Floods have been reported to be an important disaster in any country and Malaysia has faced similar disasters in the past, resulting in disturbance in daily community routine issues, financial losses, infrastructure damage including railway tracks, bridges, roads, vehicles, properties, and the worst is the loss of lives. The Sarawak region of Malaysia also witnesses yearly disasters in rainy seasons. The purpose of this paper is to explore the possible challenges to manage the flood disaster in Sarawak and to identify the possible solutions to manage floods. In this research, secondary data was used for qualitative assessment. The newspaper articles were collected from the year 2015 until 2019. Targeted interviews were conducted with experts working in flood management disaster schemes to rank and validate the most important factors after content analysis from the past news reports. It is concluded that poor drainage systems, rapid development, heavy rainfall, lack of public awareness, and lack of coordination in executing the disaster management cycle among agencies are the key challenges. Thus, it is recommended that the drainage systems should be upgraded in the case study area. Proper flood management schemes should be planned and flood forecasting should be strengthened. An effective early flood warning system should be designed to activate the plans and a proper public awareness campaign should be initiated to educate and train the local community to deal with such disasters. It is also suggested to assure and maintain proper collaboration among different agencies during such disasters. In the last phase, this paper also proposes a framework for future flood disaster management. The framework will assist the stakeholders to make informed decisions to save human lives and substantial financial losses. The framework can also be used in similar terrain countries.

The construction industry is one of the world’s fastest-growing industries, since it directly and indirectly contributes to several other industries. It has been observed that delays in the decision making of important stakeholders negatively impact construction projects. Thus, this has multiple consequences on project performance. Consequently, the purpose of this study was to identify the primary causes of delayed decision-making and offer a decision support model for timely construction project decisions. For factor identification, a comprehensive literature analysis was conducted, followed by an analysis of questionnaire responses of ninety-one professionals. For data analysis, the relative importance index (RII) method was applied. The results indicate that client decision-making delays pose a substantial obstacle for building projects. The early decision-making process is impacted by a lack of technical competence, incomplete paperwork, poor leadership, and coordination/communication issues. The proposed model could also assist project practitioners in improving their project decision making. This research study encourages stakeholders to create and implement an efficient decision-making procedure for timely project decisions. A procedure for decision making that is successful could decrease delays in the decision-making process and prevent conflicts and disputes in projects.

The concept of a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) is not new for developing countries, although many initiatives are being contemplated for potential implementation. This paper evaluates the crucial success factor for the effective execution of PPP projects and it also investigates the appropriate distribution of the risks involved in PPP projects. Quartile analysis of features has been made after a detailed literature review for risk identification. The risk severity analysis is done using a quartile assessment. The data is collected from various contractors working on PPP projects in Pakistan. The comparative analysis has been conducted using available research work on PPP in developing countries. A risk severity rank model is created using 47 key risks in PPP projects for developing countries. Finally, the top risks identified by this research are compared with the previous studies conducted in China, India and Egypt. It is concluded that inflation, revenue risk from end-user, foreign exchange fluctuation, political situation, law and order, and corruption are the major risks in developing countries for better management of PPP projects. Most of the PPP projects are public-oriented. The society of any city is directly affected by most PPP projects. This paper presents the identified key risks of PPP projects in developing countries which are mostly financial and public-oriented. This work will support the PPP concept significance, meeting United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8 and 11. Recent countries’ political and economic circumstances and sustainability have transformed PPP ventures into a successful way to support the governments to develop roads, energy and facilities through private partners’ financial and technological capacities. Although PPP is used worldwide, its effective utilization in developing countries is still lacking. This paper is an enhancement to its successful use of the PPP domain for developing countries.

Construction industry plays main part in the financial development of a country and occupies an essential position in the state’s growth policies. Construction industry generates thousands of jobs into different sectors to accommodate people according to its capabilities. On the contrary, it faces huge number of claims, as a result it gives birth to various problems including additional cost and time to complete the project. Therefore, this paper aims to identify the common types and causes of claims generally occur in construction industry and specifically in large scale projects. A detailed literature review has been carried out for this research and covers past research papers of the last two decades. The results showed delay in claims and extra work claim submitted by the parties, they are the main types of claims followed by contract ambiguity claims, extension of time claim and suspension of work claims. Delay of payment is the most important cause of claim followed by incomplete design, variation order, change order by owner, lack of communication and in last poor project management. It is concluded that proper contract documentation should be done and early error identification in contract documents, drawings and specifications should be highlighted. Finally, it is recommended to adopt proper claim management policy and procedures to address the queries by all parties. This paper will be used to design future guidelines in managing claims in large scale construction projects to improve the performance of construction industry.

Illegal dumping of solid waste not only affecting the environment but also social life of communities, hence authorities should have an effective system to cater this problem. Malaysia is experiencing extensive physical developments and this has led to an increase of construction waste illegal dumping. However, due to the lack of proper data collection, the actual figure for construction waste illegal dumping in Malaysia are not available. This paper presents a mapping of construction waste illegal dumping in Kluang district, Johor using Geographic Information System (GIS) software. Information of the dumped waste such as coordinate, photos, types of material and quantity of waste were gathered manually through site observation for three months period. For quantifying the dumped waste, two methods were used which are the first method is based on shape of the waste (pyramids or squares) while the second method is based weighing approach. All information regarding the waste was assigned to the GIS for the mapping process. Results indicated a total of 12 types of construction waste which are concrete, tiles, wood, gypsum board, mixed construction waste, brick and concrete, bricks, sand, iron, glass, pavement and tiles, and concrete at 64 points locations of illegal dumping on construction waste in Kluang. These wastes were accounted to an estimated volume of 427.2636 m 3. Hopefully, this established map will assist Kluang authority to improve their solid waste management system in Kluang.

In the last few years, the fields of management, social psychology, and business operations have all paid a large amount of attention to the academic idea of job satisfaction. This paper looks at more than a decade of research into what makes people happy at work and what happens to them as a result. Companies have started to realize that their employees are their most valuable asset in this time of rapid change. There is no specific model of the job satisfaction of construction workers in developing countries. Thus, this paper evaluates the different job satisfaction models and also proposes an integrated job satisfaction model for construction industry workers. The data were collected from experts in the construction industry using a questionnaire survey and almost 290 experts participated in this research to assist in the development of the model. The data were analyzed using SPSS. The model was developed and validated using Smart PLS. Eight key aspects were found to be very important to improving the job satisfaction of construction workers in developing countries. Job compensation packages given to construction workers, work–life balance, career growth, and job security are the top key features investigated in this study. It is concluded that satisfied and motivated employees are imperative for the construction business, and that this is also a key factor that separates successful companies from others. The findings of this paper contribute to UN-SDG 8 “Decent Work and Economic Growth” and UN-SDG 9 “Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure”.