Stakeholders are considered to be one of the key drivers for any construction project. On the other hand, the performance of construction projects is primarily driven by sustainability-related targets. Hence, there is a need for a systematic approach to engage the stakeholders, as part of the Project Management process, to achieve the construction sustainability. This research focused on stakeholder engagement with the aim to improve the construction project performance through achieving construction sustainability. A framework is developed which integrates stakeholders with sustainability driven project performance. This research performs an empirical investigation through mixed-method research as the appropriate research technique. Data collection of this research is carried out in two stages. A series of semi structured interviews were carried out with 16 experienced UK construction professionals. Prior literature were used to design the interview questions about different issues related to the stakeholder engagement, construction sustainability and construction project performance. The aim of the interview is to investigate the current issues and practices of the construction projects are facing relating to engaging stakeholder to make the construction sustainable to improve the construction project performance. Some of the hypotheses are generated relating to the findings from the interviews and literature reviews. After analysing the interviews, a questionnaire is designed based on the findings from the interviews. Questionnaires were mailed to 500 UK construction companies and 233 (46 per cent) responses were received. The aim of this survey is to find out a structured and appropriate methodology to accomplish the requirements of making the construction sector more sustainable by improving its performance. Typically, questionnaires will be used to get the participants opinion in order to produce data to follow. These data will be used to test the hypothesis. These two approaches were adopted to align the participant’s opinions and beliefs and to develop jointly acceptable strategies with agreed long-term, sustainable solutions. Statistical Package for Social Science [SPSS] is selected and used to analyse the questionnaire responses. Correlation analysis revealed that the extent of the impact of stakeholder engagement to achieve the construction sustainability and improving the construction project performance. ANOVA revealed the variation of the perception of participant’s roles and companies’ strategic focuses towards the stakeholder’s engagement, construction sustainability and construction project performance. In essence, adhering to the various levels of implementation presented will ensure that construction sector can derive the maximum benefit from stakeholder engagement and that the decision-making process and the actions regarded as critical are taken into consideration. Based on the findings from the interview and questionnaire survey a conceptual framework is set out that underline the preparation and presentation of stakeholder engagement to improve the construction project performance through achieving construction sustainability. This derived framework demonstrates that such engagement can be valuable in anticipating the expectations of the different stakeholders from the projects, which may impact on behaviour. Finally, this research provides recommendations from both a theoretical and practical point of view to improve the stakeholder’s impact on construction sustainability and construction project performance.

This thesis proposes a classification system of risk mitigation strategies based on literature search and industry interviews. Following that, a list of generic properties was generated to describe individual strategies. In parallel, populating the properties of a large number of identified strategies was attempted. The practical implications are discussed mainly focusing on knowledge management for risk mitigation strategies. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Civil Engineering, Department of / Graduate

Nowadays, organizations implement projects for many purposes. Using the project as a strategic success factor for project-oriented companies is continuously increasing. However, most of the time, the results are not the same as planned. Some projects fail to achieve their objectives; others are canceled, whereas on some other cases, companies have to re-plan their strategy. Project-oriented companies know that maintaining an ideal and logical balance between the project’s time, cost, and quality constraints can vastly guaranty project success. Therefore, they should switch from traditional project management to modern and advanced project management methodology, which improves project performance and efficiency over its life cycle. One of the most applicable tools used to assess and monitor project performance and thus finding the associated issues is Project Audit, which is a comprehensive and organized assessment of the effectiveness and efficiency of project performance, management, and compliance. In this research, an integrated project audit model is presented that incorporates a detailed design module, which shows the structure of the model, questionnaire module, and a scoring module. The model is developed as an integrated project audit application where the user is easily able to select, plan, implement, and report a project audit. The model’s output consists of two parts: 1) a comprehensive report that shows the project situation in five main project processes and nine project functions. This report presents the project’s score in a specific function and its related process (i.e., planning cost or closing procurement); 2) useful analytical reports and graphs of the project performance. In this part, the model compares the project’s planned and actual time and cost, calculates their variances, and forecasts the final cost and time based on the current performance. The model is validated by using an actual Oil and Gas project to test its workability and capabilities. Three groups will benefit from this model; 1) owners; 2) project managers and project team; 3) general contractors and construction companies. The model helps project owners to identify problems early on and reduce project waste in terms of time, effort, material and costs. Moreover, it provides owners the opportunity to identify the project performance from the cost and time constraints. Also, after using this model, project managers and project team have a list of findings that need to be addressed to enhance the overall project performance. The various reports of the model not only provide detail information about project constraints (time, cost, and quality) but it also present valuable analysis related to other aspect of the project (i.e. risk, scope, and communication) which are very useful for the project team. Furthermore, the developed lessons learned from the project can be documented with this model, which is very useful for general contractors and construction companies in future projects.

The theme of this thesis is controlling and its application in the management of large construction projects. The theoretical part defines controlling its functions and activities, and explores its application in the management of construction contracts on the basis of professional literature. The practical part describes and evaluates the application of controlling in specific construction company in managing the various phases of construction projects. Conclusion of the practical part contains a summary assessment of controlling construction projects, including proposed changes.

The construction industry is one of the most significant industrial contributors to the economy in terms of gross product and employment. As a result, the success of a construction project is a fundamental issue to most governments, users and communities. The thesis addresses the role of the contractor in construction project success as one of the main stakeholders in the project.The research aims to study the impact of contractors’ attributes on project success from a post-construction evaluation perspective to identify what goes right and to recognise the most critical success factors (CSFs) of contractors that greatly impact on project success and link those factors to project success objectives. Initially, a literature review on construction project success was conducted to investigate the success criteria and CSFs of contractors in project success. This was followed by a survey to establish construction professionals’ perceptions of the CSFs of contractors that greatly impact on the success of construction projects.One hundred and sixty-four (164) completed surveys were returned, representing a 32% response rate. The data gathered was analysed using quantitative analysis tools (SPSS). Factor analysis reveals nine underlying clusters perceived to greatly impact the success of projects, namely: (i) health, safety and quality; (ii) past performance; (iii) environment; (iv) management and technical aspects; (v) resource; (vi) organisation; (vii) experience; (viii) size/type of previous projects; and (ix) finance.Four logistic regression and artificial neural network models were developed to predict the most important contractor factors associated with project success. The predictive ability of neural network models outperforms that of logistic models by 47.5% for scheduling model; 34.8% for budget model; 46.2% for quality model; and 46.5% for contractors’ impact model. Assuming that project success is repeatable, these findings provide a clear understanding of contractors’ performance and could potentially enhance existing knowledge of construction project success.

The Federal Government spends $40 billion dollars a year maintaining its facility portfolio. As a result of the size of investment and current economic conditions, the government and other institutional owners are facing increased pressure to optimize their investment in their portfolios. Green design offers a way for owners to accomplish this. Part of the definition used by the General Services Administration (GSA) for sustainable or green design is minimizing the total life-cycle ownership cost of a facility. Many tools, such as BUILDER or IMPACT, are available to aid institutional owners in this task; however, most do not take into account non-rational behavior since they apply a strict rational logic. In order to develop tools that take non-rational behavior into account, a framework needs to be developed for identifying which actors are worth studying or modeling. This research seeks to fill this gap by developing a framework that can be applied to public sector institutional owners. The framework is based on prior work done in the fields of stakeholder theory and engineering management, and it uses research methodologies from the social sciences as its building blocks. / Master of Science

Risk management is quite a broad and essential part of project management in construction projects. Often, risk management focuses on perceived risks that can easily be predicted and managed. However, little attention is given to novel risks or risks that are not possible to predict and are unforeseen. Construction projects face these risks repeatedly, and decisions made when they occur are filled with so many discrepancies. The covid-19 virus is an example of a novel virus that no one perceived, which surprised the construction industry. This master thesis explores how organisations in the construction industry in Zimbabwe managed risk related to covid-19 in construction projects and what impact the pandemic had on current risk management practices. This study is an exploratory case study, and semi-structured interviews were utilised to collect data and answer the research questions. The study's findings highlight the major risks related to covid-19 that were faced in construction projects, the particular actions related to risk management that were taken to manage the risk and the impact of covid-19 on risk management frameworks for construction projects in Zimbabwe. Risks posed by the coronavirus to construction projects in Zimbabwe included operational risks, financial risks, productivity risks, supply chain risks, production delay risks and coronavirus infection risks. Mandatory guidelines and ISO procedures mainly influenced the actions taken to manage coronavirus related risks. Measures included introducing extra health safety measures on construction sites such as regular testing and screening and social distancing. Lastly, the impact on construction project risk management frameworks included changes to adapt to the new way of operating with covid-19. These changes include the increase in the budget allocation for novel risks and increased integration of technology in risk management. A small section of the study briefly discusses the Swedish context to capture insights into how the Swedish construction industry was affected by the covid-19 pandemic. Since Sweden did not go into lock down, it was interesting to reflect on how they were affected, and the actions taken to manage covid-19 related risks in that context. / Riskhantering är en ganska bred och väsentlig del av projektledning i byggprojekt. Ofta fokuserar riskhanteringen på upplevda risker som lätt kan förutsägas och hanteras. Men lite uppmärksamhet ägnas unika risker eller risker som inte är möjliga att förutse och är oförutsedda. Byggprojekt möter dessa risker upprepade gånger, och beslut som fattas när de inträffar är fyllda med så många avvikelser. Covid-19-viruset är ett exempel på ett unikt virus som ingen uppfattade, vilket överraskade byggindustrin. Denna masteruppsats undersöker hur organisationer inom byggindustrin i Zimbabwe hanterade risker relaterade till covid-19 i byggprojekt och vilken inverkan pandemin hade på nuvarande riskhanteringsmetoder. Denna studie är en utforskande fallstudie och semistrukturerade intervjuer användes för att samla in data och svara på forskningsfrågorna. Studiens resultat belyser de stora riskerna relaterade till covid-19 som stod inför i byggprojekt, de särskilda åtgärderna relaterade till riskhantering som vidtogs för att hantera risken och effekten av covid-19 på riskhanteringsramverk för byggprojekt i Zimbabwe. Risker som coronaviruset utgör för byggprojekt i Zimbabwe inkluderar operationella risker, finansiella risker, produktivitetrisker, risker kopplade till försörjningskedjan, produktionsföreningrisker och risk för coronavirusinfektion. Obligatoriska riktlinjer och ISO-procedurer påverkade huvudsakligen de åtgärder som vidtogs för att hantera risker relaterade till coronaviruset. Åtgärder omfattade att införa extra hälsosäkerhetsåtgärder på byggarbetsplatser som regelbundna tester och screening och social distansering. Slutligen, effekten på ramverk för riskhantering av byggprojekt inkluderade förändringar för att anpassa sig till det nya sättet att arbeta med covid-19. Dessa förändringar inkluderar ökningen av budgetanslaget för unika risker och ökad integrering av teknik i riskhanteringen. En liten del av studien diskuterar kort den svenska kontexten för att fånga insikter om hur den svenska byggindustrin påverkades av covid-19-pandemin. Eftersom Sverige inte gick in i lockdown var det intressant att reflektera över hur de påverkades och vilka åtgärder som vidtagits för att hantera covid-19 relaterade risker i det sammanhanget.

The purpose of this study is to describe and understand how the work with Knowledge Management (KM) is performed in the Swedish construction process of condominiums/rental apartments. This in order to develop a conceptual framework of the influence of culture, collaboration and trust on KM (tacit knowledge, explicit knowledge, the KM process, and knowledge sharing and transfer) in the Swedish construction process of condominiums/rental apartments.The purpose of this study is to describe and understand how the work with Knowledge Management (KM) is performed in the Swedish construction process of condominiums/rental apartments. This in order to develop a conceptual framework of the influence of culture, collaboration and trust on KM (tacit knowledge, explicit knowledge, the KM process, and knowledge sharing and transfer) in the Swedish construction process of condominiums/rental apartments. The theoretical framework consists of classical KM theories in order to develop a knowledge base for the concept of KM. The classical KM theories are presented together with more recent theories concerning KM. Influencing factors such as culture, collaboration and trust are added to the theoretical framework in relation to KM in order to present the human factors of KM (non-IT KM). There has also been a focus on knowledge sharing and transfer since they are of great importance in the specific research context of this study.  The findings was that culture, collaboration and trust have a strong impact on the way the different parties work with KM. Therefore, these concepts are found to be essential for enabling an effective KM, especially knowledge sharing and transfer. The parties do not have an extensive formal KM strategy that includes technological parts. Nor do they have a formal strategy that deals with culture, collaboration and trust and therefore they rely on the relationships and the human factor.

The United Kingdom (UK) construction industry is one of the worst industries in the UK in terms of health and safety (H&S) performance. Numerous injuries, deaths, dangerous occurrences and work related illnesses are reported annually in the industry, and these are associated with huge economic and social costs which make the need for H&S improvement inevitable. The pursuit of improvement has triggered studies into construction accident causation which have emphasised the need to pay attention to underlying accident causal factors which emanate from the pre-construction stage in order to have sustained improvement in H&S. Construction project features (CPFs), such as nature of project, method of construction, site restriction, procurement method, project duration, level of construction, design complexity, and subcontracting, which are organisational, physical, and operational characteristics of projects emanating from pre-construction decisions fall in this category of underlying causal factors. However, despite the significance of underlying causal factors to H&S, not much attention by way of research has been given to CPFs. As a result, insight into how CPFs influence accident occurrence, the degree of their inherent potential to influence accident occurrence (i.e. their potential to cause accident) and their associated degree of H&S risk (i.e. the likelihood of accident occurrence due to CPFs) remain elusive in the extant construction H&S literature. This research was thus undertaken to empirically investigate the mechanism by which CPFs influence accident occurrence and assess their degree of potential to influence accident occurrence and their associated H&S risk. Adopting a mixed method approach, the accident causal influence of CPFs was investigated. Following a conceptualisation of how CPFs influence accident occurrence based on systems models of accident causation, a qualitative inquiry involving semi-structured interviews with experienced construction professionals was undertaken to provide empirical verification of the conceptualised view. Subsequent to the qualitative inquiry, a questionnaire survey was undertaken to elicit relevant data from experienced professionals in construction management roles to enable the assessment of the degree of potential of CPFs to influence accident occurrence and their associated H&S risk. From the analysis of data, it was found that CPFs, emanating from pre-construction decisions, influence accident occurrence by their inherent introduction of certain associated H&S issues (which can be termed as proximal accident factors) into the construction phase of projects to give rise to accidents. There are also causal interactions between CPFs and the proximal factors which can reduce or increase the presence of proximal factors. CPFs have varying degrees of potential to influence accident occurrence which can generally be high or moderate and is influenced by: the extent to which their proximal factor(s) is common (in other words prevalent) within them; and the degree of potential of the proximal factor(s) to influence accident occurrence. Where CPFs apply on a project, they are generally associated with medium risk or high risk. Whereas with medium-risk CPFs some risk control measures would suffice in mitigating risk, with high-risk CPFs substantial measures are required. As a consolidation of the research findings, a toolkit, called CRiMT, has been developed. CRiMT provides H&S risk information regarding CPFs and it has the potential of assisting pre-construction project participants in managing the accident causal influence of CPFs from the early stage of project procurement. In view of the findings, the accident causal influence of CPFs should thus not be ignored or underestimated in construction project delivery. Pre-construction project participants, especially those whose decisions determine CPFs, ought to take into consideration the H&S effects of CPFs when making decisions which determine CPFs. Also, pre-construction project participants ought to plan and implement commensurate risk control measures in the early stage of projects to eliminate or mitigate the H&S risk posed by CPFs.

Disertacijoje nagrinėjamos statybos projekto valdymas, jame dalyvaujan-čios ir savo tikslus siekiančios įgyvendinti suinteresuotos grupės bei valdymą veikianti išorinė makro- ir mikroaplinka. Norint sukurti ir pasiekti efektyvų statybos projektų valdymą, reikia atlikti kompleksinę jo etapų analizę. Be to, reikia atsižvelgti į projekto, organizacinės ir išorinės aplinkos veiksnių poveikį. Nagrinėjamas statybos projektų valdymo efektyvumo didinimas, panaudojant daugia¬kriterinės analizės sprendimų paramos metodus ir informacines techno-logijas. Darbo tikslas – įvertinti ir pagerinti statybos projektų valdymo efektyvu-mą, naudojant sukurtą Integruoto projektų valdymo modelį. Naudojant šį mo-delį buvo sukurta Daugiakriterinė statybos projektų valdymo sprendimų para-mos sistema, pagrįsta sudėtingų sistemų teorija ir daugiakriterinės analizės bei variantinio projektavimo metodais. Darbą sudaro įvadas, trys skyriai, išvados ir pasiūlymai, literatūros sąrašas. Pirmame skyriuje apžvelgiama esama situacija ir pasiekimai projekto val-dymo srityje, valdymo metodai ir sistemos, vertinimo kriterijai ir valdymo pro-ceso modeliavimo principai. Antrame skyriuje analizuojamos marketingo sistemos, efektyvumo para-metrai ir aprašomas sukurtas Integruoto projektų valdymo modelis. Trečiame skyriuje aprašomi sprendimų paramos sistemos elementai, pla-čiai aprašomi sistemos vertinimo komponentų sukūrimas. Pasiūlytasis metodas iliustruotas aprašant aktualaus praktikoje uždavinio sprendimą... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The dissertation investigates management of construction project, that of the participating and pursuing the aims interested parties and that of external macro-micro environment influencing the process. Aiming for efficient design and construction project management an integrated analysis of the process stages is needed. The contribution of project, organizational and external envi-ronment factors should also be taken into account. The investigated problem is assigned to an increasing the efficiency of construction project management via employing the multiple criteria decision support methods and information technologies. The aim of the dissertation is the evaluation and enhancement of the effec-tiveness of construction project management by employing the created Model for Integrated Project Management. This model is used to develop the Con-struction Project Management Multiple Criteria Decision Support System based on the complex systems theory and methods of multiple criteria analysis and multi alternative design. The thesis consists of an introduction, three chapters, conclusions and sug-gestions, and the list of references. The first Chapter introduces the current situation and achievements in con-struction management, approaches and systems in construction, valuation crite-ria and modeling principles of the process. The second Chapter is assigned to analysis of marketing systems, effi-ciency values and the developed model for integrated project management. The third... [to full text]