Based on the findings of a survey carried out in 1995 among Turkish subcontractors, the present paper argues that pressures (time, overload of work and commercial considerations) play an important role in the subcontracting of work by subcontractors to secondary subcontractors. The tendency to...

The main issues in the philosophical foundations of ethics and tendering ethics are outlined, and an introduction is provided to the Australian codes of tendering practice. A questionnaire survey is then described which sought to ascertain the extent to which ethical behaviour in tendering is...

In the UK construction industry there are different strategies used in practice for the insurance of subcontracted work of which two predominate: one is for subcontracted work to be insured by both main contractor and subcontractor (model A) and the other is for only the main contractor to...

When designing a set of prequalification requirements, the first objective is to select the basic factors that are deemed appropriate to scrutinize, and the second objective is to establish the threshold for each of these factors to evaluate the capability and capacity of the bidders on a given...

The notion of quasi-rationality is discussed and some new empirical evidence of actual (as revealed in experiments) rather than theorized behaviour is presented. Results from a series of experiments show evidence of money illusion in perception of salary levels and frame dependent risk aversion...

A number of writers have cited poor records as limiting the ability of supervisors, and indeed of contractors, to carry out some of their most important functions. The study reported in this paper aimed to identify the problems in detail. This was achieved by conducting a mail-shot survey of...

Both the construction and the risk analysis and management literature have overlooked the highly disruptive influence of the loss of key project personnel. It is clear from other industries involved in managing projects, such as information technology, that the likelihood of this adverse event...

Site productivity levels for high rise, in situ concrete operations are compared among three groups of European construction contractors. Results confirm significant differences between the contractor's productivity rates for each of the three countries investigated (Germany, France and the UK)....

The characteristics of the Italian construction market and firm operations are reviewed. The analysis focuses on the environments of the late 1980s and early 1990s, during which major scandals and economic recession ended a business paradigm based on closed competition. Discussion builds upon a...