Risk allocation in public–private partnership (PPP) projects is currently claimed as capability driven. While lacking theoretical support, the claim is often ‘violated’ by current industrial practice. There is thus a need for formal mechanisms to interpret why a particular risk is retained by government in one project while transferred to private partners in another. From the viewpoint of transaction cost economics (TCE), integrated with the resource‐based view (RBV) of organizational capabilities, this paper proposed a theoretical framework for understanding risk allocation practice in PPP projects. The theories underlying the major constructs and their links were articulated. Data gathered from an industry‐wide survey were used to test the framework. The results of multiple linear regression (MLR) generally support the proposed framework. It has been found that partners' risk management routine, mechanism, commitment, cooperation history, and uncertainties associated with project risk management could serve to determine the risk allocation strategies adopted in a PPP project. This theoretical framework thus provides both government and private agencies with a logical and complete understanding of the process of selecting the allocation strategy for a particular risk in PPP projects. Moreover, it could be utilized to steer the risk allocation strategy by controlling certain critical determinants identified in the study. Study limitations and future research directions have also been set out.

Purpose: Stressors emanated from construction projects are causative factors for occupational stress inherent in the construction industry. Concomitant implications of stressors ignite a burst of empirical evidence, which necessitates a systematic review to capture the state of art of the extant literature. Therefore, this paper addresses this significant gap by conducting a systematic review of mental stressors. Design/methodology/approach: A three-stage screening and data extraction method were employed to retrieve 38 papers that met the inclusion criteria for the study. Findings: The annual publication trends and contributions of selected journals were elucidated. Moreover, this review identified 49 stressors from 38 selected peer-reviewed journals between 1997 and 2020. The most frequently reported mental stressors include work overload, home-work conflict, poor working environment, role ambiguity and poor working relationships. The 49 stressors could be classified into five main categories, namely; organizational stressors, task stressors, personal stressors, physical stressors and gender-related stressors. Originality/value: The findings of the study broaden the understanding of the practitioners and policymakers on the dynamics of stressors for the development of stress interventions. Future research should focus on exploration of mental stressors specific to construction projects and different occupational trades.

The construction industry has massive impacts on the society, environmentally, economically and socially. Sustainability has been an important issue being considered by both industry and academia. However, existing sustainability studies in construction are largely related to the environmental and economic aspects. Social sustainability seems missing from the research radar. A qualitative approach is adopted in this study to explore the social sustainability issues in the construction sector. Particular focuses are placed on the attitudes of industry professionals on social impacts of construction activities and the measurement of social performance of construction projects. The results show that there is a reasonable level of willingness from industry practitioners to take these issues into consideration in their projects. This study also highlighted 26 criteria to measure social sustainability in construction context. These criteria form a basis for the evaluation of social sustainability performance for construction related enterprises. Limitations of this study are also discussed.

Risk allocation in privately financed public infrastructure projects, which are mainly referred to as public-private partnership (PPP) projects, is a challenging job due to the nature of incomplete contracting. An investigation into the mechanism that guides the formation of efficient risk allocation strategies is thus desirable. Drawing on the transaction cost economics and resource-based view of organizational capability, this paper has identified five main features of the transactions associated with risk allocation in PPP projects. They include partners’ risk management routine, partners’ risk management mechanism, partners’ cooperation history, risk management environmental uncertainty, and partners’ risk management commitment. For achieving cost efficiency, different risk allocation strategies may suit different conditions of the features. Accordingly, a theoretical framework and five hypotheses were proposed for testing. Data collected in an industrywide survey were analyzed using multiple linear r...

Carbon emissions are categorised as Embodied Carbon (EC) occurring in the production phase and Operational Carbon (OC) occurring in the operational phase of buildings. The current focus on producing zero-carbon buildings, emphasises reducing OC and ignores the importance of reducing EC emissions. This study focuses on EC. Methods available in EC estimating currently produce estimates that often do not complement each other. This makes it important to develop a robust and accurate methodology for estimating EC. Blockchain is an emerging technology that has significant potential for transaction processing in supply chains. The construction industry being the second least digitalised industry, the adoption of innovative technologies is predominantly important. This paper explores the potential application of blockchain for accurate estimation of EC in construction supply chains. A detailed literature review and expert interviews revealed that, compared to traditional information systems, blockchain systems could eliminate issues in EC estimating highlighting its potential credible application for EC estimating. Scalability was identified as a feature that was lacking in a blockchain system, however, for EC estimating, its impact was identified as minimal. It will be difficult to generalise the findings of the study due to interview based qualitative methodology adopted in this study along with the fact that blockchain is an emerging and fairly new technology. However, a similar process could be followed by other studies to compare blockchain with traditional information systems, to evaluate the suitability of blockchain technology to develop prototype systems.