Editorial

Citation

(2005), "Editorial", Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Vol. 12 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ecam.2005.28612baa.001

Editorial

The international contribution of authors in this issue, Vol. 12 No. 2, is unusually limited with only three countries represented – Australia, Hong Kong and the UK. With only one Australian author – and his paper is written with three UK co-authors, and with six Hong Kong authors and nine UK authors, this is virtually a Hong Kong and UK special edition!

The Hong Kong authors contribute two papers each with three authors on the subjects of “survival strategies for Hong Kong contractors” and “the relationship between conflict and satisfaction”. The other papers are on PPP/PFI, sustainability, partnering practice and the use of integrated software for capturing clients’ requirements.

In this edition there are three papers with two authors, two papers with three authors and one with four authors. There is only one involving two countries and two institutions and no single authored papers.

The papers in the edition are outlined below.

Chan, Tam and Cheung address business survival strategies and the financial performance of Hong Kong contractors. The paper reviews the deteriorating financial performance of the Hong Kong contractors using financial accounting ratios. The authors offer their analysis as a basis for formulating new corporate strategies. The paper is largely educational for the Hong Kong practitioners.

Li, Akintoye, Edwards and Hardcastle report on a survey exploring the attractiveness of PPP/PFI. The conclusions are based on 61 completed questionnaires with 16 from the public sector and 45 from the private sector. From this the authors list nine positive factors including: transfer of risk to the private sector; relief from public sector budget restraint; reduced public funding; capping of general service costs; and more creativity and innovation. The three negative factors are: management time; delays in negotiating; and high participation costs. The paper offers an interesting overview of PPP/PFI.

Leung, Liu and Ng examine the relationship between construction conflicts and the satisfaction of the participants. At first sight it would seem obvious: more conflict, less satisfaction, but the authors use a value-goal-outcome cyclical model to examine six hypotheses and demonstrate that moderate levels of conflict can actually improve satisfaction until at a point where conflict escalates satisfaction diminishes. It is an interesting observation that I think is saying that some tension is needed to get the best out of the management team.

Zainul Abidin and Pasquire want to use “value management” to deliver “sustainability.” The underlying issue is how to get sustainability embedded into construction projects. The authors suggest that the use of value management workshops can uplift the attention given to sustainability issues and have used reports on field studies to illustrate their approach. As the integration of sustainability in construction is not yet matured this paper comes at a useful time to influence practice.

Fortune and Setiawan examine the practice of partnering as it applies to construction projects for Housing Associations. The authors collected quantitative data from 100 housing associations. The authors identified two types of partnering with either a “demand side” or “supply side” focus and reveal how widespread and established partnering practice is. The authors argue that there is a need for benchmarks to be established and no doubt they will be developing these themselves.

Arayici and Aouad offer an approach to requirements engineering using computer integrated construction. Requirements engineering would seem to be a modern expression for the project brief but modelled in a way that suits the application of integrated software systems. The paper is based on a case study.