Building retrofit measures are supposed to serve emission reduction goals and are increasingly recognized as a major pillar in climate protection strategies. Due to the longevity of the residential building stock, relatively tight policy standards are required. However, the macroeconomic costs and benefits of installing these standards are far from clear. Hartwig and Kockat evaluate the macroeconomic effects of implementing policies regarding building retrofit measures in Germany with an Input-Output (IO) model. They start from a detailed model of the building stock and derive from it the necessary costs for the policy implementation. Subsequently, they divide these costs according to the building ownership and complement them with respective financing options regarding credit uptake and rent increases and resulting energy savings. Finally, the authors test the results against different IO-tables. They find that overall, the building retrofit measures drive both gross output and employment. However, not all sectors profit unequivocally and the newer the statistical data, the lesser the effects. A main takeaway is thus that the positive macroeconomic effects can complement the individual profitability calculations.
In the Netherlands, supply chain partnering has become a popular collaboration strategy among social housing associations and contractors. When the strategy of supply chain partnering is implemented it is important to not only focus on external relationships, but also on intra-organizational relationships, which influence the success of the strategy as well. Venselaar and Gruis focused on understanding intra-organizational work floor dynamics in the context of a Dutch housing associations in which a supply chain strategy is implemented. The authors understand organizational development as a mixture of intended and emerged strategies. Emergence is understood as the result of many daily interactions among practitioners in the field that create patterns that cannot be predicted and managed beforehand. By using narrative techniques, Venselaar and Gruis uncovered the seemingly chaotic and messy processes that project leaders of a social housing association have to deal with. Open interviews and observations among professionals revealed emergent social structures. The authors reveal practical problems in intra-organizational dynamics and the way in which these practical problems are solved by the project leaders. For example, a new department was founded in order to streamline the purchasing process. However, this department was perceived by project leaders as an extra step in the supply chain. A strategy to cope with this was to strategically forget to involve this department. Besides these kinds of practical issues, the most important conclusion is that, in this context, key-values of SCP as understood by the project leaders are not applied on the intra-organizational supply chain. This study is interesting for professionals who work for clients as well as contractors’ organizations to really understand daily reality of a client’s organization.
Construction workers are under excessive stress and stress can result in under-performance and safety problems. Given the significance of construction workers’ performance and safety, it is important and necessary to manage their stress. Cultivation of mindfulness has increasingly been used to manage stress and it is effective in terms of stress reduction, improvement in health and safety and in enhancement of performance and well-being. However, mindfulness consists of various characteristics, with little in the way of a theoretical framework to group them. In addition, no investigation has been conducted to investigate the individual effect of each mindfulness characteristic on construction workers’ stress, safety and performance. Leung and Liang set out to provide such a study. They frame mindfulness characteristics into three theoretical categories; attention, enlightenment and attitude. They also develop a mindfulness–stress–performance model for explaining the complicated interactions among mindfulness characteristics, stress and performance for construction workers. The authors used a questionnaire survey among construction workers in Hong Kong, along with a series of statistical analyses. The model confirmed the salutary effect of mindfulness characteristics on construction workers’ stress and performance. This study confirmed the applicability of mindfulness to construction workers and, thus, it is suggested that construction companies may cultivate construction workers’ mindfulness to manage stress and enhance performance.
Pulkka, Ristimäki, Rajakallio and Junnila examine the concept of the ecosystem in the construction industry. Ecosystems are networks of inter-connected and inter-dependent organizations that collectively create value. Previously the development of the ecosystem concept has focused on high-tech industries. The authors wanted to investigate whether the concept can be applied in the construction industry context despite the special features of the industry. Following a multiple case study strategy, the authors investigated value creation in six construction networks operating in Finland and Sweden. Three of the networks focused on innovation and three networks on the completion of a construction project. The participants of the networks are mainly firms but also public sector organizations such as municipalities. The data consists of interviews, documents and participant observation. Theoretical propositions concerning value creation in construction networks were developed based on an existing ecosystem construct and a review of construction literature. The propositions were used to structure the qualitative analysis of value creation in the networks. The authors first analysed the cases individually, after which a cross-case analysis was conducted. The main result suggests that operating according to ecosystem principles, as described by the propositions, is positively connected to goal attainment and functioning in construction networks. The authors develop a framework that illustrates the main connections between the characteristics of ecosystems (network of participants, governance system and shared logic) and value creation. The ecosystem concept has been found useful for research and practice in other industries. Demonstrating its applicability in the context of the construction industry can hopefully narrow the gap between general and industry-specific innovation and organization literature.