Globalising knowledge and internationalising practice

Citation

Kumaraswamy, M. (2016), "Globalising knowledge and internationalising practice", Built Environment Project and Asset Management, Vol. 6 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/BEPAM-09-2015-0042

Globalising knowledge and internationalising practice

Article Type: Editorial From: Built Environment Project and Asset Management, Volume 6, Issue 1.

As we progress to five issues per year from BEPAM Volume 6, it is timely to note that we have moved rapidly, and more important steadily and sustainably, from the two issues per year with which we started in 2011, to four per year from 2014 and then to five per year from 2016. As in any respected international publication, any increase in production outputs, must be based on significantly increased inputs, i.e. paper submissions. More importantly, such growth cannot merely be in terms of numbers, since peer demand for a journal is based largely on the quality of the papers therein. Of course the qualitative and the quantitative become mutually reinforcing in these scenarios, since high-quality papers attract discerning readers including the more diligent of potential authors, hence more good papers. Therefore, we can be pleased with our holistic organic growth as we enter our sixth year. However, while taking stock of the past through our “rear view mirror”, we must continue to look through our “windscreen” at what lies ahead and where we need to go.

Our primary aim remains the same, in linking construction project management with infrastructure asset management. This defines our unique holistic helicopter view of the whole life cycle of planning, delivery, operation and maintenance and adaptive reuse or recycling of sustainable and resilient built infrastructure. The caption of this Editorial captures a secondary target that we have been pursuing, while this is also a continuing journey and one which in we march alongside some other “like-minded” international journals. However, those familiar with our previous issues may notice that our coverage is more international than many other journals, so to that extent, we can justifiably aspire to contribute more to the globalisation of knowledge. We consciously reach out, or at least try, to those who seem to be working quietly on their own, perhaps as in some South American countries (e.g. as we tried with our special issue in 2014) or in certain sectors of industry. Information asymmetry is unfair and unsustainable. Knowledge asymmetry is worse in an era of supposed globalisation since this aggravates and perpetuates opportunity asymmetry and precipitates wider gaps and deeper divides. Even worse, it deprives the global community of the potential direct benefits and synergies from latent talent that is denied such opportunities. That we are doing our part in addressing this, is also reflected not only in the wide variety of countries on which our papers focus, but also in the even broader base from which the authors originate. This is evident, for example, in this issue too.

Apart from our regular issues, the wide range of themes and broad geographical coverage of our past and ongoing special issues, as well as the diversity of our Guest Editors, all testify to BEPAM’s conscious and consistent efforts to “internationalise and globalize” knowledge and practice. The very first BEPAM special issue (Issue 3.2) was on “Public Private Partnerships in Transport: Theory & Practice”, with Guest Editors Athena Roumboutsos and Rosário Macário, based in Greece and Portugal, respectively, drawing in many authors and works that we may have otherwise missed. The next special issue (4.4) was on “Project Management and Asset Management in Emerging Economies” under the able leadership of Florence Ling with support from Carlos Formoso, based in Singapore and Brazil, respectively. More recently, 5.2 was on “Leadership, Culture and Sustainable Built Environment”, guest-edited by Vian Ahmed (at Salford), Heather Cruickshank (at Cambridge) and Alex Opoku (at South Bank, London). 5.3 was on another specialised hot topic: “BIM for Built Asset Management”, guest-edited by Peter Love, Jane Matthews, Steve Lockley (with two Guest Editors being in Australia and the other in the UK).

The forthcoming special issue (as 6.2), is being “Guest Edited” by Champika Liyanage, from University of Central Lancashire, UK, and is on “Construction in a Changing World”. The next one being on another specialised topic of “Capacity Building for Disaster Risk Reduction”, is drawing in a new group of researchers and practitioners. It is driven by Guest Editors Udayangani Kulatunga and Bingunath Ingirige, based in Salford, UK. The other special issue in progress, has only just “kicked off” and is on “Sustainability: Business Drivers and Managerial Implications” which we may broadly consider to be complementary, or even a balancing counterpoint, to the 5.2 issue mentioned in the above paragraph that focused on “Leadership, Culture and Sustainable Built Environment”. The Guest Editors steering the new thrust, are Yasangika Sandanayake (in Sri Lanka), Anupa Manewa (in Leeds, UK) and Jacky Chung (in Singapore).

Shifting our sights from special issues to best papers, the following were the BEPAM winners in the annual exercise for 2014.

Best Paper: A game-theoretic model for roadway performance management: a socio-technical approach (Hesham Osman, Mazdak Nikbakht).

Highly Commended Papers:

* Evaluation of intervention strategies for a road link in the Netherlands (Bryan Tyrone Adey, Nam Lethanh, Andreas Hartmann, Francesco Viti).

* Improving investment sustainability for PPP power projects in emerging economies: value for money framework (Gigih Atmo and Colin Duffield).

* Value Methodology in Public Engagement for Construction Development Projects (Mei-yung Leung, Jingyu Yu).

Outstanding reviewers:

* Fidelis Emuze, Central University of Technology, Free State, South Africa.

* Ke Yongjian, University of Newcastle, Australia.

In addition to the above, a BEPAM Best Paper Award based on papers at the Fourth World Construction Symposium at Colombo in June 2015, was presented to Nilesh Agarchand Patil and Boeing Laishram, of IIT Guwahati, India for their paper entitled “Strategies to enhance sustainability of public private partnership procurement process for infrastructure development”. Three “Highly Commended Paper Awards” were also presented by BEPAM at this symposium.

Reverting to the current issue, we may again note that the “knowledge builders” (authors) featuring in this issue, are not only based in various locations, but may well have also built up their own base knowledge, in an even wider range of countries. The reported studies in BEPAM 6.1 are based on data from diverse locations, such as Australia, China, Ghana, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and USA, although authors are based in other countries too, e.g. UK, so a closer look will show a high level of cross-boundary research into international good practices.

Mohammed Fageha and Ajibade Aibinu in the first paper, add to knowledge, as well as provide robust pointers for better practice through a decision-support model designed to help measure the “completeness” of project scope definition. While focusing on Saudi Arabia, the work resonates with imperatives and approaches elsewhere, e.g., in Hong Kong that this Editor is familiar with, in mobilising much more stakeholder inputs, while also weighting their relative importance. While getting the scope definition right and catering appropriately to all stakeholders is crucial for any project, the second paper, which is by Ayedh Alqahtani and Andrew Whyte, focuses on the specific imperative for accurate forecasts of building life-cycle costs which is critical for building owners and end-users.

The “exploratory study” by Peter Love, Kristy Dyson and Jane Matthews in Australia, can be said to connect to the community attribute of heritage, albeit again in context of specific buildings like in the first two papers. Furthermore, the focus in this paper is also on extending the “life cycle” or indeed in giving the building “a second life” with adaptive reuse, in the words of the authors.

The fourth paper shares a lens of critical success factors with the fourth, although the authors Titus Ebenezer Kwofie, Samuel Afram and Edward Botchway focus specifically on developing a “Critical Success Model for PPP Public Housing Delivery in Ghana”. They add that their methodology and findings have the potential to help in the development of PPP for public housing policies and frameworks in other developing countries with similar socio-economic, political and organisational characteristics especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Solomon Babatunde, Srinath Perera, Lei Zhou and Chika Udeaja base their study on another African country, albeit in West Africa. So some elements may be considered complementary to the fifth paper, given that their focus is on critical success factors for PPP projects in Nigeria. Stakeholder perceptions are explored in this paper too.

The next paper allows us a step back to a refreshing macro-level revisit, of an issue that is and will always be critical to our industry, given our dynamic environment and multiple critical variables – “Health and safety”. Salman Azhar and Rafiq Choudhry focus on “Capacity Building in Construction Health and Safety Research, Education, and Practice” and specifically on a recently completed relevant study in Pakistan, although they themselves are now based elsewhere. While the paper presents a plan to improve the health and safety culture, laws, and practices in Pakistan, the authors add that the project itself produced “international standard” health and safety training material that “can fulfill local needs”, while the project deliverables can help other developing countries in the region.

The last paper completes the picture in this issue by exploring and shedding light along a critical dimension of the asset management thrust of our BEPAM journal. Focusing on the management of the transportation infrastructure assets, Ali Mostafavi and Alex Inman, derive useful findings and outcomes for both “growing knowledge” and improving practice in “operationalising resilience” of these built assets. This is based on a comprehensive survey of the State Transportation Agencies in USA, but should suggest potential approaches to infrastructure agencies in other countries as well, to inspire similar exercises so as to identify “blind spots” and boost the resilience of their assets against climate change and natural disasters. For example, their findings identify improvement imperatives based on “pre-disaster vulnerability and exposure analysis as well as pre-disaster retrofit and betterment efforts”. The identified pathway includes components for risk and vulnerability assessment, resilience indices. The “hard systems” approaches in this work interestingly complements some “soft system” approaches in recent publications (elsewhere) of a team involving this Editor where it is proposed to involve the “right” groupings of private sector and “people” representatives in pre-disaster planning, including forming framework agreements with the relevant core public agencies, in order to reduce vulnerabilities, as well as mobilise all stakeholders rapidly if and when needed, to swiftly generate and implement sustainable solutions for the reconstruction of more resilient built infrastructure, along with more efficient and resilient social infrastructure as well.

Having thereby swung full circle back in the above five paragraphs, to engaging all stakeholders upfront as in the first paper in this issue, we can further justify the contributions of BEPAM to the captioned broader mission of “Globalising Knowledge and Internationalising Practice” in our field.

Mohan Kumaraswamy