Morality is fast becoming an integral part of the mandate for business through both societal and regulatory pressures. Collusive tendering is one of the moral choices facing decision-makers in the construction industry. This paper describes an empirical investigation of the attitudes and...

This paper presents an overview of the philosophy, structure and key objectives of R&D activity in the Japanese construction industry. It argues that this unique model of a close partnership between industry, government and society is based on shared values, and delivers significant benefits not...

Function analysis (FA) is considered to be at the core of value management (VM). However, research in the construction industry in the United States and Hong Kong indicates that this fundamental process is sometimes abbreviated or omitted from the VM process. In examining this situation in the...

The main task of contractors' estimators is to predict the likely costs involved in executing a future project. This is an onerous job as any errors made can undermine project success and ultimately reduce the contractors' profit margins. The inherent uncertainty of most construction work,...

Many public construction projects have been undertaken throughout the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as part of the government's national development plans in the past three decades, with significant public expenditure involved. One of the critical problems concerning these projects is the frequent and...

A great body of knowledge exists on the theory of auctions and competitive bidding that is of potential relevance to construction contract tendering. Most of this, however, contains assumptions—such as perfect information—that are unlikely to be tenable in practice. The aim, therefore, is to...

Cost estimators play an important role in an organization, as they produce most predictions of probable final construction cost. Since both under- and overestimates can be costly, attention should be paid to the estimating tasks. People involved are therefore likely to experience a considerable...

The selection of a competent architect is vital to the success of a development. Like in many developed countries, developers in Hong Kong select architects based on a set of criteria. Price is not the only consideration in the process, and decisions rely heavily on subjective judgement. By...

Previous research on building pre-tender cost estimating stresses the importance of giving accurate estimates and minimizing estimating errors. Cost models, especially those mathematical models using mean square error or the like for model training and validation, often treat positive errors...

This paper is concerned with identifying universal criteria for prequalification and bid evaluation, and the means by which different emphases can be accommodated to suit the requirements of clients and projects. The information, assessment and evaluation strategies currently used by procurers...