In the construction industry, the major project participants include the owner, the architect, the contractor and the subcontractors. Traditionally, each participant's activity in the construction process has been isolated to its particular organization's goals. In recent years, one of the leading trends of project deliveries has been a movement toward a more collaborative, teaming environment. Successful collaboration requires effective interaction among project participants. A fundamental understanding of barriers and challenges to effective interaction among a diverse project team is necessary towards creating truly collaborative project teams in construction. Emotional intelligence reflects an individual's emotional awareness and emotional regulation, both important factors of social interaction. An initial understanding of the project participant's emotional intelligence would provide meaningful direction for the construction industry in regards where improvements should be focused. As such, the present research study investigates the 21 components of the Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i) within the construction industry. This investigation creates an emotional intelligence yardstick by which to measure and compare future research. This study also explores several trends and relationships within this benchmarking in regards to demographics and General Contractor characteristics. In addition, this current research explores the General Contracting sector's perception of other A/E/C industry sectors. This research study adds to the already growing research that is focusing on the impact of social factors on the success of the A/E/C industry. The results of this study provide a meaningful initial understanding of the emotional intelligence levels of the General Contracting sector. This initial understanding provides academia and industry with several key findings and directions for future research. / Master of Science

Fragmented and adversarial are words used routinely to describe firstly the structure of the construction industry, and secondly the inherent culture that continues to exist within it. Both are characteristics that ultimately serve to not only routinely constrain the efficiency, performance and resultant productivity of the New Zealand building sector, but moreover they persist to play a part in increasing related costs whilst diminishing the quality of the built environment surrounding us. The ubiquity of the outsource model goes some way towards mitigating much of the risk and financial encumbrances that large construction companies have historically faced. But consequentially it is directly responsible for an industry now propagated mostly by small, specialist trade subcontracting organisations that for the most part are reliant upon securing work through construction companies. Contiguous to a degree is the propensity of an industry focussed upon procuring construction by means of competitive tendering, an approach whereby successful bids are traditionally weighted towards those incorporating the lowest initial cost. To garner an understanding of the role that contextual significance plays in construction procurement this study was facilitated by utilising a constructivist grounded theoretical approach. Data was generated by the way of fifty interviews with construction industry stakeholders, inclusive of Sub-Contractors, Main Contractors, Consultants, Architects and Clients. Subsequent analysis reveals that in response to power asymmetry and other environmental conditions, organisations have developed numerous proactive, reactive and opportunistic strategies and behaviours that become evident as the procurement process progresses. This study highlights and explains the relationships and factors from which an industry actor’s rationale is drawn. Furthermore, however, it argues that the proponents of construction industry procurement will when necessary, relax their ordinarily pre-conditioned moral constraints and consciously venture into business practices considered by their peers to be somewhat immoral.

The purpose of this research is to determine which aspects, other than price, of trade contractor performance are the most important to the general contractor, Big-D Construction. The impression a trade contractor leaves on the project manager and superintendent provides an indication of their performance. To determine what tasks trade contractors perform that most greatly impact overall perception of the general contractor's project manager and superintendent, hundreds of trade contractors were evaluated in ten separate categories and were then given an overall rating. The correlation between each category and the overall rating was found. The categories were then sorted from highest correlation to lowest. Of the ten categories, professionalism had the highest correlation. Next to professionalism, schedule adherence was found to be most important. All of the next six categories: Coordination with other subs, quality of work, technical knowledge of drawings & specs, project close out (O&M's, punchlist, as-builts), monthly invoices - timely and accurate, and accuracy/timeliness of change orders, all had similar impact on overall performance. Daily clean-up and safety attitude, had the least impact on performance, with safety falling significantly lower than every other category. Overall, being professional, keeping to the schedule and doing good work are most important to project management teams, while keeping the job clean is noticeably less and safety is much less important.

In the last decade, BIM has provided the construction industry with countless tools that canbe used during all construction phases (Kam et al., 2016). Implementation of BIM in Icelandat the beginning was driven by the heroic’s individuals. In recent years leadership within theAEC has recognized the opportunities BIM can provide.The aim of this thesis is to map BIM maturity of contractors and sub-contractors in Iceland.The results found that there is a lack of awareness about BIM among small to medium sizedcontractors as well as among sub-contractors. Among the larger contractors and designersmaturity is higher then found in the last study performed for GDDA 2013 (Valdimarssonand Kjartansdóttir, 2013). Recent requirement from large public project owners that requiresBIM has speed up implementation. / Under de senaste årtiondena har BIM erbjudit byggbranschen otaliga verktyg att använda i samtliga faser avbyggprocessen. Implementeringen av BIM på Island har nyligen börjat och drivs främst av entusiaster.Under senare år har utvecklingsarbete visat att BIM kan ge stor nytta.Syftet med den här rapporten är att kartlägga BIM-mognaden hos entreprenörer och underentreprenörer påIsland. Resultaten visar att det saknas medvetenhet och kunskap om BIM bland medelstora och småentreprenörer samt hos underentreprenörer. Bland de större entreprenörerna och hos konsulterna ärkunskapen större än vad som kom fram år 2013 i undersökningen GDDA. Offentliga beställarorganisationerhar nyligen ställt större krav på aktörerna att snabba på implementeringen av BIM

Structural frames are widely used in sectors such as residential, education, commercial, health, retail, leisure etc. and the selection of a structural frame appropriate to a building s function and client needs is a key decision with significant short- and long-term implications. There is a wide choice of structural frame materials for building projects, i.e concrete, steel, timber, or masonry. Although many options are available, these tend to be based on structural steel or reinforced concrete for the simplest buildings. The nature of concrete frame buildings has developed significantly with the emergence of new technologies and innovations particularly in formwork, concrete as a material, and reinforcement developments. As a result, concrete frame construction has become a faster, more sustainable, and safer form of construction. However, competition from other framing materials such as steel have proved challenging. This research was initiated in response to this challenge and represents one organisation s attempt to deliver improvements in order to promote concrete in the UK structural frames market. The organisation is strongly focused on the continued development of concrete through design inspiration and construction efficiency, research strategy, education and training, new product and process innovation and the achievement of best performance of concrete in practice. The research programme was established to address issues that are considered by decision makers when choosing the optimum frame solution for a building project, and to identify how such decisions are made in practice. Both quantitative and qualitative research methods have been adopted during the EngD research including a literature review, industry questionnaire survey and case study. From an initial set of interviews, ten key issues were identified at the early stage of the research as being the most important affecting the structural frame selection for a building project. The structural engineer was found, unsurprisingly, to be the most influential decision-maker in the choice of frame at each stage of design process from a subsequent survey of cost consultants, project managers and clients. The survey also revealed that Design-Build is the preferred procurement route amongst developers of building projects, ranging from complex, high quality projects to simple buildings which suggested that most contractors must be getting involved earlier in the design process and thus could be influencing major decisions, such as the selection of a structural frame. Four case study project teams were examined, from which it was clear that contractors could be influential in the frame selection process if they had the willingness to build in a particular frame type (provided that the frame type selected meets the client s requirements). Key findings on the choice of frame in a Design-Build project and the various actions taken by the contractor were highlighted by the research, including the important role played in the decision-making process by more informed clients, who are much more likely to be influential in deciding on the frame type. Further work could be carried out to assess the specific benefits of early contractor involvement, the factors that affect the extent to which contractors get involved with structural frame decision making and the risk relationship between client and contractor. The findings of this work have been presented in five peer-reviewed papers.

There is an increasing need to reduce energy consumption to tackle the adverse effects of climate change. The UK government has established numerous directives and policies to encourage carbon dioxide (CO2) emission and energy reduction within the non-domestic sector. However these measures are primarily focused towards reducing operational energy (i.e. energy used during building occupier activity), largely overlooking initial embodied energy. The trend towards reduced operational energy consumption due to energy efficient design is leading initial embodied energy to become a more significant part of project life cycle energy. Initial embodied energy relates to the energy use during the material, transportation and construction phases up to project practical completion, which is of keen interest to contractors due to their significant role in project procurement and delivery. Opportunities to address project life cycle energy are typically identified through a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). However at present there is little validated data, no coherent method for data capture and limited incentive for project stakeholders to address initial embodied energy consumption. In response, this research project presents a contractor s practical approach towards assessing initial embodied energy consumption within UK non-domestic construction projects. An action research methodological approach enabled the assessment and potential reduction of initial embodied energy to be explored within a large principal contractor through five research cycles which included diagnosing and action planning, action taking, evaluating and specified learning. A comprehensive framework is designed to highlight the significance of initial embodied energy consumption relative to specific construction packages, activities and sub-contractors. This framework is then explored within three UK non-domestic construction projects (i.e. two industrial warehouses and one commercial office). Capturing information from live projects enables practical challenges and opportunities inherent when addressing initial embodied energy consumption to be identified. A series of contractor current practices are reviewed, and subsequently improved, to enhance their compliance with the framework requirements. The findings emphasise the importance of material phase impacts, especially construction packages which primarily contain steel and concrete-based materials (i.e. ground and upper floor, external slab and frame). The importance of project type, site area, building lifespan and waste consumption are also recognised to reduce initial embodied energy consumption. The framework provides a practical approach for initial embodied energy assessment which can readily be adopted to help highlight further opportunities to reduce energy consumption. The research project concludes by presenting a number of recommendations for consideration by the construction industry and associated stakeholders, along with requirements for future research.

Currently, several state Departments of Transportation (DOTs) are using contractor test results, in conjunction with verification test results, for construction and materials acceptance purposes. While the reasons for using contractor test results for construction and materials acceptance purposes are real (essentially shortage of state DOT staff and intensive construction schedules), the practice itself has fundamental pitfalls. This research reveals the conceptual and technical pitfalls of using contractor test results for acceptance and payment purposes; identifies and ranks potential alternatives and improvements to the use of contractor test results for acceptance and payment purposes; and investigates the potential application of skip-lot sampling as a means for reducing acceptance sampling and testing for highway agencies.

This study focuses on contractors of petrochemical companies in Kaohsiung. It tries to understand the working conditions of contractors¡¦ workers and practices of human resource management of contractors. After interviewing and surveying to on-the-spot directors in petrochemical factories, contractors, and their employees, we found the following results: The characteristics of petrochemical factories using contractors are specialized field, labor service outsourcing, and regular practice. Short of labor and lack of specialization are the major reasons for using contractors. Advantages of using contractors for the most part are efficiency, employment cost, and employment flexibility. On the other hand, disadvantages are low safety consciousness, hard to manage, poor work quality, and high turnover rate of contractors' workers. On the working status of contractors, they undertake many contracted projects simultaneously, and deliver projects over to subcontractor (nearly 30%). The contents of contracted projects are extensive, and the main type is technical work (nearly 75%). Due to contracted periods differ in length, these projects are very unpredictable ,which pushes contractors employ temps to cope with high turnover rate. Contractors hire temps more than permanent workers on average (1.2 times). There are 80% contractors use temps, and the major reason is to meet working demand, the next is financial consideration. That temps have more variations on working contents and places reveals they face higher working uncertainties than permanent workers do. Besides, those temps' income source and average salary are lower than permanent significantly. That shows their economic pressure is higher. They have no job security, so their job satisfaction are lower, and attitude about future are pessimistic. This research also found that job functions, contracting experience, and contracting quantity of contractors would affect their tendency of using temps based on logistic regression analyses. On the human resource management aspects of contractors, most contractors use temps hiring as a way of screening and recruiting formal employees. It is different on recruiting temps and permanent workers. With regard to the source of temps, contractors mostly depend on social network; about 15% were through dispatching labor agency. The educational background of temps is lower, and contractors assign miscellaneous jobs to them mainly. Cleaning and carrying are the next. Most temps have worse fringe benefits (such as labor insurance, health insurance, group life insurance, working bonus, special vacations, etc.). There are 20%~30% workers of contractors have no labor and health insurance, and about 50 % workers have no accident insurance in this high risk area. Considering two facts about temps, high turnover rate and easiness of replacement, the job security of temps is worse. Overall, workers' conditions of contractors were not good at all in this study. It is obvious that they are in greet need of intervention and protection of government, especially in working conditions. On the aspect of risk of about occupational safety, petrochemical factories benefited from contracting but it also raise their safety risk. The accidental rate of contractors is 80%, and temps' is higher than permanent workers¡¦. This kind of fact is also shown in contractors' attitude. They think workers should be responsible for accident. This phenomenon reveal that labor safety and hygiene here is still worth striving.

The trend towards Information Systems (IS) Outsourcing has become an important trend in recent years. With the prevalence of the Internet, international-based, as well as integration of, up-downstream outsourced IS is no longer independently contracted by single contractor units. This has seen relationships between contractor and customer - and between large contractors and small contractors - become increasingly complicated. This is further complicated by the dual pressures on the contractor of offering both a better customer service and controlling cost and quality issues while re-outsourcing to other end contractors. Conflicts can often occur between the members of any outsourcing project because acknowledgement diversities will result in different points of view. The purpose of this research is to identify the possible acknowledgement diversities that may occur between the three types of outsource (Customer, Contractor, End Contractor) during the four key stages of outsourcing (public bidding, contract signing, project development, checking before acceptance). The research basic of the dissertation will be structured by technology frame theories and interviewing will occur in several cases in order to obtain pointed theoretical and practical values for other researchers' reference.

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