Purpose – The intent of this research is to determine whether any common lessons can be drawn from the experience of individuals who have gone against the trend and delivered successful technical innovations in construction small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Design/methodology/approach – A value tree of contributing factors to technical innovation was developed from the literature and tested by surveying established technical innovators using analytic hierarchy process methodology. This approach aimed at capturing the experience of company decision makers who manage to deliver successful change with limited resources . Findings – The results reveal the importance of supportive clients and performance-based building standards for innovative practice in construction. Significant differences were observed between small and medium-sized companies and between product and process innovators. Research limitations/implications – In order to avoid a skewed sample, considerable effort was made to ensure that all survey participants had significant peer recognition as innovators. A high response rate (75 percent) from the target group also contributed to the reliability of the sample. Social implications – Industry employment rates and profitability are both positively correlated with high rates of innovation in many industries. Innovative solutions to environmental and social problems have potential benefits for the future direction of the construction industry, which is perceived as lagging somewhat in these areas. Originality/value – The paper provides suggestions for managers of construction firms who wish to improve innovation performance rates by studying the insights of successful innovators in their field.

Purpose: Safety performance indicators are a major research concern globally in the construction sector, so this study aims to systematically analyse construction safety performance indicators from some top research publications from 2000 to 2019.Design/methodology/approach: Systematic review was performed using Scopus search engine and relevant publications were compiled. Visual and far reaching search in all publications were performed. Final analysis was done to evaluate selected attributes.Findings: The outcome of the analysis showed growing interest in research on construction safety performance indicators since 2000. From the review, 48 safety performance indicators are identified from 41 selected publications. The most reported safety performance indicators were safety climate, safety orientation, management commitment to safety, near-miss and job site audits. It was noted further that USA, Australia, Canada and China have been international locations of attention for most research on construction safety performance indicators. The 48 safety indicators are classified into six categories, namely people indicators, culture indicators, processes indicators, infrastructure indicators, metrics indicators and technology indicatorsPractical implications: The findings identified provide researchers and practitioners a summary of the safety indicators in the construction sector through a vision to streamline future applications and increase the safety performance in the construction sector.Originality/value: A safety performance indicators' list has been established for the adoption of future empirical research. The findings will make a significant contribution to current but limited knowledge on safety performance indicators in construction industry.

The walkability of urban areas is an important criterion related to the level of physical activity and public health of citizens. This research aims to measure this parameter in Golsar town located in Rasht, Iran. Two methods were used in this research: Street connectivity and International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ). The principal variables of street connectivity were measured in four districts of Golsar by Geographic Information System (GIS) to rank each one. Then, the acquired results were compared by the average walking time of the respondents of the questionnaire. The comparison explicitly indicated that there is a strong positive correlation between the measures of street connectivity and people’s tendency to walk. As well, District 1 had the highest value of connectivity and the highest average time for walking amongst the four districts. This supports the contention that walkability and the level of outdoor physical activities of people in each district are undoubtedly under the influence of the variables of street connectivity. Nevertheless, the evaluation of other indexes such as proximity, land use mix, safety, and density in Golsar, in future research. can expand our perception of the walkability of this region.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discover similarities and differences in the construction industry in China and the United States by using data analytic tools on data crawled from social media platforms.Design/methodology/approach: The method comprised comprehensive data analytics using network link analysis and natural language processing tools to discover similarities and differences of social networks, topics of interests and sentiments and emotions on different social media platforms.Findings: From the research, it showed that all clusters (construction company, construction worker, construction media and construction union) shared similar trends on follower-following ratios and sentiment analysis in both social media platforms. The biggest difference between the two countries is that public accounts (e.g. company, media and union) on Twitter posted more on public interests, including safety and energy.Research limitations/implications: The research contributes to knowledge about an alternative method of data collection for both academia and industry practitioners. Statistical bias can be introduced by only using social media platform data. The analyzed four clusters can be further divided to reflect more fine-grained groups of construction industries. The results can be integrated into other analyses based on traditional methodologies of data collection such as questionnaire surveys or interviews.Originality/value: The research provides a comparative study of the construction industries in China and the USA among four clusters using social media platform data.

Purpose: – The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether technical innovations by construction industry small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with an environmental focus, require any specific circumstances for successful marketplace delivery. Design/methodology/approach: – A value tree of significant factors was developed from a literature review. This was tested by a survey of established technical innovators within SMEs in the area of Sydney and environs, using analytic hierarchy process methodology. Findings: – The regulatory environment was demonstrated to be much more important to environmental innovators than to others. Conversely the influence of clients and end users was less significant for the environmentally focused innovators. Research limitations/implications: – The sample size was necessarily small because the subjects were all peer recognised technical innovators. Analysis of variance was used to identify significant differences between environmentally focused and other innovations among the survey respondents. Social implications: – Performance-based standards were seen to be significant enablers for environmentally focused innovation delivery. A degree of flexibility in building regulations may be crucial to innovation delivery by SMEs. Originality/value: – The paper stresses the importance for regulators of reaching an understanding of the restrictions that prescriptive standards may put of those seeking to improve the environmental performance of the construction industry.