Junying Liu

Key issues and challenges of risk management and insurance in China's construction industry: An empirical study

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate the key issues and challenges in risk management and insurance in the Chinese construction industry and propose solutions to improve risk management.Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on surveys which target people who have direct or relevant experience of risk management and construction insurance in China. Surveys were conducted by e‐mail, mail and fax to selected clients, contractors (project director, project managers, and contract managers/administrators), insurers, brokers, consultants, claim advisors, and academics; and e‐mails to Chinese researchers in the construction management field. Descriptive analysis is used for data analysis.Findings – It is found that cultural considerations inhibit proper implementation of risk management in Chinas construction industry. It is also found that the perception and attitude of contractors play an important role in developing risk management. Accordingly, an organizational learning of a risk...

Business continuity management in large construction companies in Singapore

Purpose – The aim of this study is to determine whether large construction companies practise business continuity management (BCM), the type of crises which companies deem impactful for their organizations and their reactions to certain crises.Design/methodology/approach – A survey of 22 large construction companies in Singapore was conducted.Findings – The survey suggests that, although the importance and usefulness of having BCM are clear, the receptiveness of BCM among large construction firms is far from ideal. In todays unpredictable environment, there is a tendency for catastrophes to occur unexpectedly and to bring about undesired consequences. A large majority of the respondents did not have any form of BCM practices within their organization. This is mainly because they were unaware of what constitutes a business continuity plan.Research limitations/implications – The survey was conducted only among large construction companies; as such, the results obtained cannot be used to represent the entir...

Developing an organizational learning‐based model for risk management in Chinese construction firms

Purpose – The features of construction projects, characterized by their transient nature, multi‐players, and strong dependency on local natural and human environment, highlight the difficulties of risk management in construction firms. This is particularly crucial when a construction firm ventures overseas where the risk exposure is high. However, it is unclear how Chinese construction firms would behave organizationally or if they have adopted appropriate risk management best practices, especially when they operate outside of Mainland China. Moreover, it is also unclear if such firms have formally documented risk management lessons for the purpose of organizational learning to share both success and failure so that similar mistakes can be avoided in the future. This paper primarily aims to establish a conceptual framework linking organizational learning with risk management, focusing on the organizational behavior of Chinese construction firms when they operate in both Mainland China and overseas.Design/...

Implications of thermal and building integrity performance on buildability of a worker dormitories project

Purpose – Where buildability is concerned, the six total building performance (TBP) mandates are seldom taken into consideration.. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between buildability and the two TBP mandates of thermal performance and building integrity performance.Design/methodology/approach – A real life case study of a worker dormitories building project was used as the base model for analysis. A breakdown of the buildability scores for the project was first noted. Thereafter, the TBP guidelines relating to thermal performance and building integrity performance were incorporated into the base model and the buildability scores were recomputed.Findings – Following the thermal performance guidelines, a negative relationship with buildability was observed. However, a positive result was established between the building integrity performance guidelines and buildability. The different relationships occurred due to the different aspects of the base model that needed to be changed to ...

Impact of Design Risk on the Performance of Design-Build Projects

Design risk can greatly affect the success or otherwise of design-build projects. This study presents the identification of design risk factors in design-build projects and an analysis of their impact on project performance. A total of 23 design risk factors were identified, comprising 17 factors obtained from an exhaustive literature review and six factors arising from in-depth interviews with five experienced construction practitioners. These design risk factors formed the focus of a questionnaire survey of 500 construction practitioners, which used a five-point Likert scale as the response format. This yielded 150 valid responses for data analysis. Exploratory Factor Analysis showed that these factors can be categorized into six groupings, namely, risk of improper design-team, risk of designer’s lack of responsibility, risk of designer’s lack of experience, risk of inaccuracy or delay of third-party information, risk of improper design scheme, and risk of design change and employer review. Confirmative Factor Analysis revealed that the risk of an improper design scheme is significantly associated with the risk of designers’ lack of responsibility and experience, as well as inaccuracy and delay of third-party information, which has a significant and negative impact on project performance. The findings contribute to the body of knowledge in design-build risk analysis and, more fundamentally, the findings enhance design-build contractors’ understanding of how to achieve better project results through improved design risk management.

Effect of Perceived Justice on Subcontractor Willingness to Cooperate: The Mediating Role of Relationship Value

Cooperation between subcontractor and general contractor provides the foundation for the successful delivery of every construction project. As one of the most important factors influencing subcontractor behavioral intentions, the perceived justice from previous collaborative experience affects the willingness of a subcontractor to cooperate with a general contractor in the future. In this paper, a model is built based on social exchange theory to examine the relationship between justice perception, relationship value and subcontractor willingness to cooperate (WTC). Analysis of data from 122 subcontractors demonstrates that distributive justice and interactional justice positively affect WTC, and relationship value from the general contractor partially mediates such effects. However, procedural justice does not significantly affect WTC. The study provides a new perspective for examining the internal mechanisms between subcontractor justice perception and WTC. The findings will also help general contractors understand how their behaviors affect subcontractor WTC, thus providing practical implications for subcontracting management.

Experimental Investigation of the Impact of Risk Preference on Construction Bid Markups

Risk preference plays an important role in decision-making. The objective of this paper is to show how much risk preferences influence bid price decision-making in bidding for construction contracts. Based on the literature review and interviews, we designed a bidding situation and conducted an experiment to test decision maker responses. 172 participants with lengthy experience in bidding for construction work took part in the experiment. Both descriptive statistics and regression analysis are used for deep information mining of the data. We find that risk preference has a significantly positive effect on bid mark-ups. Based on a comparison of the influences of risk preferences on the bid price in different competitive bidding situations, we find that the bid price decreases with the number of bidders and it is even lower when the number of bidders is unknown. Therefore, considering both risk preference and the number of bidder is important to make a reasonable bid decision making. Finally, advice is also provided to construction companies for evaluating the leader’s decisions and decision-making team.