Editorial

Citation

Shen, G.Q. (2015), "Editorial", Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Vol. 22 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/ECAM-10-2015-0155

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Volume 22, Issue 6.

I wish to start my inaugural editorial by thanking the previous editorial team of ECAM under the leadership of Professor Ronald McCaffer for the excellent works they have done over the last 22 years. I would also like to thank the publisher Emerald and the new Chief Editor Professor Chimay Anumba for the trust and support for me to take the role of Deputy Editor. I am confident that this journal will continue to be an important and unique platform for academic exchange among researchers and practitioners in the architecture, construction and engineering community, with reduced cycle time, improved responsiveness and enhanced quality of papers, and due recognition by relevant indices.

This issue of ECAM has a total of nine very interesting papers with a common theme of “Managing construction projects in developing economies” three on China, two on Malaysia, two on Nigeria, and one on Vietnam and another one on Chile, a country which was undergoing the transition from a developing economy to a developed economy at the time the paper was submitted.

The paper by Luo et al. aims to prioritize and analyze the potential risks relating to the adoption of industrialized building system in China and to develop corresponding strategies for mitigating the risks, which provides a reference for practitioners and decision makers in adopting adequate risk management methods and policies to promote prefabrication in China. The paper by Meng et al. explores the relationships between top managers’ leadership competence, intellectual competence, managerial competence, and emotional and social competence, based on responses to a questionnaire survey across infrastructure projects in the context of the Chinese urbanization process, using a structural equation model (SEM). The paper by Ding et al. focusses on the adoption of building information modeling (BIM) at various stages of a building’s life cycle. A questionnaire survey is conducted and a SEM is built to identify the key factors affecting BIM adoption in design firms.

The paper by Othman et al. aims to establish a link between marketing resources, procurement process coordination, and firm performance in Malaysian construction industry. To allow for good understanding in field of supply chain management, the study looked into the coordination between the construction firms and their main building materials suppliers. Interestingly, the research framework was also tested using the SEM technique. The paper by Amuda-Yusuf and Mohamed focusses on the essential features of a standard method of measurement for building services in Malaysia. It examines the need to develop such a standard method that would provide an advantage and a framework for managing the cost of building services by quantity surveyors.

The paper by Babatunde et al. aims to identify and classify barriers to the implementation of public private partnerships (PPPs) projects in Nigeria. Primary data were collected through the administration of questionnaires to public sector authorities, concessionaires, lenders, consultants, and contractors involved in PPP projects. The study identified serious barriers influencing PPP projects in Nigeria. The paper by Ikediashi and Ogunlana, on the other hand, extends the body of knowledge on healthcare facilities management by investigating the risks associated with outsourcing of facilities management services in hospitals.

The paper by Khanh and Kim examines waste occurrence level in the Vietnam construction industry. A total of 19 waste factors were sorted from the literature review, and a structured questionnaire was adopted to collect data. The results have shown that waste occurred fairly high in practice.

Last but not least, the paper by Ballesteros-Pérez et al. introduces a new analysis regarding the influences of climate on construction project delays in Chile. To measure the extent of the influences of weather on construction work, a case study was undertaken in Chile using national climatic data from the last ten years to determine which, when and how construction activities are influenced.

Enjoy your reading of all of these papers!

Geoffrey Qiping Shen