Disasters experienced in recent years have had significant impact on people, property and the environment,and this widespread impact has informed the review of policies, mearsures and approches in managing them. Despite response arrangements such as multi-agency response, military efforts and variuos other international efforts, disasters still continue to have a negative impact on communities across the world. While response approaches and arrangements are not incorrect, they are at times not grounded in the minimal response strategies from preparedness phase. This gap emphasises the ralated concepts of practices in emregency management, its phases, and the role of strategic preparedness in ensuring that the impacts of emergencies are better managed. However, review of existing practices and literature shows that there are various explanations and operations for the preparedness phase which do not actually result in effective response to and mitigation of emergency/disasater impact. The preparedness phases as operational in the United States of America (USA), the United Kingdom (UK) and Australia were all examined to identify best practice and effective preparedness cycles and systems. This approach to the research proved useful in identifying the main gaps and problems in the preparedness phase in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is the research case study. Therefore, this resaerch aims to investigate the state of emergency preparedness in the UAE, identify limitations and provide recommendations for the UAE government to adopt strategic approach for improving emergency preparedness in the UAE. Following examination of the National Response Framework (NRF), a series of interviews was carried out in the UAE which confirmed that no preparedness system, framework or cycle existed. Qualitative methods of data collection and documentation were adopted to examine the current preparedness practice in the UAE, its application and effectiveness. Content analysis was used to analyse these data which helped to identify barriers to the current deployment of the preparedness phase in the UAE. The findings of this research show that the eight elements for emergency preparedness are missing in the UAE emergency management system. This finding affirms the need for a startegic approach which combines all eight elements of emergency preparedness in the UAE. Therefore, both barriers to deployment of the preparedness phase and the lack of elements of preparedness provided the basis for the recommendation made in order to strategically improve the emergency preparedness phase in the UAE.

This research deals with the development of framework for assessing a joint venture (JV) model as of outsourcing relationship that that can be used to lead to process improvements in the healthcare system in Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMIC). A range of articles were reviewed to investigate different concepts relevant to the research toward exploring the factors affecting the successful implementation of a JV model as outsourcing relationship for healthcare services in LMICs. This was followed by three stages of semi-structured and structured interviews and group discussions and survey questionnaires, with healthcare providers, policy makers, vendors, consultants and other stakeholders from LMIC. The results support test of proposition and guide the validation process by using interpretive structural modelling (ISM) to allow the development of the implementation strategy framework. The research finding indicates that the healthcare system in the LMICs must incorporate JV in implementing outsourcing that addresses process improvement and needed knowledge transfer. One of the practical implications, the improvement of the LMIC healthcare setting require partnership with all major stakeholders and technology providers to explore further beyond the traditional organizational boundary as the framework for analysis. The findings presented in this research, help to support views on expanding the use of JV as an approach for improvement in LMIC healthcare system based on the conceptual framework in relation to the key identified factors. In addition, the researchers can use this model as a foundational framework for further research. Key words: Joint venture, outsourcing, healthcare, low and middle-income countries, developing countries.

Unmanaged urban brownfields are widely perceived as wastelands and derelict empty spaces in need of a determined future end-use; how people utilize these spaces and connect with unmanaged nature appears inconsequential. There is a dearth of knowledge on the Cultural Ecosystem Services (CES) of seemingly abandoned urban brownfields. The benefits of these sites as natural green space CES providers are neglected. Consequently, they are latent landscapes not fully understood or taken into consideration by decision-makers. Perspectives on brownfields vary: informed by profession, discipline, experiential knowledge, and brownfield terminology. Knowledge from across disciplines that articulates connections that shed light on unmanaged brownfields as CES providers is reviewed critically. Process-led interdisciplinary fieldwork - integrating participatory social art practice, durational and performative public art - was used to explore every day phenomena of brownfields, and link the environmental settings and nature of unmanaged brownfields to cultural practices, benefits, and values. Analysis of the data generated by the fieldwork reveals that unmanaged brownfields are accessed for cultural practices - play and exercise; creating and expressing; producing and caring; gathering and consuming - that yield cultural benefits. Reflexive practice provides a rich picture of unmanaged urban brownfields as CES providers: as natural green space for near-by communities and urban nature explorers. It also reveals physical and sociocultural barriers that affect access, perception, and appreciation. Unmanaged urban brownfields have cultural value for those who use them. The interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences research and practice presented here reveals cultural practices and hitherto not-yet-valued CES of unmanaged urban brownfields. This is a new area of research: a first step in embedding approaches from these disciplines within ecosystem service and CES research. This research also identifies a need for an interdisciplinary characterization of brownfields to fully understand brownfields as environmental settings and the gamut of CES they provide.

The literature relating to construction in implemented and developing countries indicates that key improvements in construction work delivery and better performance could be achieved through ICT elements and e-business. In view of the improvement of Ghana’s economy, a key role of Ghana’s Government is to improve the construction industry to enable it meet the government’s agenda for delivering economic and strategic infrastructure that meets Ghana’s middle-income status. This is of particular significance to the Ghanaian construction industry; however, local construction firms lack the technological capacity and capability to work in an integrated environment that is supported by e-business technology. These limitations can be overcome if local firms are encouraged to take advantage through collaboration in view of the increased participation in the construction industry by large foreign firms who employ qualified personnel and have the capacity to deploy e-business and appreciate it in their operations. Notably, these foreign construction firms are taking advantage of the good investment climate in Ghana and are utilising Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) as a mode of entry. However, the issues pertaining to detailed assessments of how these foreign firms help to improve skills and technological capacity and capability of local firms in line with the investment laws have not been adequately investigated. Assessing the capacity and capability requirements of the local firms can provide the baseline for technology transfer from foreign firms to their local counterparts, moreover, this has been subjected to a very limited academic research in some cases, none at all. This research seeks to identify the fundamental requirements for e-business technology transfer to the Ghanaian construction industry for improving procurement and project management processes through an in-depth exploration of the issues identified. This research is premised on interpretivist research philosophy and utilises FDI as a medium of e-business technology transfer to the Ghanaian construction industry. Therefore, the case study research strategy was adopted in conducting this research. Although positioned within interpretivist philosophical stance, a mixed method research approach consisting of a questionnaire survey of local firms within the Ghanaian construction industry to explore the technological capacity of local firms as a precursor to e-business technology transfer and semi-structured interviews of case study foreign and local firms were employed to investigate the research questions. The findings of the questionnaire survey demonstrated that the capacity of the local firms operating in the Ghanaian construction industry is quite low coupled with limited knowledge about e-business. Additionally, the case study revealed barriers such as low ICT skills and technical skills and inadequate national ICT infrastructure to support the deployment of e-business. Also, the case study revealed that e-business can bring about improved communication, reduction in postage and travel cost and online access to tender documents. What is more, the in-depth case study revealed key fundamental elements for e-business technology transfer, namely: capacity and capability development; legal/security systems and ICT/Internet infrastructure. A conceptual framework was then developed representing the fundamental elements of e-business technology transfer informed by the findings of the research. The research provided an original contribution to the development of e-business capability within local firms in the Ghanaian construction industry.

The study aims to uncover the dynamics of innovation-influencing factors within a developing country context as there is a need for empirical research within a weak national system of innovation. One theory that can enhance our understanding of the analytical power of the dynamics of innovation-influencing factors broadly and deeply, is the Theory of Innovation Management, but this perspective lacks the ability to appreciate the varying effect of influencing factors on innovation activities with evolutionary change, and hence, to predict the future innovation performance. This research fills this gap and investigates the dynamic, complex, and interdependent relationships between an organisation’s past, present, and emergent life, with special reference to innovation-influencing factors at the organisational level. In so doing, the study considers three key research questions, these being: (a) are there specific patterns of dynamics of organisational factors influencing innovation and types of innovation adoption, and if so what are the dynamics of organisational factors that affect the adoption of innovation with the evolutionary change of the organisations? (b) how do the dynamics of organisational factors affect the adoption of innovation? and (c) why do the dynamics of organisational factors affect the adoption of innovation? In addressing these three research questions, first, the existing innovation-related literature was critically reviewed. Secondly, a survey was conducted of 145 software firms to identify the dynamics of innovation-influencing factors. Thirdly, empirical work was undertaken in four software companies in Sri Lanka to build the explanations relating to the effect of organisational dynamics on firms’ innovation activities. And finally, the evidence from the questionnaire survey and the case studies was corroborated to strengthen the findings. The empirical results show that firms move from an informal organisation to a more formal business corporation and adopt different types of innovation at different stages of organisational development. It was found that the adoption of innovation takes the form of product-process and organisational pattern, and that there is harmony between the pattern of innovation adoption and organisational dynamics. This study also reveals the varying effect of organisation-specific factors on innovation at different stages as these factors remain within the organisation as residual, dominant, and emergent forms at a certain point in time.

Natural disasters have long-term implications on sustainable development. They mainly destroy the built environment thereby hindering economic and social development, and causing environment degradation. Mainstreaming disaster risk reduction into the built environment is therefore critical for ensuring sustainable development. Improving the resilience of humans who live in the built environment, particularly the more vulnerable is a significant component of accomplishing overall disaster risk reduction in the built environment (DRR in the BE). Having observed women to be a group of humans more vulnerable to natural disasters due to social, economic, biological conditions and processes and their roles and responsibilities, it was recognised that it is important to mainstream them into disaster risk reduction within the context of the built environment. In this context, this doctoral research investigates the process of mainstreaming women, i.e. how the knowledge and needs of women, which help to reduce their disaster vulnerability, can be identified and integrated into the built environment. The research design of the study incorporates a social constructivism view point and associates with constructionism ontology and interpretivism epistemology. A literature review and a pilot round of interviews with experts in DRR in the BE were undertaken to improve the knowledge of the associated concepts pertaining to the research. Empirical investigation of the study incorporates a single case, mono method research which deploys qualitative, in-depth interviews for data collection. Sri Lanka is the case study for the research whilst the interview respondents are a group of professionals involved in DRR in the BE of the country. Data analysis for the study follows thematic analysis and combines inductive reasoning and abductive reasoning in order to build systematic, explanatory accounts from concepts and meanings embedded in the interview responses. The study reveals the importance of the process of mainstreaming women into DRR in the BE whilst demonstrating the various types of DRR knowledge and needs of women and, methods that facilitate identification of the needs and knowledge, and the ways of integrating them into the built environment. A set of guidelines is developed to inform the process of mainstreaming, identifying the existing barriers, ways of promoting the process, parties responsible, relevant protocols and suggestions for good practice in implementing the process. Improvements to the regulatory framework, enhancement of essential resources and awareness building of all relevant parties are considered to be the main ways towards process improvement.

Partnering and related forms of collaboration have been seen as a way of tackling fragmentation and lack of integration that have bedevilled attempts to improve project performance over the years. Despite the amount of interest shown in partnering, actual empirical research is sparse and much of the work is notable for its prescriptive tendencies and heavy reliance on anecdotal data with a focus on the experience of the exemplar organisations. Thus, it is important to adequately address and evaluate the challenges and potential problems in construction partnering. A synthesis of construction partnering literature shows that central to any successful partnering arrangement is the change in cultural and behavioural characteristics towards mutual trust and understanding. Therefore, it is essential to bring about cultural change, which encourages project participants to transgress conflicting interests and to build a shared culture. Leadership is seen as the source of beliefs and values that forms shared assumptions of organisational culture. Hence, it is important to focus on leadership practices to embed and transmit a collaborative culture in construction partnering projects. This research investigates cultural and behavioural challenges via a systematic literature review and refines its root causes by collecting and analysing interview data from academic and industry experts. Content analysis of root causes and challenges were represented in the form of a cultural web diagram, and categorised into rituals and routines, stories, symbols, power, structure and control system related challenges. Content analysis of relevant leadership practices pointed out the significance of embedding and reinforcing leadership practices during the construction stage of a project to address cultural and behavioural root causes. This initial conceptual framework for leadership practices was then refined using a multiple case study research approach on UK construction partnering projects. This initial conceptual framework for leadership practices was then refined using a multiple case study research approach on UK construction partnering projects. The findings of this study indicate that a threefold leadership framework comprising ‘initial embedding mechanisms’, ‘continuous embedding mechanisms’ and ‘reinforcement mechanisms’ is essential to tackle cultural and behavioural challenges and their root causes in construction partnering projects.

The idea that the deployment and strategic utilization of information technology (IT) resources as factors of production can be used by organisations to improve performances has been around for many decades. The contributions of the IT resources in improving organisation’s performances give rise to what is termed IT business value (ITBV). There have been varieties of conceptualizations and attempts to measure the ITBV by different researchers. However, most of these attempts to quantify ITBV have led to inconsistencies and paradoxes. Furthermore, a major part of the literature in the area continues to be anecdotal and primarily descriptive. Therefore, there is little evidence of an accepted theoretical framework for applying the ideas and there is even less in the way of empirical evidence concerning the validity and utility of these concepts. The research adopts multi-theoretical concepts of process-based, resource-based and microeconomics views as the theoretical framework in order to mitigate the absence of structured theoretical framework in the previous studies. A non parametric approach of Data Envelopment Analysis was used for empirical testing of the model developed. The findings present an empirically tested model for benchmarking IT-induced productivity in construction industry. Also the outcome of the research establishes that IT provides business value in undertaking the engineering and construction business processes, which leads to significant impact on the organisations performances in the areas of project delivery, customer relationship and overall profit growth. For practical purposes, the model could be used to provide support to managers in decision making on IT investments, utilization of the IT resources and how combination of strategic IT resources with other organizational resources could in increase efficiency in delivering project value chains.

Traditionally, healthcare infrastructure programmes and projects determine their level of success mainly against cost, quality and time of delivery, and not on the degree to which benefits or impacts are delivered. Too often people have assumed that a programme or project will achieve certain benefits, without carrying out analysis to find out what users, partners and other stakeholders really value or how these benefits are to be achieved. They concentrate their efforts on achieving outputs, such as a new building, an Information Technology (IT) system, or a change to a service. By the time these goals are delivered, there is limited understanding of the specific anticipated benefits and limited ability to influence, or even track, their achievements. Targeting clarification of impacts and benefits is emerging as a method to assist healthcare organisations to manage whole life cycle of programmes from development, construction to operations and facilities management. This was presented as an opportunity to investigate into the development of a Benefits Realisation (BeReal) process. A constructive and case study research strategy was deployed for the investigation, development and validation of the BeReal process. A number of research methods such as workshops, observations and questionnaires were used to collect data for the research. A relevant literature review was conducted and included reviews into benefits management and realisation approaches and its satellite subjects, including programme and project management, stakeholder management, evaluation techniques etc. The literature review findings, discussions with healthcare practitioners and experts in the subject area as well as the author’s personal experiences were integrated with a number of case study findings to inform, develop and validate the BeReal process. The process consists of five phases, which consider the identification and use of benefits as the main driver for the delivery of healthcare infrastructure projects with a more predictable success outcome. The main contribution of this research is in terms of presenting a methodology of investigating and developing a process that embraces a benefits realisation approach. The process is built upon integrating project management best practices and continuous improvement methods. It promotes knowledge flow down and sharing by managing stakeholders’ expectations throughout the change lifecycle, when planning and delivering infrastructure programmes.

The frequent occurrences of unprecedented natural disasters continue to pose the greatest threat to many countries around the world. The ‘shock’ that these natural disasters give has taken a toll especially on developing countries’ economies. Many vulnerable groups within these countries are the most severely affected by disasters. Among them, women face many difficulties during the post disaster phase. Apart from poverty, environmental degradation and different needs of men and women, the marginalised role of women in post disaster reconstruction further contributes to women's vulnerability in post disaster situations. In most of the instances, although disaster management efforts are designed to benefit both men and women, in practice a larger share of benefits and resources go to men while women continue to remain marginalised. One of the main sustainable means to overcome the marginalised conditions of women is through an adjustment process to allow them to fulfil their basic human development needs. The concept of empowerment is based on the understanding that those who have been denied the ability to make strategic life choices can acquire such ability through this concept. The concept of empowerment facilitates a process whereby individual attitudes and capabilities, combined with collaborative actions result in a transformation to the desired achievements. In this context, the research aims to explore and investigate the concept of empowerment for women within post disaster reconstruction in order to formulate a strategy that integrates community women’s empowerment in disaster reconstruction activities. This research takes a position in between a positivism stance and a social constructionism stance in the continuum of philosophy and adapts a survey research strategy with mixed methods of research techniques. The research data collection was conducted in three phases. During the first phase, semi-structured interviews were conducted among experts in Sri Lanka while the second phase focused on collecting the perspectives from disaster affected communities using structured interviews and questionnaires. The third phase gathered information from groups of the affected communities’ members. Data was then analysed using content analysis, cognitive mapping and descriptive statistical techniques. The research investigated women’s status in post disaster situations; effects of post disaster reconstruction on women; and established factors that influence women’s empowerment in post disaster reconstruction. In addition, the research recommended strategies that could empower women during post disaster reconstruction. It is expected that the research will add empirical evidence on the process of women’s empowerment in post disaster reconstruction to the existing body of knowledge, and will benefit the government, humanitarian organisations and research institutions working on women’s empowerment.