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Modern slavery has been identified as a problem in the construction industry, but the issue has received very limited attention in the academic literature. This exploratory paper looks to explore one of the ways in which the United Kingdom (UK)'s largest housebuilding companies have publicly addressed the issue by reviewing their modern slavery statements.

The paper adopts a simple methodological approach to review the modern slavery statements of the largest housebuilding companies within the UK and offers some reflections on these statements.

The findings identified a number of policy and practice responses, which characterised the selected housebuilding companies' approaches to modern slavery. The companies' approaches to modern slavery statements were seen as aspirational and perhaps best described as a work in progress.

The authors recognise that the paper has a number of limitations. The empirical material for the review is drawn exclusively from the corporate websites of the selected housebuilding companies at a set point in time and does not include any primary information supplied by, or obtained from, the companies' executives, managers or employees or any information obtained from the companies' contractors, subcontractors or suppliers.

The paper offers an exploratory review of the modern slavery statements published by the largest housebuilding companies within the UK. As such, the review makes a small contribution to addressing a gap in the academic literature on modern slavery within the housebuilding industry and will hopefully stimulate future research in the field.

The UK Government's housing agenda, coupled with the current market conditions, has provided the housebuilding industry with a challenge to build more new homes while improving business efficiency to survive. Although innovation has been claimed as the key to meeting the challenge, the level of its usage has been reported low. This paper aims to reveal an insight into the success, inertia and failure of innovations and improve innovation management for housebuilding firms.

The paper reports on a two‐year case study of a large UK housebuilding company. It investigates the lifecycle of two product innovations, i.e. photovoltaic and air source heat pumps, and two process innovations, i.e. development efficiency plan and glossary of terms.

Five key stages of managing innovation are identified which represent the thematic consistency among the innovation processes, i.e. the creation of ideas, development of innovation, utilisation, review and improvement or abandonment. The organisational construct of the company for managing innovation is complicated and appeared difficult to manipulate, which constitutes a cultural and administrative obstacle. Whilst the adoption of the innovations from the market seems more straightforward than those created and developed in the company, the success or failure of innovation is driven by the combination of external and internal contextual issues. Strategies are developed which should improve the effectiveness of managing innovation in housebuilding and contribute to relevant future debate.

The paper provides insight into managing innovation in UK housebuilding.

The sustainable development goals (SDGs) agreed at a United Nations General Assembly in 2015 embrace an ambitious and wide ranging set of global environmental, social and economic issues designed to effect a transition to a more sustainable future. The United Nations called on all governments to pursue these ambitious goals but also acknowledged the important role of the private sector in addressing the SDGs. This paper offers an exploratory review of how some of the UK's largest volume housebuilders publicly claim to be committed to addressing the SDGs.

The paper provides an outline of the characteristics of sustainable development, of the SDGs and of the frame of reference and method of enquiry employed in the study, prior to reviewing the findings from the largest UK housebuilders.

The findings revealed that seven of the largest housebuilding companies claimed to be committed to contributing to the SDGs, though the scale and the extent of their claimed commitments varied. In reviewing the housebuilders approach to the SDGs, the authors drew attention to three challenges the housebuilders may face in pursuing their claimed commitment to the SDGs, namely, concentrating on specific goals, measurement and reporting.

The paper offers an accessible review of how seven of the UK's largest housebuilders claimed to be committed to addressing the SDGs.

Framed as a pilot study, the purpose of this paper is to study the perceived appropriateness of an existing collaborative procurement procedure (CPP) framework from the housebuilder’s perspective, seeking to improve its utility and stimulate further exploration.

Informed by an existing CPP framework and conducted by a UK-based development professional, four in-depth semi-structured interviews were undertaken with senior housebuilding practitioners from London and surrounding counties. A qualitative analysis was then conducted for this sociological study.

Perceived appropriateness of the framework was high; however, a number of procedural improvements were identified, along with limitations. Future studies are recommended including the influence upon project performance of groundworker integration at the design stage.

Limited to four interviews from one regional area, the study provides an initial insight into the appropriateness of an existing CPP framework. Insights into why CP uptake is marginal within housebuilding were also gained. The research purpose was achieved but by offering a self-reflection upon practice (vis-à-vis wider generalisations), the findings provide a springboard for further studies.

The research identifies with current practice, industry perceptions and paths towards improving the utility of the CPP framework.

This study offers insights into the perceptions of private housebuilding practitioners of their own practices and the factors they find challenging within the social constructs of their industry.

This research constitutes one of the first studies in the UK to examine the CPP framework from the perspective of the private housebuilder and is undertaken with the express purpose of furthering that framework’s utility.

This study aims to provide a review of brownfield policy and the emerging sustainable development agenda in the UK, and to examine the development industry's (both commercial and residential) role and attitudes towards brownfield regeneration and contaminated land.

The paper analyses results from a two‐stage survey of commercial and residential developers carried out in mid‐2004, underpinned by structured interviews with 11 developers.

The results suggest that housebuilding on brownfield is no longer the preserve of specialists, and is now widespread throughout the industry in the UK. The redevelopment of contaminated sites for residential use could be threatened by the impact of the EU Landfill Directive. The findings also suggest that developers are not averse to developing on contaminated sites, although post‐remediation stigma remains an issue. The market for warranties and insurance continues to evolve.

The survey is based on a sample which represents nearly 30 per cent of UK volume housebuilding. Although the response in the smaller developer groups was relatively under‐represented, non‐response bias was not found to be a significant issue. More research is needed to assess the way in which developers approach brownfield regeneration at a local level.

The research suggests that clearer Government guidance in the UK is needed on how to integrate concepts of sustainability in brownfield development and that EU policy, which has been introduced for laudable aims, is creating tensions within the development industry. There may be an emphasis towards greenfield development in the future, as the implications of the Barker review are felt.

This is a national survey of developers' attitudes towards brownfield development in the UK, following the Barker Review, and highlights key issues in UK and EU policy layers.

The UK private housebuilding sector is the key supplier of new-build homes for customers, constituting a fifth of the entire UK construction industry. Yet, despite the high average cost of houses, and official reports advocating improvement, the sector remains blighted by criticism and a negative image of its quality. However, social media now offers customers new sources of advice and information. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to analyse social media forum posts from new-build homebuyers to reveal perceptions of the industry and illustrate the value of such data for others.

This paper presents and thematically analyses 147 comment posts from nine online Facebook forums under the themes of safety; standards; quality; workmanship; customer service; finance and money; advice; National House Building Council; ombudsman; and page closures.

Customers express frustration, anger, feelings of neglect and of an abdication of responsibility by the sector. Fundamentally, change is suggested at a systemic level, and it is urged this occurs through powerful and independent bodies.

To date, social media data has not been analysed in the context of the housebuilding sector. Yet, such data is key not only for its open and wide-reaching nature but also because it can be incorporated into government reports. It is hoped such data will be used by the new home ombudsman the UK Government hopes to establish in 2020 and help rectify many of the performance issues experienced and protect homebuyers.

Prefabricated construction has proven to be superior in terms of affordability and sustainability over the years. As a result of sustainable production, prefabricated housebuilding has evolved into a distinct industry reliant on supplier companies acting as supply chains (SCs) for housing projects. These companies' performance is critical to the successful implementation of prefabricated housebuilding technologies. However, in comparison to those choosing manufacturing as a strategy in other industries, the life span of these companies, providing innovative housing solutions, is relatively short. This is due to critical factors influencing the performance, but the inter-relationship of the performance dimensions is more significant. This study establishes the inter-relationship of the companies involved in house building with steel prefabricated housebuilding technologies.

The most recent factors were extracted from the literature. The relationships were developed using the interpretive structural modeling (ISM) method with the input from industry experts, and the driving factors were determined using the Matrice d'Impacts Croisés Multiplication Appliqués à un Classement (MICMAC) technique.

Critical performance factors were classified according to performance dimensions, ranked and classified based on driving and dependence power. The inter-relationships among the performance dimensions of time, quality, cost, delivery, features and innovation were determined. Key performance strategies were proposed for prefabricated housebuilding companies involved in manufacturing and/or assembly of steel products.

This study established the interrelationship of performance dimensions for prefabricated house building (PHB) companies to develop strategies against critical challenges to remain competitive in the housing market. Previous research had not looked into interrelationship among the performance dimensions. The proposed performance strategies are applicable to supplier organizations using steel prefabricated technologies in similar markets around the world.

Materiality, as a content-selection principle, is an emerging trend in sustainability reporting for making sustainability reports (SRs) more relevant for stakeholders. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether materiality matters in the reporting practice of universities which have adopted the Global Reporting Initiative G4 Guidelines.

Strategic stakeholder theory and sociological institutionalism serve for deriving conflicting expectations about the compliance of universities with the materiality principle. In the empirical section of this paper, content analyses are conducted on the documented material aspects, followed by a correlation analysis for examining to which extent the identified material aspects are reported in the SRs.

Although universities document G4-19 stakeholder-material aspects according to different relevance levels and for internal and external stakeholder groups, the identified material aspects are not appropriately reported in the SRs. The adoption of the materiality principle is a superficial one and therefore more in line with the expectations of sociological institutionalism.

The main limitation for this study is the small number of university SRs available. The chance to make SRs more relevant by focusing on stakeholder-material aspects is not used.

This paper reports the first study looking at the compliance between the documented material aspects and the content of SRs in a particular challenging organisational field, the university sector. This paper also adds to the emerging theoretical discussion about the extent universities implement materiality in SRs.

A deeper understanding of what needs to be considered to improve the targeted incorporation of employees’ knowledge into continuous improvement (CI) programmes in industrialised housebuilding (IHB) is required. This paper aims to address the current lack of involvement and connect it to structural and corporate culture factors. To avoid misjudgements in improvement activities as well as to use the full potential of performance improvement ideas, CI tools and measures need to be adapted to facilitate this integration. Relevant factors are analysed and their influences on CI measures are assessed.

The research approach is built upon an explorative case study supported by a comprehensive literature review. Empirical data were collected through participant observation, guided interviews and company documents.

The influences on employee involvement within CI programmes and the corresponding suitability of important CI measures were evaluated on a set of relevant factors. These factors include unique building projects, project-based focus on order fulfilment, fragmented order fulfilment process, separation of order fulfilment activities in terms of space and time, procedural rules for dealing with on-site failures, short-term contracts with subcontractors and the practice of evaluating and monitoring performance on site.

The research paves the way for the development of suitable tools, measures and methods to effectively involve employees from all profession within a CI programme in IHB. The empirical part of this research is based on a single case study.

This work extends the body of knowledge of CI application in the construction industry with an analysis of factors influencing its implementation and management.

The purpose of this paper is to understand if and how industrialized house building (IHB) could support productivity developments for housebuilding on project and industry levels. The take is that fragmentation of construction is one explanation for the lack of productivity growth, and that IHB could be an integrating method of overcoming horizontal and vertical fragmentation.

Singe-factor productivity measures are calculated based on data reported by IHB companies and compared to official produced and published research data. The survey covers the years 2013–2020 for IHB companies building multi-storey houses in timber. Generalization is sought through descriptive statistics by contrasting the data samples to the used means to control vertical and horizontal fragmentation formulated as three theoretical propositions.

According to the results, IHB in timber is on average more productive than conventional housebuilding at the company level, project level, in absolute and in growth terms over the eight-year period. On the company level, the labour productivity was on average 10% higher for IHB compared to general construction and positioned between general construction and general manufacturing. On the project level, IHB displayed an average cost productivity growth of 19% for an employed prefabrication degree of about 45%.

Empirical evidence is presented quantifying so far perceived advantages of IHB. By providing analysis of actual cost and project data derived from IHB companies, the article quantifies previous research that IHB is not only about prefabrication. The observed positive productivity growth in relation to the employed prefabrication degree indicates that off-site production is not a sufficient mean for reaching high productivity and productivity growth. Instead, the capabilities to integrate the operative logic of conventional housebuilding together with logic of IHB platform development and use is a probable explanation of the observed positive productivity growth.