Editorial

Citation

McCaffer, R. (2007), "Editorial", Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Vol. 14 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ecam.2007.28614daa.001

Editorial

Volume 14 Number 4 sees again an issue with a rich variety of subjects at the leading edge of issues facing our industry. The authors are, as usual, international from Singapore, the USA, Sweden and the UK. The author distribution sees one paper with a single author, four papers with two authors and one with three. The subjects in this issue contain three papers dealing with inter-organisational relationships including supply chain management, strategic partnerships in social housing and procurement effects on trust and control in client-contractor relationships.

The subject of “Trust” seems to be an emerging issue and so this paper is a timely contribution. We recently held a joint workshop between PSIBouw from The Netherlands and Loughborough attended by researchers from the Universities of Twente, Tilberg, Eindhoven, Loughborough, Salford, Reading, Greenwich, Wolverhampton and Northumbria. The subject of the workshop was “Social-Dynamics in Construction”. High on the discussion was “trust”. What is clear is that there is an emerging research community working in this area and so we are hopeful that progress will be forthcoming. Clients, contractors, sub-contractors and suppliers all trusting each other and collaborating for the benefit of the project is a prize worth striving for.

The other three papers are on risks in working in China and two technical papers on fall protection, important as 50 per cent of fatal accidents are falls, and improving rapid bridge replacement.

The papers in this issue are:

Fernie and Thorpe assess the application of theories relevant to supply chain management. They explore the application of theory across five case studies. The key finding is the importance of contextual factors. Some practitioners of supply chain management view it as a variation on partnering and therefore try to apply an inappropriate model of inter-organisational relationships.

Jones and Kaluarachchi explore the inter-organisational relationship of “partnering” in the context of social housing. The research the authors describe was based on the monitoring and observation of a four year strategic partnering agreement between a consortium of landlords and a contracting partner. The paper identifies issues surrounding effective strategic partnering and observes that the issues are more complex than the partners or indeed the researchers had believed at the outset. This is a good contribution with some cautionary examples.

Ling and Lim explore the financial risks for foreign firms operating in China. China remains a big and growing market and attractive to foreign firms. Ling and Lim set out to catalogue some of the risks these firms face. They used a questionnaire and interviews to explore the issues with Singapore based companies and experts. The authors identified nine economic and financial risks. Frequent risks included labour and material price fluctuations which could be severe and contractors and sub-contractors defaulting. There were contractual measures to mitigate these. This paper offers a good starting point for the unwary.

Cameron, Gillan and Duff report on a research project undertaken for the UK’s Health and Safety Executive on the selection and use of Fall Protection Equipment. Falls account for around 50 per cent of fatalities in construction accidents and therefore is a worthy subject for research. This paper offers the practitioners some guidance as a summary of available access methods.

Bai, Kim and Burkett report on research to enhance the capability of rapid bridge replacement in response to an extreme event. The researchers undertook a case study of a previous bridge replacement, conducted interviews and a written survey. From this the researchers have identified the areas that need improvement and should act as a guide to the research community in investigating new technologies needed to advance current practice.

Eriksson and Laan surveyed 87 Swedish construction clients to determine how they deal with governance mechanisms and control in client-contractor relationships. He finds that currently governance focuses on price through output control and authority is exercised through process control. However construction transactions have complexity, customisation and long durations and all these require trust. He argues construction clients focus too much on price and authority and too little on trust. The source of the difficulty is current procedures.

Finally I wish to acknowledge the contribution to ECAM of Rob Ellis who, causing all his friends and colleagues great sadness, passed away recently. Rob was a member of our Editorial Board and a frequently used referee. We relied on Rob and he was always willing. His research work was at Loughborough and he was part of that huge and expanding Loughborough extended family and we feel the loss of a family member.

Ronald McCaffer