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The increasing complexity of civil engineering projects necessitates focusing on new competencies of project participants. Based on the research on team performance and design processes that are more closely linked to the relevance of the project context, it is hypothesised that empathic abilities could play an important role in the performance of civil engineering projects. Therefore, this study aims to investigate whether performance can be improved by focusing on empathic abilities during the integrated design phase.

Semi-structured in-depth interviews with experts were conducted to explore the relevance of empathic abilities and their interaction with performance in a real-life infrastructure project. The project team’s empathy level was measured by means of a survey using Davis’ Interpersonal Reactivity Index method. Finally, differences between expected and measured levels of empathy were analysed.

The results provide insights into how empathic abilities interact with performance. The measurement indicates that, on average, professionals in the civil engineering industry score relatively low on empathy. In addition, differences were identified between the expected distribution and the measured empathy levels of the team, implying a potential for improvement, in particular by increasing the empathic abilities of the project management and increasing gender diversity.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to investigate a relationship between empathy and the performance of civil engineering projects. The results provide initial insights into the empathic ability of civil engineering project teams and the potential of empathy to improve performance. Furthermore, from an empathy perspective, this study advocates increasing the gender diversity of project teams to improve performance.

The consulting team intervenes in the integrated construction consulting (ICC) network structure centered on “client-contractor-consultant.” Team boundary-spanning behavior (TBB) driven by the network structure is crucial to project performance. This article investigated how to stimulate the consulting project performance (CPP) improvement by considering the interactive effect of network structure and TBB. To be specific, this paper explored the configuration between structural characteristics of project networks, the dimension of TBB, and project performance in ICC projects.

Network density and centrality were used to reflect network structure. This study collected 216 valid responses from construction professionals (including project managers, department managers, and project engineers) via a questionnaire survey and analyzed the data using fsQCA.

Combining with the corresponding typical project case and analysis, the results concluded four types of configurations for achieving high performance in the ICC projects. Meanwhile, network centrality, density, ambassadorial behavior, coordination behavior, and detection behavior significantly impact high consulting project performance. Matching ICC network characteristics with the TBB is important. There are also three low performance configurations for the ICC projects. Low performance state also occurs when network centrality or density and coordination behavior is simultaneously low. Only the right match between the network characteristics and TBB can produce high consulting project performance.

The network centrality and density, the implementation of TBB vary, and the paths to achieve high consulting project performance are different. Clients, ICC projects, and consulting teams should choose the appropriate development paths according to the actual situation. (1) Clients should commit to applying the ICC project model with high network centrality, density, and coordination behavior of ICC enterprises to promote project performance. (2) Consulting enterprises should carry out ICC business based on detecting behavior and coordinating behavior. (3) The market should cultivate head consulting enterprises with independence and integration, and bring into play the effectiveness of consulting team ambassadorial behavior.

Comparing the results of the four high CPP configurations, the network structure characteristics are essential, which means that in the Chinese consulting practice between the owner and the consulting firm pay attention to the use of appropriate ICC organizational structure model and arrange the degree of centralization of authorized responsibilities. Coordination behavior is necessary to achieve high CPP. Therefore, Chinese consulting firms should pay attention to effective communication and exchange with project contractors in order to get high CPP in conducting business; meanwhile, enabling behavior can achieve high CPP both in the presence and absence of configuration H1 and H4, which indicates that enabling behavior has substitution effect. Comparing the three low CPP configurations also contrarily confirms the indispensability of coordinating behavior. Comparing the results of high and low CPP configurations, the TBB is seriously missing and not properly applied in CPP enhancement. In detail, Chinese consulting firms have been regarded as independent third parties providing services, and less attention has been paid to the TBB of Chinese consulting firms in past practice, thus leading to the dilemma of inadequate empowerment of consulting firms due to their unclear status. To solve this dilemma, the findings of this paper offer a solution at the micro level to change the previous perception of consulting and demonstrate that Chinese consulting practice needs to pay attention to TBB with owners and contractors, and apply it well to enhance the reputation, management consulting level and capability, and experience and expertise of consulting firms to achieve high CPP.

The research results changed from the previous bilateral project governance to a new perspective of network embedding. It provided a theoretical basis for the improvement path of high consulting project performance, as well as providing ideas for clients on the organizational design of ICC projects. On the other hand, it provided a practical reference for TBB positioning of ICC enterprises for transformation and upgrading development.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of a team’s personality faultlines on entrepreneurial performance. Additionally, this paper verifies the moderating effect of shared leadership on the connection between the two varies. The authors focus on the upper echelons theory and social identity theory as well as personality faultlines in entrepreneurial teams.

An online survey was conducted using data collected in China. Data from 618 members from 144 new venture teams were collected to examine the authors’ hypothesis.

The authors find a U-shaped relationship between the strength of entrepreneurial teams' personality-faultline and entrepreneurial performance. Additionally, shared leadership negatively moderates this U-shaped relationship. Specifically, when the entrepreneurial team has a high level of shared leadership, both the positive and negative relationships between the strength of the personality faultlines and entrepreneurial performance are weaker.

The research offers important theoretical and practical implications for the formation of entrepreneurial teams.

The emphasis on short-term by project-based firms (PBFs) implies the adoption of project efficiency and impact on the team as project success drivers in PBFs context. Good performance by employees, as individuals in a team, can be explained by their behaviors, associated with goal orientation theory. Learning and performance orientations are associated with teams’ effectiveness and overall project performance. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationships between the dimensions of goal orientation, especially learning orientation, and project efficiency and impact on the team, in PBFs context.

A quantitative approach was adopted, based on data from a survey of 714 respondents, representing project managers, that turned into a valid sample of 315 composed only by PBFs respondents. The results were analyzed through multiple linear regression and, mainly, mediation analysis methods.

Performance-avoid orientation is a predictor of project efficiency; performance-prove orientation, a predictor of impact on the team. Learning orientation relates positively to both project success criteria. Project managers should balance/induce the proper orientation within the team, favoring learning orientation according to the results, to have short-term project success in PBFs.

There is a direct relationship between learning orientation and project efficiency, but it is fully mediated by impact on the team, which it was not found in previous studies. This study argues that they are not parallel constructs, constituent parts of equal weight in project success, but that impact on the team precedes project efficiency when learning orientation is considered.

This paper systematically reviewed research work on drivers of teamwork, which will reinforce construction work teams to enhance workers’ safety performance. This study adds to the existing but limited understanding of teamwork drivers on construction workers’ safety performance. This paper presents scholars and industry-based professionals with critical initiatives that have to be implemented in organisations to get positive results in safety while working in teams with an emphasis on systems drivers of teamwork on safety performance at the organisational level, which will help in providing information on the functioning of the teams and contribute towards improved safety performance of team workers.

This study aims to systematically examine the existing body of knowledge on drivers of teamwork by analysing 53 publications from the years 1997–2021. The Scopus search engine was used to conduct a systematic review and germane publications were collated.

According to the findings of the review, since 1997, there has been a burgeoning concern in the research of drivers of teamwork and its impact on workers’ safety performance. After performing a systematic review, 37 drivers of teamwork were identified. The top five drivers are effective communications, team workers’ relations, leadership, shared knowledge and information, and team training. Moreover, it was noted that the United States and Australia have been the international regions of focus for most of the research in the area of drivers of teamwork from the years 1997–2021. The 37 drivers of teamwork are distributed into six major socio-technical components: people drivers; culture drivers; metrics drivers; organisational and management practices and procedures drivers; infrastructure drivers and technology drivers.

The results reported present research scholars and professional practitioners with an overview of the drivers of teamwork that could be implemented in the construction industry to streamline potential implementations and improve safety performance of construction workers.

A list of teamwork drivers has been developed to ratify potential empirical research in the area of construction safety. The results would contribute to the existing but restricted understanding of drivers of teamwork in the construction industry.

The authors contribute to the literature on leadership by investigating how characteristics of principal investigators (PIs) affect innovation performance, and how collaborative and non-collaborative projects moderate this relationship within the context of inter-organisational research projects.

The authors analysed panel data from the National Science and Technology Information Service on 171 research projects within a biomedical and regenerative medicines programme overseen by the Korea Health Industry Development Institute. The authors used a hierarchical regression model, based on the ordinary least squares method, to examine the relationship between PI characteristics and performance, considering both quantity and quality.

The results show that the characteristics of PIs have diverse effects on the quantity and quality of innovation performance. Gender diversity within PIs negatively affects the quality of innovation performance, while the capacity of PIs positively influences it. Moreover, the degree of PI’s engagement is positively associated with the quantity of innovation performance but does not have a significant relationship with the quality of performance. In terms of moderating effects, collaborative projects with multiple leaders seem less reliant on PI capacity than non-collaborative projects led by a single leader, in terms of innovation performance.

The results contribute significantly to the literature on innovation management by examining the role of leadership in collaborative environments to enhance innovation performance, addressing the need for empirical evidence in this area. Analyses of PI characteristics in government R&D management can lead to improved team performance, more efficient processes and effective resource allocation, ultimately fostering innovation.

This study aims to solve the realistic dilemma between the importance of entrepreneurship and the high rate of entrepreneurial failure, and to point out the direction of subsequent research.

The paper takes the form of a literature review.

Entrepreneurial activities involve multiple dimensions. Entrepreneurs or entrepreneurial teams will be affected by multiple factors when starting a business, and sufficient attention should be paid to both the factors within the group and the factors outside the group such as institutional quality and market competition. High entrepreneurial failure rate is an essential characteristic of entrepreneurial activities, while solving this problem requires entrepreneurs to maintain passion, clarify their own motivation, improve their learning abilities and adopt appropriate entrepreneurial strategies to improve entrepreneurial performance. Meanwhile, it also urgent to build entrepreneurial teams with common goals, heterogeneous knowledge structure, outstanding learning ability, solid mutual trust, strong social influence and social capital. Successful entrepreneurship should adhere to the perspective of openness and cooperation. It should not only actively strengthen international cooperation but also fully adapt to the country’s system and culture. Sustainable growth of entrepreneurial enterprises requires not only stable commercial revenue but also responsibility to society, which in turn leads to a good reputation and high social recognition.

The authors hope this review can provide some insightful viewpoints for deepening the theoretical system of entrepreneurship, improving the success rate of entrepreneurship and promoting the sustainable growth of enterprises.

Further research can be carried out on the promotion of business growth by entrepreneurship at the micro level in the following aspects: analyze functional mechanism between innovation and entrepreneurship; entrepreneurship research by integrating multiple institutional contexts and cultural traditions; consider the changes in emerging technologies on entrepreneurial activities; diversified mechanism between entrepreneurship education and business growth.

This article explores how the social media usage affect team creative performance via transactive memory system, knowledge interaction and expertise coordination.

The study is based on the perspective of transaction memory system and expertise coordination theory. A research model was constructed and tested, involving 289 individuals from 67 distributed agile software development teams.

The results indicate that social media usage is positively correlated with transactive memory system, and social media usage and transactive memory system have positive relations to knowledge interaction and expertise coordination. Moreover, this analysis shows that knowledge interaction has a positive relationship with expertise coordination, and expertise coordination positively affects team creative performance. However, knowledge interaction has no direct relationship on team creative performance, and its indirect impact on team creative performance was fully mediated by expertise coordination. This research shows that social media usage by distributed agile software development teams can support the development of transactive memory system and promote expertise coordination. In addition, knowledge interaction alone is not enough, and expertise coordination must be achieved to increase team creative performance.

First, this paper explores the mechanism of transactive memory system in distributed Agile Software Development teams from the perspective of social media, which is different from the previous information processing theory framework that confined transactive memory system to the cognitive aspects of knowledge coding, storage and retrieval. Second, this research focuses on the knowledge interaction and expertise coordination formed by team members in the process of communication in the context of social media usage, which confirms the crucial roles of social media usage and transactive memory system in team knowledge management and team creative performance. Then, this research also shows that the development of transactive memory system in the team is indeed an important factor to promote knowledge interaction and professional expertise coordination.

Assessing front end engineering design (FEED) accuracy is significant for project owners because it can support informed decision-making, including confidence in cost and schedule predictions. A framework to measure FEED accuracy does not exist in the literature or in practice, not does systematic data directly linking FEED accuracy to project performance. This paper aims to focus first on gauging and quantifying FEED accuracy, and second on measuring its impact on project performance in terms of cost change, schedule change, change performance, financial performance and customer satisfaction.

A novel measurement scheme was developed for FEED accuracy as a comprehensive assessment of factors related to the project leadership and execution teams, management processes and resources; to assess the environment surrounding FEED. The development of this framework built on a literature review and focus groups, and used the research charrettes methodology, guided by a research team of 20 industry professionals and input from 48 practitioners representing 31 organizations. Data were collected from 33 large industrial projects representing over $8.8 billion of installed cost, allowing for a statistical analysis of the framework's impact on performance.

This paper describes: (1) twenty-seven critical FEED accuracy factors; (2) an objective and scalable method to measure FEED accuracy; and (3) data showing that projects with high FEED accuracy outperformed projects with low FEED accuracy by 20 percent in terms of cost growth in relation to their approved budgets.

FEED accuracy is defined as the degree of confidence in the measured level of maturity of the FEED deliverables to serve as a basis of decision at the end of detailed scope, prior to detailed design. Assessing FEED accuracy is significant for project owners because it can support informed decision-making, including confidence in cost and schedule predictions.

FEED accuracy has not been assessed before, and it turned out to have considerable project performance implications. The new framework presented in this paper is the first of its kind, it has been tested rigorously, and it contributes to both the literature body of knowledge as well as to practice. As one industry leader recently stated, “it not only helped to assess the quality and adequacy of the technical documentation required, but also provided an opportunity to check the organization's readiness before making a capital investment decision.”

This study aims to investigate how the individual-focused transformational leadership effect of transformational leadership impacts the team member’s individual work performance through the intermediary mechanisms of work engagement and regulatory focus.

A moderated mediation model was analyzed through PLS-SEM by using a sample of 462 team members across diverse work teams in Sri Lankan organizations.

Results revealed that individual-focused transformational leadership positively impacts the team member’s individual work performance through the mediation of the team member’s work engagement. The direct relationship between individual-focused transformational leadership and the team member’s work engagement was found to be positively moderated by the team member’s promotion regulatory focus.

This paper demonstrates implications for team designing and leadership development and highlights the importance of team leaders utilizing individual-focused transformational leadership to gain improved work performance from each team member.

This study provides empirical evidence for the mediating role of work engagement and the moderating role of promotion regulatory focus in deriving the team member’s work performance, which contributes to constructing a more refined profile of individual-focused transformational leadership.