影响我国工程咨询企业推行合伙制的因素分析

合伙制是国外咨询公司普遍采用的形式。本文通过文献研究,总结了影响我国工程咨询企业推行合伙制的25个因素,并基于问卷调查,运用主成分分析法,提取合伙制体制、合伙制推行的政策环境等5个关键因素展开重点分析．提出在我国工程咨询行业推行合伙制应注意把握的关键问题。     

Assessment of strengths in the UK international construction sector

The background to international production theory is presented with a view to relating the eclectic approach to a part of the international construction industry. This sector includes a number of industry participants: consulting engineers, architects, surveyors, contractors and capital goods manufaturers etc. It can be observed that the sector has adapted to changing client requirements, partly triggered by competitive pressures. The nature of these can be predicted to some extent from the brief reviews of some theoretical and empirical work; the latter is drawn mostly from the contracting sector, but it is widened here to include other sector groups. Fieldwork has thus been carried out to interview a total of 20 firms comprising the different parties to the sector. Although consultants were of primary interest, it was considered that a wider selection of parties should be interviewed in order to determine some of the aspects common to each group. There is also a measure of interrelating across each group in carrying out international projects although this is more the case in competitor nations. Questions were framed on their own strengths and weaknesses, and that of their competitors, as well as the opportunities and threats faced. The findings of the survey and that of the earlier review are brought together in order to summarize where the main ‘advantages’ of the firms lie.     

Motives for acquisitions among engineering consulting firms

Many empirical studies across various industry sectors show a high failure rate of mergers and acquisitions (M&A), suggesting that this instrument of corporate development is rather risky. Since engineering consulting firms usually have a low tangible asset base as well as good educated and highly mobile professionals, carrying out an M&A transaction in this particular service sector creates an even higher risk. It is evident from the relevant construction and engineering literature that a large number of engineering consulting firms engage in M&A for their corporate development. Owing to the uniqueness of that service sector combined with the high failure rate of M&A, a survey among the top 100 engineering consulting firms in Europe was conducted to investigate the motives behind M&A transactions. Findings suggest that diversification into new service/client markets as well as the penetration into new geographic markets were the most important motives. Further, increasing the firm's market share and the acceleration of growth were the next most popularly rated motives, while tax reasons or spending the firm's excess cash were both seen as relatively unimportant motives. The results show that - compared to other industry sectors - engineering consulting firms had some very different motives or another emphasis was placed on those motives when conducting an M&A transaction. Results also show that some motives were just as important for engineering consulting firms as for firms of other industry sectors, for example the increase of market share or the acceleration of firm growth.     

善于反省的建筑师

如今“业主”这个词的定义比过去要复杂得多,业主往往不再是某一个人,而是一系列的组织,它们的结构并不明确,决策过程也不完善,精品建筑决不会产生于建筑师的象牙塔之中,它只有通过业主,使用者、公众、咨询顾问以及建筑师的密切配合才能产生,一个善于反省的建筑师应该善于倾听业主的声音,以批判的态度对待业主的观点,将那些观点翻译成建筑造型并对整个社会持有批判的观点。     

工程咨询公司全过程造价控制及效果评价研究

通过分析工程咨询公司在全过程造价管理模式下存在的问题,构建工程咨询公司全过程造价控制模式,包括决策阶段项目建议书和可行性研究报告中的投资估算、设计阶段的方案设计和初步设计概算以及实施阶段的工程招投标中的标底和合同价、施工过程中的动态造价及竣工结算中的造价审核监督和控制等。通过建立咨询服务效果评价指标体系,确定评价指标权向量,建立综合评价模型,探讨工程咨询公司全过程造价控制效果评价方法。并指出全过程造价控制效果评价应注意的事项。分析结果表明,工程咨询公司应在项目建设周期的全过程中采取有效措施,进行工程造价有效控制及控制效果评价,节约成本,合理利用资源。     

Drivers of productivity among construction workers: A study in a developing country

This paper reports on a study of factors affecting productivity among members of the construction workforce in Turkey. A survey of 82 construction firms in Turkey is undertaken using a questionnaire of 54 questions directed to managers, engineers, architects, and other technical staff. Using the results of the survey, economic and socio-psychological factors that affect labour performance are evaluated and discussed in detail. The results show that monetary factors remain pre-eminent in influencing productivity, but that socio-psychological factors appear to be of increasing importance in this developing economy.     

A study of professional perspectives on structural frame selection

The choice of an appropriate structural frame can contribute to effective short‐ and long‐term performance, and enhance client satisfaction but limited research indicates that the issues taken into account during structural frame selection are not very well understood. With this in mind, a major research programme, including interviews and an industry survey, examined the attitudes of project managers, cost consultants and construction clients in analysing the issues they typically consider when choosing the structural frame for a building, and to provide insights about how such decisions are made in practice. Ten key issues were identified as being the most important affecting structural frame selection, but the extent to which different parties considered these and at what stage was found to vary. Also, the variations, between what these parties themselves think of the issues and what others perceive their attitudes to be, were examined. In particular, the results showed that what clients perceive differs considerably from how clients’ views are perceived by others. For instance, according to cost consultants and project managers, their clients’ preference to regularly select a ‘preferred’ frame type or material is a far more widespread tendency than clients themselves actually acknowledged.     

中国工程咨询业的发展与演进

中国的工程咨询业经过二十余年的发展,已形成一定的规模,但计划体制的烙印仍然明显,咨询方式及管理理念与国际惯例仍差距甚远,同时,体制上的缺陷也是制约我国工程咨询业发展的重要因素。面对加入WTO后的国际竞争的严峻形势,我们应充分认识到自身的位置,从研究工程咨询业发展规律入手,确立工程咨询业应有的社会地位,研究国际上先进的工程咨询模式如全过程工程咨询、全生命周期咨询等模式,研究项目管理理论与应用的方法,鼓励并引导我国的工程咨询业向全过程工程咨询方式发展;改革现行的企业运行机制,结合中国国情,积极探索与国际工程咨询业产业管理惯例接轨的途径,并形成有中国特色的工程咨询业行业管理体系。     

Mapping corporate social responsibility strategies in the construction and engineering industry

Interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) is growing in response to societal and regulatory demands that construction businesses contribute positively to the environments and communities in which they build. While, CSR research in the construction and engineering industry is progressing there has been little research into whether and how firms in this industry operationalize CSR, how they incorporate CSR into their business vision, leadership and mission and strategies and what forms these strategies take. In addressing these gaps in knowledge, a survey of 104 firms from across the construction and engineering industry and its supply chain in Australia and New Zealand was undertaken. The results indicate that CSR in construction and engineering firms is largely informal, unsophisticated, compliance driven and in its early stages of development. There is little strategic focus in CSR initiatives and the potential social capital derived from better strategic relationships with communities appears to be largely wasted. Conceptually, it is concluded that there is a need to adapt current models of CSR practice, developed in a permanent business context, to reflect the transitional, nomadic and project-based nature of construction. Current models of CSR are inadequate at explaining how firms operating in the construction industry need to practically adjust and adapt their CSR strategies to fit with the constantly changing political, social, cultural, environmental and economic profiles of local communities and the requirements of clients and local governments.     

Architect–BPS consultant collaborations: Harmony or hardship?

Multi-disciplinary collaboration is considered necessary for solving complex designs, and belief in its merits is unequivocal in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) literature. However, this paper argues that collaboration is a challenging endeavour that entails creating a unified platform for professionals to converge. Challenges are compounded when the collaboration is for building performance assessments, as architects’ and Building Performance Simulation (BPS) consultants’ worldviews are divergent. This paper presents part of a mixed-methods study investigating collaborative relationships between architects and BPS consultants. Questionnaires are designed to re-test non-technical barriers in collaboration, described during preceding interviews. Six salient factors representing barriers impeding fruitful collaborations are extracted, and inter-relationships are explored using inferential statistics. Barriers include perceptions about architects’ attitudes toward BPS, using BPS for compliance, trust and communication between architects and consultants. Finally, this research illustrates how recourse to methodologies from outside the traditional BPS realm may open new research avenues in this field.     

Clients’ assessment of architects’ performance in building delivery process: Evidence from Nigeria

The overall intent of this research is to provide architects with information that can be used to improve their performance so as to optimally satisfy the client's requirements and achieve high-quality overall project performance in Nigerian construction industry. Architect performance criteria were identified based on literature within the domain of architect responsibilities. The assessment of architects’ performance was carried out through a questionnaire survey of clients of recently completed building projects in Nigeria. Analysis of data includes comparison of criteria using importance–performance index analysis. Factor analysis was carried out on criteria where architects are falling below average, to group and explore the latent structure of the criteria in the data. The results showed that the architect needs to focus on management skills and ability, buildability, design quality, project communication, project integration and client focus. These results would encourage architects to perform better within their full responsibilities in the building delivery process and deliver high-quality projects within Nigerian construction industry.     

Perceptions of architectural design and project risk: understanding the architects' role in a PPP project

Southern Cross Station is one of the largest public–private partnership (PPP) projects undertaken in Australia. In this project the architects played a significant role in developing an iconic design which has received international professional design awards and much media attention. In the media the architects' design was perceived as having impacted negatively on capital costs. Given these contradictory perceptions, the aim of this study was to better understand perceptions of the architects' role in relation to project risks arising out of their design. A survey of key project executives working in the PPP consortium responsible for delivering the project was undertaken. The survey was structured by a framework combining the PPP life cycle, project risks and the idea that architectural design can be viewed as a research and development activity rather than simply as a problem‐solving activity. The survey responses point to the fact that the architects mitigated technical and operating risks and their activities had little bearing on the project's substantial write‐downs. This counters media perceptions of the project that the design activities of the architects created more risks than they mitigated.     

全过程工程咨询项目多层级组合控制模式研究#br# ——基于组态分析视角

全过程工程咨询项目三边治理结构中存在不同主体不同层级的控制机制,亟需建立有效协同的控制机制来改善项目履约绩效。通过问卷调查获取数据并运用fs/QCA方法,建立以全过程工程项目组织中多层级控制机制为条件变量,项目履约绩效为结果条件的组态模型,得出四种能够有效促成项目履约绩效的构型,并将其归纳为四类组合控制模式。研究结果显示：全过程工程咨询项目组合控制模式中对承包人履约过程中履约行为和履约绩效的控制机制不可或缺,其中结果控制是组合控制模式中的基本要素;咨询团队中自我控制与过程控制不可分割;合同控制与过程控制、自我控制之间存在可替代性;专业服务交易中业主与咨询团队之间的信任控制与咨询团队内部的社群控制存在可替代性。研究结果深化对全过程工程咨询项目组合控制模式的理性认识,并为业主精准设计适合自身的全过程工程咨询项目的控制机制提供理论依据。     

An analysis of success factors and benefits of partnering in construction

Partnering is increasingly being used on construction projects. Partnering involves the parties to a construction project working together in an environment of trust and openness to realise the project efficiently and without conflict. Using a UK-wide postal questionnaire survey, the opinions of different types of organisation — consultants, contractors, and clients were assessed in relation to the success factors and benefits of partnering. The study shows that UK contractors and clients are more positive about partnering than consultants. The research also indicates that certain requirements must be met if partnering is to succeed. In particular, trust, communication, commitment, a clear understanding of roles, consistency and a flexible attitude are necessary. It is recognised that nothing will change without considerable effort from all parties. Respondents believe that partnering can bring significant benefits, including fewer adversarial relationships and increased end-customer satisfaction, to the construction industry if all parties involved in a project strive for its success.     

Findings from a survey on the current use of daylight simulations in building design

This paper presents findings from a web-based survey on the current use of daylight simulations in building design. The survey was administered from December 2nd 2003 to January 19th 2004. One hundred and eighty five individuals from 27 countries completed the survey. The majority of respondents worked in Canada (20%), the United States (20%), and Germany (12%). Most participants were recruited through building simulation mailing lists. Their self-reported professions ranged from energy consultants and engineers (38%) to architects and lighting designers (31%) as well as researchers (23%). They worked predominantly on large and small offices and schools.Ninety one percent of respondents included daylighting aspects in their building design. Those who did not consider daylighting blamed lack of information and unwillingness of clients to pay for this extra service. Among those participants who were considering daylighting 79% used computer simulations. This strong sample bias towards computer simulations reflects that many participants had been recruited through building simulation mailing lists. Participants named tools’ complexity and insufficient program documentation as weaknesses of existing programs. Self-training was the most common training method for daylight simulation tools. Tool usage was significantly higher during design development than during schematic design. Most survey participants used daylighting software for parameter studies and presented the results to their clients as a basis for design decisions.While daylight factor and interior illuminances were the most commonly calculated simulation outputs, shading type and control were the most common design aspects influenced by a daylighting analysis. The use of scale model measurements had rapidly fallen compared to a 1994 survey, whereas, trust in the reliability of daylighting tools has risen. While participants named a total of 42 different daylight simulation programs that they routinely used, over 50% of program selections were for tools that use the RADIANCE simulation engine, revealing the program's predominance within the daylight simulation community.     

Enhancing value capture by managing risks of value slippage in and across projects

Project-based firms have to capture value from the projects in which they engage. This can be challenging as firms need to reconcile project goals and organizational goals while attempting to avoid the slippage of value to other actors. Drawing on interviews with architects and clients, this research reveals how architectural firms used the strategies of postponing financial revenues in a project, compensating for loss of financial revenues across projects and rejecting a project to accept or mitigate the slippage of financial value, and to avoid the potential slippage of professional value in projects. With these strategies firms attempt to enhance their overall benefits. The study contributes to the literature on project business by showing how a more nuanced conceptualization of value slippage is particularly helpful to theoretically explain and practically manage the value capture of project-based firms through both single project and project portfolio decisions.     

Modular Approaches in Dutch House Building: An Exploratory Survey

In many European countries, changing housing policies are now offering clients more influence over the final building. This means that construction firms need to adopt concepts that have a greater customer focus. The electronics, software and automobile industries, and others, have dealt successfully with the trade-off problem that exists between, on the one hand, offering customer variety and, on the other, minimising manufacturing costs by developing product platforms. This paper presents the results of a field study in which opportunities, limitations and external restraints on the implementation of platform-based approaches in the Dutch house building industry are explored. Based on a cross-sectional analysis, the perceptions of architects, construction firms, suppliers and municipalities are compared. Specific attention is paid to the roles to be fulfilled by these various actors. The study shows that while all the actor-groups agree that a platform-based approach could deliver substantial improvements in the house building process, substantial changes are still necessary to realise this. The implications for each actor-group are then described.     

A survey of the site records kept by construction supervisors

A number of writers have cited poor records as limiting the ability of supervisors, and indeed of contractors, to carry out some of their most important functions. The study reported in this paper aimed to identify the problems in detail. This was achieved by conducting a mail-shot survey of construction supervisors working for firms of civil engineering consultants. The results indicate that there is considerable room for improvement in the records kept on most sites, where guidelines are said to be inadequate and the problems of enforcing these inadequate guidelines were also recognized. The main source data for progress records was identified as the site diaries kept by individual members of the supervisor's team, and these were found to be particularly difficult to access for a number of reasons. Since the site diaries are such an important source of information, it is argued that most benefit may be gained by taking steps to improve these daily logs which, in turn, will allow better overviews of progress to be produced.