published_or_final_version / abstract / Architecture / Master / Master of Science in Interdisciplinary Design and Management

While prior studies have examined the influence of environmental factors (e.g. regulatory, market, and socio-cultural environment) on construction safety accidents, the explanations offered remain piecemeal and the environmental factors are largely treated as given and immutable. In reality, the external environment is dynamic and continuously evolving. Contractors are subject to regulatory, market and socio-cultural segments of environment simultaneously. However, there has to date been little apparent effort to systematically investigate: 1) what are the pressures or expectations faced by contractors that operate in the broader context? And 2) how do contractors typically adapt to these pressures and expectations? Drawing on the institutional theory, this study aims to investigate how contractors experience and respond to the complex safety demands in their surrounding institutional environment. Institutional theory is borrowed because 1) the broad definition of institutions encompasses a wide range of environmental factors; and 2) it informs the mechanisms of how organisations are shaped by and strategically respond to institutional pressures. Given that the institutional theory in safety research is still nascent, lacking well-established constructs and casual relationships, a qualitative research strategy was employed, comprising three interlinked components: archival and documentary data analysis; case study; and semi-structured interviews. At the first step, the documentary and archival data analysis was conducted to establish a holistic view of the institutional environment faced by construction companies. Based on the documentary and archival data, this study developed a concept of construction safety-defined organisational field and provided a historical overview of the control and coordination mechanisms of the field. It is found that the field has undergone four stages: early days, the embryonic stage, golden time and the transition stage. An exploratory case study at the second step aimed at exploring whether site safety practices could be interpreted from an institutional theory perspective, and if it does, how? Safety practice data were obtained from 62 open-ended interviews and project archives. The institutional perspective was proved insightful in understanding contractors’ safety practices. The findings showed that the complex institutional environment, especially the incompatible progress and safety requirements, was a key determinant of mixed site safety practices. With the insights obtained from the documentary analysis and case study, semi-structured interviews were lastly carried out to investigate: 1) the specific institutional demands imposed on contractors regarding site safety; and 2) how contractors respond to the complex institutional demands. 24 semi-structured interviews were conducted. The data analysis follows the logic of abduction. By travelling back and forth between extant institutional theory literature and empirical evidence, the research findings were gradually formed. It is found that contractors face four categories of institutional demands comprising: 1) legislations and enforcement; 2) clients’ requirements; 3) construction companies’ internal requirements; and 4) field-level voluntary safety programmes. The results also showed that site safety is guided by two intertwining logics: the prescriptive logic and the performance-based logic. These two logics work collectively to improve site safety. Five patterns of institutional complexity were identified residing in the complex institutional environment. These are: 1) inconsistent regulatory demands; 2) regulatory uncertainty and rigidity; 3) redundant institutional demands from field actors; 4) conflict between safety demands and production efficiency; and 5) disparate values and beliefs about safety and the ways to achieve safety. Contractor’s experience of institutional pressures and general safety management strategies depend on construction companies’ field positions (i.e., central and peripheral). The level of institutional complexity experienced by contractors is moderated by project structure and governance. It is found that contractors would adopt a series of strategic responses, such as concealment, buffering, imitation and influence, to cope with those five patterns of institutional complexity. This study extends the existing safety research to an institutional domain. The organisational field perspective adds a new dimension to explain safety management actions or structures of construction companies. Practical implications are also provided for policy-makers, clients and construction companies. / published_or_final_version / Real Estate and Construction / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Civil Engineering / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This study investigates the factors that affect the profitability of construction companies in Hong Kong. Profitability refers to income less expenses before taxes, or net operating income, as a percentage construction business turnover (value of construction work done). Profitability is an important indicator of a company’s competitiveness and is also a key performance indicator of the quality a company’s management. This study attempts to measure and explain the observed variations in profitability across construction companies. In this study, I have used construction company production data collected from the Census and Statistics Department (CSD). The data set contains income and expenses data of groups of construction companies classified according to HSIC (Hong Kong Standard Industrial Classification) down to four-digit level over the period 1981 to 2002. The data set was used for empirical analysis. After controlling for depreciation of fixed assets, variation in cost of capital and income from other businesses, our data show that profitability varies with company size, degree of subcontracting and material content. The results suggest that as the size of a construction company increases, profit margin declines initially. Profit margin then increases as size increases beyond a certain size, which suggests increasing return to scale. The scale effect, however, diminishes slowly and then exhausted when size of the company grows beyond the optimal level, after which the company will experience decreasing return to scale. Empirical data from Hong Kong showed that there were only a very small number of "over-sized" construction firms that operated beyond the optimal size. This suggests the construction companies in Hong Kong are profit orientated and would not expand beyond the optimal level to achieve other non-profit objectives. In addition, I also found that both the degree of sub-contracting and the level of material content have significant negative impact on the profitability of construction companies in Hong Kong. The former result suggests that profit margin declines as more works are subcontracted out. This implies that in addition to provision of physical resources, subcontractors are also paid for their efforts in managing resources, specialist knowledge and risk taking. The negative impact of material content on profitability suggests that the construction material market is a very competitive market. A construction company cannot charge a significant premium (larger than its profit margin) for provision of construction materials as the construction client or main contractor can also purchase the material at more or less the same price. The results of this study shed light on our understanding of factors that affect the profitability of the construction contracting business, an area that serious lacks empirical study. In addition, the results provide valuable information for the decision makers of construction companies when tendering for construction work and for benchmarking of the profitability performance of their companies. Construction clients and cost consultants would also find the results useful for construction cost budgeting and estimating. / published_or_final_version / Real Estate and Construction / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Construction companies (or contractors) are project-based organizations. They organize project teams to execute and manage construction works on construction sites. For each construction company, large amount of valuable knowledge is embedded in individuals working in the construction team. Thus encouraging the individuals to share their knowledge is critical for improving project performances. A construction team constitutes professionals from different disciplines (e.g. engineering, surveying). It is important for team members to share their diverse knowledge to obtain mutual understanding, achieve collaboration, jointly seek effective solutions, and improve work efficiency. Though knowledge sharing has been extensively studied by researchers, there are few studies on how contractors should manage employees’ knowledge sharing practice in the construction domain. This study aims to bridge this gap by investigating factors affecting individual knowledge sharing behavior in construction teams in Hong Kong. Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and Social Exchange Theory (SET) are employed as theoretical lens to develop a preliminary research model. To validate the research model, a two-stage research design, i.e. exploratory study and explanatory study, is formulated. The exploratory study uses semi-structured interviews to evaluate factors identified from existing literatures as well as to explore additional important factors. Coding technique is applied to analyze the interview transcripts. Then the factors identified from the exploratory study are used to modify the preliminary research model. In the explanatory study, a questionnaire survey is conducted and a total of 231 responses are collected. Structural equation modeling (SEM) technique is applied to test postulated hypotheses. Research results confirm that an individual’s knowledge sharing behavior is significantly determined by his/her intention to share knowledge in construction teams. The intention to share knowledge in turn is substantially influenced by the individual’s attitude toward and perceived behavioral control over knowledge sharing. Research findings also reveal that an individual’s perception of losing face negatively affects his/her attitude toward knowledge sharing, while the perceptions of knowledge feedback and knowledge self-efficacy positively affect his/her attitude toward knowledge sharing. Besides, it is discovered that an individual’s perceived behavioral control over knowledge sharing is influenced by his/her perceived space resource, including physical space resource, social space created by social activities, and virtual space facilitated by ICT support. There are three main contributions in this study. Firstly, several new measurement scales with adequate level of reliability and validity are developed. Secondly, this study makes a breakthrough by adopting TPB to study knowledge sharing behavior in the construction domain. Through empirical examination, this study uncovers the underlying influential factors of individual knowledge sharing behavior in construction teams. Thirdly, this study advances methodology in knowledge sharing research by taking advantage of the robustness of a two-stage research design. Using context-specific factors explored from an exploratory study helps to enhance the validity of the research model. / published_or_final_version / Real Estate and Construction / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Keeping stakeholders far from danger is even more urgent for the construction industry which features higher than average accident and fatality rates worldwide. Improving safety proactively and thus saving huge losses incurred through cultivating safety climate (i.e. people’s perception and attitude of safety policies, procedures, and practices at workplaces) has been advocated and studied since 1980s. Nevertheless, the issue remains that what are the antecedents and how do they impact on safety climate and hence safety behavior at the individual level. With the construction industry of Hong Kong in perspective, a plateau of accident statistics reached since the entry into the new millennium calls for research into possible human factors behind the scene. Against such backdrop, the investigation is carried out in an attempt to tackle the issue with both theoretical and practical implications. With the aim at a better understanding of the research question, a two-stage mixed method research design featured with both qualitative and quantitative approaches is adopted. At the first stage, based on extant literature and 17 interviews with local construction practitioners, antecedents of safety climate are ascertained and categorized into five general perspectives, i.e. structural perspective, perceptual perspective, interactive perspective, cultural perspective, and to-be-confirmed perspective capturing factors not belonging to the first four perspectives. To increase the conceptual precision of safety climate and reveal the working mechanism of safety climate, a series of safety climate related outcomes are integrated into an initially hypothesized research model. Measurement instruments and practical relevance of latent constructs of interest are obtained by literature review and interviews. At the second stage, a large scale questionnaire survey targeting at construction practitioners across Hong Kong and case study of a local civil engineering project are conducted concurrently. Based on 292 valid responses, most of the bi-variate correlations between constructs demonstrate support for the hypothesized relationships, despite of some unexpectedly weak effects implied by path coefficients of the initial structural model. After modification based on theory and practice, the modified structural model reveals four routes to forming safety climate, i.e. 1) sound organizational climate through fluent leader-member exchange; 2) client involvement via enforcing safety management system; 3) individualism leading to negative safety climate; and 4) sound supervisory practice contributing to positive safety climate. Furthermore, the revised model confirms the previously found relationships among safety climate and its related outcomes. Learning from the case study which involves six interviews, participant observations of onsite meetings, and analysis of documents including safety plan, safety manual, minutes of safety related meetings, and content analysis of the primary 17 interviews generally corroborate the findings. Taken together, the research achieves the established objectives, provides a framework for future investigations into antecedents of safety climate, and hence suggests that safety is an emergent property of a complicated socio-technical system, involving diversifying factors. The implications of the findings have for devising safety interventions are discussed in the conclusion section, along with limitations and future research directions. / published_or_final_version / Real Estate and Construction / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

published_or_final_version / abstract / Real Estate and Construction / Master / Master of Science in Construction Project Management

published_or_final_version / Real Estate and Construction / Master / Master of Science in Construction Project Management

published_or_final_version / Surveying / Master / Master of Science in Construction Project Management