Defects and non-conformities contribute to cost and schedule overruns in construction projects. Lundkvist, Meiling and Sandberg have examined this in the Swedish context; where defects are expected to be managed though mandatory, impartial, third party inspections. Their case study on the inspections following the construction of a conference centre look at both the inspection part of the defect management process, as well as the defect data generated during these inspections. In order to decrease non-conformities and their costs, as well as to improve quality over time, a proactive approach to defect management is called for. However, the analysis of the inspection method showed that it is purely reactive and that it therefore does not support the idea of proactive defect management. The inspection data from the project has been analysed. This reveals problems with interpreting a lot of what it collected, probably because current practice was not originally designed with proactivity in mind. Thus, only the data needed for a reactive defect rectification is recorded. Therefore, in order for builders to succeed with making use of inspection data for continuous improvement, the inspection activity itself needs to be further developed. Suggestions for this development include the use of a central database, with a supporting organization, the recording of additional types of contextual meta-data and the use of taxonomic classification of both building information and defects.
Moore and Loosemore address the problem of burnout in undergraduate construction management students in Australia. While the burnout of professionals in the construction industry has received considerable research attention, students have been relatively neglected. Using the Maslach Burnout Inventory: Student Survey (MBI-SS), a survey of 369 construction management students from across eight Australian universities shows that burnout among students was significantly higher than a range of other population samples. In the latter years of their courses, as the demands of work, family and study intensify, a ‘perfect storm’ of burnout triggers is created. The results also indicate a link between the high rates of burnout found in Australian construction students and their time spent in paid employment. This research is important, not only for students, but also for their educators, the organizations that employ them and for their friends and families. Burnout can profoundly affect student health and well-being, relationships, educational performance and their future attitudes towards the industry, affecting organizational issues, including motivation, engagement and turnover intention. This is a serious problem which needs to be addressed. Both universities and employers have a duty of care and mutual interest to ensure that students can balance their study, personal and work responsibilities more effectively.
Cheng, Wen and Jiang use interviews with different departments of a representative case to discuss the key factors of successful application of the Performance Excellence Model (PEM) in construction enterprises. While having its origins in the TQM field, PEM has been applied to a number of fields of enquiry including, more recently, construction project management. As PEM was developed in industrial mass production, the authors discussed the foundation of PEM and what parts may or may not be applicable when applying it in the construction sector. The authors conclude that PEM can usefully be implemented in construction through matching the coded interview data with the canonical models. Further, based on grounded theory, they designed the optimal operational framework for each key factor to improve the effectiveness of PEM implementation. Meanwhile, the necessary adjustment/amendment is explained. By utilizing a multi-level design, the authors collected in-depth interview data from an independent research subject to construct the system model. They confirmed the value of PEM for construction enterprises. The causality condition, sequence and mediation condition obtained by canonical analysis model build a top-down framework at the operating level. Beyond that, a necessary amendment to the framework is illustrated in detail, offering a comprehensive interpretation for the application of PEM in construction enterprises.
Based on a study of one of the largest Swedish construction companies, Löwstedt and Räisänen explore social identity in construction and its underlying enactments and outcomes. By conducting interviews with 27 managers as well as observing a series of strategy workshops, they found expressions of a collective identity among the managers in the company. This collective identity revolved around aspects and traits related to the production side of construction, even though the managers in the study had predominantly managing responsibilities, such as leadership, strategy, economy and planning. They expressed a strong sense of pride of having worked manually on construction sites and thereby learned “real” construction. For them, the implicit social convention concerning career path is to work one’s way up from the site to eventual managerial positions. In doing so, one acquires the requisite skills and earns accreditation and legitimacy among co-workers. Löwstedt and Räisänen show how this collective identity unfolded in various social interactions and how the actions and decisions of those who did not possess these socially established requisite background and skills were de-legitimized. The authors argue that such a social process may have negative consequences for various outcomes in the construction sector, both in terms of what kind of competencies construction companies attract and maintain and what kind of change initiatives and innovations they will respond to.
The HIV/AIDS pandemic across the African continent forms the backdrop to the work of Bowen, Govender, Edwards and Cattell, as their ongoing research continues to explore its impact upon, and implications for, the construction industry. Data from field-administered surveys are used to model construction workers’ attitudes and behaviour towards antibody testing. Structural equation modelling reveals the influence, in terms of magnitude and relationship pathways, of predictive factors, namely, age, gender, level of education, ethnicity, type of employment, transmission knowledge, and alcohol and drug use. The research findings point the way to more strategically targeted approaches to HIV/AIDS intervention management by construction organisations.
Facilities management (FM) outsourcing in Nigeria’s health care sector is rapidly evolving. As a result, hospital managers, who are often decision-makers, are increasingly facing daunting issues and challenges in the absence of sufficient and reliable information. Ikediashi and Mbamali examine the causal relationships between antecedents of outsourcing decisions and service-level performance of outsourced FM services. The authors developed and tested a conceptual structural equation model using data from top managers in the sector. Their findings reveal that quality consideration is one of the most significant drivers impacting service performance of outsourced FM services in hospitals. The components of quality factors driving service performance is found to be improvements in performance standard, improvements in quality of services to users and improvement of mutual trust between hospitals and stakeholders. Also, the magnitude of time factors impacts on service level performance meaning that performance is reflected in timely delivery of services and improved process responsiveness and speed of service delivery in hospitals. Cost consideration is the third most significant factor affecting performance. However, the findings also reveal that neither strategy nor social factors have a significant impact on service-level performance. On the one hand, this could mean that strategy-related factors only impact on overall performance of hospitals and not services, while on the other, although most hospitals do engage small-scale local vendors as a way of empowering local communities, there is no direct impact on FM services outsourced to vendors. Rather, the impact could be felt on the reputation and strategic significance of hospitals at the long term. The practical implication of this work is that it provides hospital managers and other practitioners with insights into the key aspects of outsourcing decisions.