The data generation in the construction industry has increased dramatically. The major portion of the data in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) domain are unstructured textual documents. Text mining (TM) has been introduced to the construction industry to extract underlying knowledge from unstructured data. However, few articles have comprehensively reviewed applications of TM in the AEC domain. Thus, this study adopts a qualitative-quantitative method to conduct a state-of-the-art survey on the articles related to applications of TM in the construction industry which published between the year of 2000 and 2021. VOSviewer software was applied to provide an overview of TM applications regarding to the publication trend, active countries and regions, productive authors, and co-occurrence of keywords perspectives. Eight prime application fields of TM were discussed and analyzed in detail. Five key challenges and three future directions have been proposed. This review can help the research community to grasp the state-of-the-art of TM applications in the construction industry and identify the directions of further research.

Purpose: The growth in ageing population globally has led to the increase in demand for retirement or aged care homes. Adopting public–private partnership (PPP) in the global retirement village market has become the new approach to address some of the emerging challenges. This paper aims to explore and analyse the critical success factors (CSFs) for the adoption of PPP in the global retirement village market. Design/methodology/approach: An empirical questionnaire survey was conducted with experienced practitioners in the global PPP and retirement village markets. Mean score analysis, normalization range method, Kendall’s coefficient of concordance and factor analysis were used for analysis. Findings: Results show that out of the 27 CSFs identified, the most significant ones in developing PPP retirement village projects are “the age-friendly design of villages”, “appropriate location of PPP retirement village”, “reliable and accessible health and physical facilities” and “effective social inclusion and integration in villages”. Further analysis shows that the 27 CSFs can be grouped into 7 major factor groupings, namely, “effective project monitoring”, “financial support”, “social integration”, “effective contractual arrangement between parties”, “government commitment and support”, “sustainable design of village” and “effective payment structure”. Originality/value: The outputs of this study will adequately inform retirement village developers, retirement village stakeholders and local government authorities of the best practices they should put in place to ensure the sustainable growth of the global retirement village market.

Purpose: The construction industry, characterised by its dynamic nature, demands graduates equipped with diverse skills beyond academic proficiency. Recognizing the significance of employability skills, this study aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the employability skills to meet the evolving demands of the construction industry. Design/methodology/approach: Utilizing Web of Science, this review focuses on articles published from 2013 to the research completion date (December 2023), resulting in the selection of 94 highly relevant papers. Then, a combination of bibliometric analysis and in-depth content analysis of the top ten most-cited papers was conducted to examine research trends in this field. Findings: “Soft skills” are identified as the strongest citation bursts between 2014 and 2016. And the emerging research frontiers are adaptability, communication skills and contextual supports. Additionally, the employability skills identified from this study can be categorized into seven groups: profession; personal capital; soft skills; career proactivity and adaptability; personality; emotional intelligence and work ethics. Originality/value: This research advances the body of knowledge on employability skills in the construction field. Moreover, the findings offer actionable strategies. For example, for educators, this includes incorporating real-world case training and workshops focused on developing these skills; for researchers, it suggests focusing on digital skills; for policymakers, it recommends creating work-integrated learning opportunities.