Empirical Investigation of Construction Contractors' Organizational Learning

Conceptual frameworks dominate organizational learning literature with limited empirical assessments. This raises several questions about the validity and applicability of the various conceptual frameworks for how managers can build organizational learning capabilities. As such, lessons from the conceptual frameworks of organizational learning for addressing performance improvement that might have been used by construction contractors have been limited. This paper presents a quantitative analysis of organizational learning by construction contractors. The principles that underlie organizational learning and the factors that promote double-loop learning as a strategy for improving construction contractors’ business processes are presented. The paper has also established the learning orientations and focus of the surveyed construction contractors to determine their organizational learning dimensions as well as the factors that induced their double-loop learning, as rich lessons for organizations in the construction industry.     

Job Satisfaction of Women in Construction Trades

Existing research on women in construction focuses on engineers and entrepreneurs, yet little to no attention has been given to women in trades. Thus, the aim of this research is to review the literature on tradeswomen and to conduct a localized study to determine if demographic variables affect satisfaction with work, pay, opportunities, supervision, and people on the job for tradeswomen. These variables include age, education, number of dependents, number of trade years, duration of work, and frequency of work outside of the local area. Thirty-nine tradeswomen from the Cincinnati area were surveyed to assess their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with construction work. Currently, the literature review indicates that research on tradeswomen is limited and largely restricted to identifying measures that can attract and retain women in construction trades. Studies on motivation and job satisfaction of construction workers neither identify nor compare perceptions of tradeswomen about their work. Results of this exploratory study showed that pay, benefits, and job security are most important to women in their occupation. Although tradeswomen appear to be satisfied with the nature of work in construction trades, this is not the case in terms of pay, benefits, and job security. Demographic variables did not affect the level of job satisfaction for women in construction trades. Research on tradeswomen is essential and important as the industry tries to change its image and encourage diversity in order to mitigate labor shortage.     

Emotional Intelligence and Leadership Behavior in Construction Executives

The study documented in this paper builds upon the concept of multiple intelligences by examining the need for a greater concept of intelligence within the construction profession. Specifically, the paper documents the study of 130 construction executives for their emotional intelligence (EI) as measured by their emotional quotient. In this study, the writers analyze the relationship between EI and leadership behaviors, specifically examining the relationship between EI and transformational leadership behaviors. The paper outlines the strengths and weaknesses found in executives in relation to developing transformational leadership behaviors. Through the use of established testing procedures, the researchers identify five specific components of EI that are related to transformational leadership behavior at a convincing level of statistical significance. Of particular importance is the identification of interpersonal skills and empathy as key EI behaviors that need additional attention during the development of construction industry executives. The writers contend that these traits are as important as classical traits of intelligence and experience in developing the leaders of tomorrow’s construction organizations.     

Developing Construction Professionals of the 21st Century: Renewed Vision for Leadership

The construction industry faces several technical, social, financial, political, and cultural challenges. Developments such as the growing volume of activity, increasing number of active stakeholders, advancement in technology, more intense global competition, and demand for fast-track completion, have created many distinct challenges for construction professionals. Consequently, there is a need to equip the professionals with hard (technical) as well as soft (management and leadership) skills. Construction professionals invariably work in teams and often assume leadership roles as the design manager, construction manager, procurement manager, contracts manager, or project manager. They deal with various project stakeholders and often get involved in sensitive decision making and dispute resolution processes. There is a broad sentiment in the industry that today’s new graduates are not adequately trained to deal with the soft issues on complex construction projects. In particular, academic programs do not prepare professionals with an appropriate blend of hard and soft skills. In this paper, it is argued that in order to develop competent professionals who have strong leadership skills, the universities, the construction industry, professional organizations, and the government need to form a broad collaboration. A conceptual model of this potential collaborative relationship is presented, and specific roles for the universities, the industry, professional bodies, and government in the lifelong professional development of the industry’s human resources are discussed.     

Structural Surface-Achieving Model in the Teaching and Learning Process for Construction Engineering Students

Education is a systematic teaching-learning process involving four main components (teachers, students, knowledge, and the environment) and three main subprocesses (teaching, learning, and evaluation). Throughout the education process, students’ learning is considered as the core subprocess, though various interactions are involved among the variables in the components. The surface-achieving learning approach (achieving motive and surface strategy) is not generally recommended by educational psychologists, but it is the most popular learning approach used by construction engineering students in Hong Kong. In order to investigate the reasons for this phenomenon, a structural surface-achieving learning model is established that includes key learning factors. In this paper, teaching approach, learning approach (achieving motive and surface strategy), year of study, gender, performance, and satisfaction are all considered as major elements of the teaching-learning process. Using the LISREL program, three optimized structural equation models were established separately for the three teaching approaches (transferring, shaping, and traveling). The study confirmed a partial causal relationship among the hypothetical variables and revealed six interesting points: (1) shaping is an exogenous variable that has the least effect on the surface-achieving learning approach among the three teaching approaches; (2) the traveling teaching approach, like the transferring and shaping teaching approaches, causes students to adopt the surface strategy in the learning process; (3) good performance can be obtained even though the surface strategy is adopted by construction students in Hong Kong; (4) students’ performance is a factor encouraging or discouraging educators to use the traveling teaching approach in construction education; (5) satisfaction is an essential variable that induces students to learn with an achieving motive; and (6) female construction students often perform better than their male counterparts.     

Evaluating Learning Approaches of Construction Students in Hong Kong through a Matrix Framework

Learning is a process of acquiring knowledge, and students may adopt different learning approaches to achieving their learning goals. While educationalists can draw up what they believe is a good construction curriculum for students, students’ learning would depend on their own learning approaches and attitudes. Acknowledging a lack of research on the learning attitudes of construction students, a matrix framework of learning approaches (MFLA) based on the relationships between three learning motives and three learning strategies is proposed in this paper. The MFLA enabled a major empirical survey to be carried out in Hong Kong to examine the learning characteristics of construction students. A questionnaire based on Biggs’s study process questionnaire was distributed to five groups of construction-related students in three universities in Hong Kong. The results of the survey indicate that seven of the nine hypothetical learning approaches exist in construction education in Hong Kong. The assortment of learning approaches used varied across the five student groups. As a result, different teaching and learning factors should be adopted by educators of construction students to meet the distinctive characteristics of students in various universities.     

Gender Differences in Occupational Stress Among Professionals in the Construction Industry

There is accumulating evidence that stress levels among construction professionals are increasing and that this is manifesting itself in the form of unsafe working practices, higher turnover, lower morale, and poorer performance. However, there has been no research into the influence of gender on stress levels in the construction industry. This is despite evidence that the underrepresentation of women may produce higher levels of stress among this part of the workforce. To redress this deficiency, this paper investigates whether there are differences in sources and levels of stress between male and female professionals in the construction industry. The results indicate that overall, men experience slightly higher levels of stress than women. Although there are common sources of stress for both men and women, there are also some differences. In particular, men appear to suffer more stress in relation to risk taking, disciplinary matters, implications of mistakes, redundancy, and career progression. In contrast, the factors that cause most stress for women were opportunities for personal development, rates of pay, keeping up with new ideas, business travel, and the accumulative effect of minor tasks. These differences reflect women’s traditional and continued subjugation in the construction industry.     

Problem-Based Learning Approach to Construction Management Teaching

This paper describes construction management teaching for the Master of Engineering in civil engineering course at the University of Glasgow in the United Kingdom. This course is a 5-yr undergraduate degree accredited by the Institution of Civil Engineers for membership in the Institution subject to graduates satisfying the appropriate postgraduate training objectives. Construction management teaching takes place in the third, fourth, and fifth years of the degree and is structured to make effective use of both traditional and problem-based learning teaching methods. Examples are given of two problem-based learning courses used in the fourth and fifth year of the degree course. Both are based on complex construction projects and provide students with the opportunity to apply and synthesis knowledge gained on the traditionally taught third year course. Formal feedback from students and informal feedback from local industry suggests that the courses are meeting their overall objective of producing graduates with relevant knowledge and skills in construction management.     

Sustainability in Construction Education

It is widely recognized that sustainability should be incorporated into engineering education. To prepare students with sustainability knowledge and techniques, engineering educators need to develop appropriate class contents and effective teaching techniques. Based on experience from developing and teaching a sustainability course within the construction management program in the civil engineering department, this paper discusses the process of identifying sustainability knowledge areas, course planning, and lessons learned from the class. The paper also includes main class topics as well as students’ feedbacks, both of which may serve as a starting point for continuous improvement of sustainability education in construction.     

Positive Psychological Capital as a Source of Sustainable Competitive Advantage for Organizations

Psychological capital (PsyCap) has gained prominence as an important construct in leadership research. Comprising four factors (self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resiliency), PsyCap is considered to be a vital factor for authentic leadership development and influence. The current study reports the results of a questionnaire survey that was conducted in the construction industry of Singapore. The survey explored the correlations of PsyCap with authenticity, leadership, and leadership outcomes. The results show that PsyCap significantly correlates with authenticity and transformational leadership. It was also found that transformational leadership plays a mediating role for PsyCap to predict leadership outcomes (effectiveness, extra effort, and satisfaction). The discussion in the paper also considers the implications of PsyCap for leadership development and effectiveness in general and in the context of the construction industry.     

Indirect Discrimination in Construction Organizations and the Impact on Women’s Careers

Over the last 20?years, equality legislation and positive action on diversity has increased awareness of the detrimental impact of sex discrimination and has begun to address harassment and inequality in many large organizations. While this may yield positive benefits for underrepresented groups working within the construction industry, it remains to be seen whether this legislative drive has overcome indirect forms of discrimination brought about by the ingrained culture and working practices of the sector. This paper explores the impact of indirect discrimination by systematically combining the results of two research projects which explored perspectives on women’s careers in the industry. The first examined the ways in which women’s careers were affected by the nature of working practices within the U.K. construction industry, while the second explored gendered perspectives on work-life balance within the context of the Australian construction sector. Taken in combination, the findings provide prima facie evidence of how construction companies disadvantage women’s careers through their work practices and cultures. Based on this evidence, this paper develops a grounded proposition that the ingrained structures and work cultures of the sector, combined with women’s restricted occupational choices, stymie attempts to create an equitable workplace environment. Suggestions are made as to how construction companies can encourage the structural and cultural shift necessary to overcome the corrosive effect of indirect discrimination on women’s careers in the future.     

Job Burnout among Construction Engineers Working within Consulting and Contracting Organizations

This research investigated and compared the experience of job burnout among 249 construction engineers working within consulting and contracting organizations in Hong Kong. The most widely recognized model of burnout, comprising emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and diminished professional efficacy was found to be valid. The sample in this study scored highest in all three dimensions of burnout among nine other occupations in national samples, with engineers working within contracting organizations reporting higher levels of burnout than their fellow engineers working within consulting organizations. The results of the study also showed that burnout attributed largely to stressors associated with job conditions and working environments. In particular, qualitative overload and lack of promotion prospects were found to be the major predictors of job burnout among engineers working within consulting organizations; whereas long working hours, role conflict, role ambiguity, and lack of job security accounted mostly for the burnout among engineers within contracting organizations. This suggested that intervention strategies targeting minimizing burnout, such as job redesign, should be devised with reference to the type of the engineering organizations.     

Educating the 21st Century Construction Professionals

Traditionally recognized construction professionals such as architects, engineers, and surveyors occupy segregated roles in the construction industry. With the rapidly growing complexity and ever increasing sophistication in project procurement and construction, new disciplines have been added to the traditional construction professions. The characteristics and the roles of the different disciplines in the construction industry are becoming less clear-cut. Specialism within the different disciplines and the working relationship among them are also not easily defined. Transprofessional practice among the several disciplines of construction professionals is commonplace. The skills needed by each discipline and the education structure required to develop those skills cannot be usefully examined on a discipline-by-discipline basis. This paper, based on a research study carried out with a questionnaire survey, aims to investigate these phenomena in professional practices within the construction industry and to develop cogent and sustainable directions for the education of construction professionals in the new millennium. Results from the study suggest that the demands of a transprofessional discipline practice call for construction professionals to critically reexamine their professional skills and realistically evaluate the professional demands made on them by the ever-increasing complexity and technological sophistication in construction and project procurement. The work concludes that the curricula for educating aspiring construction professionals should embrace a multidisciplinary and an integrative-professional approach. Such an approach should be implemented in curricula designed for undergraduates and for the continuing professional education of practitioners.     

Construction Equipment Telematics

Over the past 10–15?years, equipment manufacturers have addressed the issues related to the use of telematics for construction equipment, trying to provide both the customer and themselves with relevant data to improve the functionality, operation, maintenance, and management of this equipment. Each manufacturer approached this task independently with varying ideas on how to best accomplish this.     

Issues in Professional Construction Management

The use of professional construction management has increased rapidly since the introduction of this form of organization in the early 1960's. Despite this widespread use questions concerning the scope, definition, and differences in implementation of this project delivery system remain. An ASCE technical committee has investigated these questions and disseminated information concerning professional construction management through technical sessions at ASCE meetings, published papers, and a specialty conference. This paper summarizes the results of these activities and provides references of the literature available regarding the development and use of professional construction management.     

Project Organizations as Social Networks

High-performance teams achieve outcomes that exceed the expectations of the project and often demonstrate unique or innovative approaches within a final solution. The foundation of this high performance is the ability to focus on the success of the team over individual objectives. However, the recognition of this emphasis is based on the establishment of professional trust and strong communications between the team members. The social network model of construction introduced a dual-focused approach to enhancing these elements and creating high-performance project teams. The approach emphasizes balancing both a traditional project management emphasis on efficiency of communications with a focus on the social factors that move the project team from efficient to effective. In this paper, the model is extended to present the results of four studies of organizations that are full-service engineering companies that also provide construction oversight services. The paper presents the results of these studies in terms of the social network model and the achievement of high performance in the project teams. Analytical and graphical results are presented based on social network analysis techniques to provide a multiperspective analysis of the project teams.     

大学生学习型社团的构建

分析大学生社团的现状及存在问题,找出制约大学生社团发展的因素,根据这些问题提出构建大学生社团学习型组织的具体方法,结合现有的学习型组织理论体系和社团状况,提出大学生社团创建学习型组织的方法和相应推进措施.     

Construction Engineering Education: History and Challenge

Engineering has been defined as the vocation of guiding nature to produce something needed or desired. A historical review of the evolution of engineering and engineering education leads to the conclusion that sustainability in design and construction requires the engineer to approach nature with imagination and humility. As part of its Engineer of 2020 initiative, the National Academy of Engineering in 2001 questioned how engineering education should evolve to prepare the profession for the future. From that work and efforts by ASCE, it is clear that an educational system that fails to provide engineers with a broad base of learning results in graduates ill-prepared to enter professional practice. The National Academy Engineer of 2020 work and ASCE Policy Statement 465, “Academic Prerequisites for Licensure and Professional Practice,” echo a call to adopt a new educational model. The new model seeks to strengthen the cognitive ability of engineers and leads them to practices that work in cooperation and harmony with nature for the benefit of society.