multidisciplinary teams; and (2) only team formation related pre-contract JRM strategies affect IRs. As for the GRs, the most critical ones are associated with design issues and can be effectively mitigated by post-contract JRM.

Using IPD-ish arrangement is an inevitable part of implementation of full IPD. This happens as many change-averse owners would like to test the integration principles using a conventional contract that they are familiar with. In fact, success in IPD-ish would pave the path for further adoption of IPD. This study offers insight into categorization of risks in IPD-ish projects. Appropriate use of post-contract and organization related pre-contract JRM would improve the chance of teasing out the values of IPD through IPD-ish arrangements. Care should be taken to introduce some contracting integration initiatives, such as risk/reward sharing incentive.