Thomas S. Ng

Behavioral aspects in construction partnering

Lack of cooperation has been identified as one of the major causes of inefficiency in the construction industry. Industry-wide studies have suggested the use of partnering as a way to promote co-operative contracting. This paper examines the behavioral aspect of the participants in construction partnering. In particular, the criticality of trust as a success factor for partnering is discussed. The main sources of mistrust in construction, including incompetence, failure of integrity and unworthy information are also identified. Data obtained from a case study on a major railway project in Hong Kong is used to illustrate the impact of the behavioral aspect. The case study also suggests that the tools used to implement partnering have positive effects on building trust by suppressing the sources of identified mistrust.

Construction and economic development: the case of Hong Kong

The role of construction in economic development is an important issue facing the construction research community, government and international development agencies. Based on empirical analyses, the complexities of the relationship between construction activity and stage of economic development in Hong Kong were examined. With time series data, Granger causality test results show that the construction output particularly the infrastructure sector drives the economic growth of Hong Kong, and not vice versa. Findings further indicate that the role of the local construction industry changes as the economy matures from newly industrializing country (NIC) to advanced industrialized country (AIC) status, as revealed by the diminishing rate of capacity addition by construction as well as the growing maintenance and repair sector. This complies with Bons inverted U‐shaped relationship between construction activity and gross domestic product (GDP). However, the proposition of ‘volume follows share’ is not supported since the indigenous construction investments still sustain for the service‐oriented economy which inevitably needs commercial development and logistics infrastructure to provide the services. The results may be significant for policy makers in NICs, in the long run, to formulate corporate and industrial policies to chart out a viable and sustainable course to revive the vigour of the industry.

Causal ascription of rework in building and civil engineering projects

Purpose – Rework is an endemic problem in construction projects and has been identified as being a significant factor contributing cost and schedule overruns. Causal ascription is necessary to obtain knowledge about the underlying nature of rework so that appropriate prevention mechanisms can be put in place. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – Using a supervised questionnaire survey and case-study interviews, data from 112 building and engineering projects about the sources and causes of rework in projects were obtained. A multivariate exploration was conducted to examine the underlying relationships between rework variables. Findings – The analysis revealed that there was a significant difference between rework causes for building and civil engineering projects. The set of associations explored in the analyses will be useful to develop a generic causal model to examine the quantitative impact of rework on project performance so that appropriate prevention strategies can...