bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
An Investigation of Women Engineers in Non-Traditional Occupations in the Thai Construction Industry
Authors: Kaewsri Nuanthip , Tonghong Tanit 
Published: October 2014

For over a decade, the public and the private sectors have carried out research aimed at attracting women engineers to the construction industry and retaining them. However, studies on women engineers working in other types of construction-related businesses apart from contractor companies such as consultancies, developers, etc., have not been many. This paper aims to examine the experiences of women engineers in non-traditional careers and the implications for their turnover. A literature search on women’s careers in construction was performed in conjunction with semi-structured interviews with a sampling of 141 individuals. Results from three viewpoints, viz those of professional men and women engineers in contractor companies, and women engineers in non-contractor companies, were found to differ in many respects, including their opinions about career advancement, career path and the difficulties involved. It was also found that women engineers in contractor companies were much more affected by problems such as sexual harassment, work-life conflicts and equal opportunity than women engineers in non-contractor companies. Turnover rates of women engineers and their reasons for leaving were examined. Women engineers, particularly those in contractor companies, had to confront more barriers in non-traditional careers than their male counterparts. Nonetheless, working in non-contractor companies provides a viable alternative for women engineers who want to have successful careers in the Thai construction industry.
Training Artisans On-Site
Authors: Ogbeifun Edoghogho 
Published: October 2014

The decline in apprenticeship in both the public and private sectors, the increasing use of sub-contractors as well as the uncoordinated approach in the informal sector are contributing factors to the shortage of skilled artisans in the construction industry. Artisans training can be introduced and implemented through the adoption of progressive implementation of construction processes commencing work from areas requiring low skill demands to areas of high skill demand. The success of this principle hinges on the collaborative effort of the key project stakeholders. The client should be willing to absorb extra cost and delays in the project; the design and contract documentation should facilitate on-site training, and the consultant actively guide the contractor and the construction processes to achieve the training objectives. The exploratory research method was adopted in this study and research revealed that this principle was used in a project in the UK and in the development of infrastructure in the tourism industry of South Africa .It is being recommended that the principle be adapted by the public sector for the development of small size infrastructures that can be repeated in many places. This will boost the quality and quantity of artisans, enhance employability, reduce rural urban migration and alleviate poverty.Keywords: Skilled artisans, on-site training, progressive construction processes, project stakeholders, contract documentation.
Econometric modelling of risk adverse behaviours of entrepreneurs in the provision of house fittings in China
Authors: Li Rita Yi Man 
Published: October 2014

Entrepreneurs have always born the risk of running their business. They reap a profit in return for their risk taking and work. Housing developers are no different. In many countries, such as Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, they interpret the tastes of the buyers and provide the dwellings they develop with basic fittings such as floor and wall coverings, bathroom fittings and kitchen cupboards. In mainland China, however, in most of the developments, units or houses are sold without floor or wall coverings, kitchen or bathroom fittings. What is the motive behind this choice? This paper analyses the factors affecting housing developers’ decisions to provide fittings based on 1701 housing developments in Hangzhou, Chongqing and Hangzhou using a Probit model. The results show that developers build a higher proportion of bare units in mainland China when: 1) there is shortage of housing; 2) land costs are high so that the comparative costs of providing fittings become relatively low.
Overcoming inadvertent barriers to entry in large infrastructure projects
Authors: Livesey Peter Vincent , Bold Justin 
Published: October 2014

The history behind the award of Brisbane City Council’s Legacy Way project is discussed and the possible impact of cognitive bias in the Expression of Interest (EOI) process together with the steps that were taken during the EOI development and evaluation phase to reduce the impact that this may have had on the selection of Contractors from their EOI submissions. The paper concludes that Cognitive Bias may have created a greater barrier to entry to Contractors attempting to enter the Australian PPP market than has been previously realised and makes suggestions as to how this effect could be minimised in the future.
Guest Editorial
Authors: Teo Evelyn Ai Lin 
Published: October 2014

This section contains upgraded papers originally published at The CIB W099 International Conference on "Modelling and Building Health and Safety”, which was organised and hosted by the Department of Building, National University of Singapore (NUS). It was held on 10 -11 September 2012 at the Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Center, Singapore. The focal objectives of this section are to explore the integration and application of new techniques, technologies and strategies towards attaining verifiable improvements in occupational safety and health in construction.
Rethinking the contractual context for Building Information Modelling (BIM) in the Australian built environment industry
Authors: Kuiper Ilsa , Holzer Dominik 
Published: October 2014

Building Information Modelling (BIM) can be defined as a process of generating and managing information of a building or infrastructure during its life cycle. Whilst the 3D visualisation or dimensional functions of BIM are not necessarily new, it is the usage and integration of this information related to project delivery, management and performance analysis that are challenging current construction industry practices. Industry has called for the development of more collaborative and integrated contractual arrangements to facilitate the use of BIM. Such recommendations appeal to the ideal use of BIM, but also provide a potential opportunity to seek improvement within the construction industry. This paper proposes a procurement approach to BIM to establish the applicable contractual context to address the potential legal risks and commercial considerations, relative to current practices in Australia. It als ooutlines why BIM, with other enabling technologies, will drive the evolution of contract delivery methodologies.
The role of effective communication in the construction Industry: a guide for education and health clients
Authors: Aulich Terry 
Published: October 2014

The construction industry operates primarily as a system of sub-contracting and purpose built alliances. There is a wide spread of stakeholders involved in conceiving a building project through typical stages such as design, finance, build, manage, upgrade and, ultimately, replacement and a corresponding need for communication and cooperation. Specialists who can prevent bridges falling down or who build 20 storey buildings are seen as the hard-nosed, action people who have helped bring us into the modern era. However, there are intuitive activities and disciplines which help us to achieve the type of construction achievements that have been the hallmarks of the 19th, 20th and now the 21st centuries. Most of these so called soft disciplines are about how one helps people, often highly skilled, achieve those construction and engineering goals. The key components are consultation and communication. Communication strategies should be based on a thorough understanding of the ways that humans co-operate in joint undertakings, the key principles of social dynamics and learning theory plus the ways in which people deliver, accept and understand words and pictures. The disciplines of organisational and environmental psychology have become a basic fundamental of modern business activities from management and organisational strategy to marketing and customer relations and to the improvement of working, recreational and living environments. However it is rare for a mature industry such as construction to adopt or examine those disciplines for guidance about either strategies or operations. This is despite the fact that the construction industry is almost entirely based on the principle of sub-contracting, business and professional alliances, all of which require understanding of environmental psychology and social dynamics in order to build trust, reputation, teamwork and client satisfaction. There is therefore a major need for communications to be systematic, understood by all stakeholders and intelligently applied. This paper concentrates on the need for the client to become a more confident and better informed stakeholder in the construction project, and seeks to provide high level management guidance for traditional centralized systems. The ultimate goal of the paper is to provide a systematic guideline for stakeholders to address early in the life of a project to ensure that industry professionals, clients and sub-clients are “working from the same page”
Applying total interpretive structural modeling to study factors affecting construction labour productivity
Authors: Sandbhor Sayali Shrikrishna , Botre Rohan P. 
Published: October 2014

Construction sector has always been dependent on manpower. Most of the activities carried out on any construction site are labour intensive. Since productivity of any project depends directly on productivity of labour, it is a prime responsibility of the employer to enhance labour productivity. Measures to improve the same depend on analysis of positive and negative factors affecting productivity. Major attention should be given to factors that decrease the productivity of labour. Factor analysis thus is an integral part of any study aiming to improve productivity. Interpretive structural modeling is a methodology for identifying and summarizing relationships among factors which define an issue or problem. It provides a means to arrange the factors in an order as per their complexity. This study attempts to use the latest version of interpretive structural modeling i.e. total interpretive structural modeling to analyze factors negatively affecting construction labour productivity. It establishes interpretive relationship among these factors facilitating improvement in the overall productivity of construction site.
Sustainability: Its adaptation and relevance in remote area housing
Authors: Rusch Rosemarie , Best Rick 
Published: October 2014

Little consideration has been given to the context of housing in remote areas. It is important for the economic survival of many remote communities that appropriate and sustainable housing solutions are decided and implemented.This report examines housing at St Pauls, Moa Island in the Torres Strait, using site information, historical research and a review of cultural and geo-political factors to compare the current model with similar studies in self-build housing undertaken in the region between 1986 and 1992. It not only demonstrates tangible economic benefits, but also evaluates the environmental and social improvements which can be achieved with a re-examination of the existing model. It is important to consider the value of investing in policies and practices of sustainable development that can play a pivotal role in potential capacity building within such communities.Current land tenure policy means that families wishing to own their own homes must leave St Pauls, or build illegally. Economically they cannot establish businesses so must leave the island or remain on welfare. The result of this is an exponential increase in the cost of providing community housing and the associated increase in social and health stresses. Acknowledgement at a policy level of the links between social and emotional well-being, and ‘Closing the Gap’ initiatives, have the potential to offer a wide range of funding opportunities and innovative approaches to solving the housing crisis in remote Australia, if they can be implemented in an open and effective manner.
Effect of the Building Act 2011 on compliance costs in Western Australia
Authors: Bazen Elizabeth 
Published: October 2014

The Building Act 2011 commenced in Western Australia on 2 April 2012. It introduced private certification for design and construction compliance, and reduced fees and timeframes for local governments to issue permits. This research project assessed the effect of the Act on the time and cost of building approvals in WA, using an internet-based, self-completion survey to obtain feedback from people on their experience of the new building approvals process. This research compared the cost of approval for 16 building projects under the new and old approvals processes. The research concluded that the new approvals process appears to be cost-neutral for the building industry as a whole. However, the cost of approval for the 11 building projects studied valued up to $1 million, particularly alterations to existing buildings, is an average of 4.0 times greater under the new approvals process.
Problems and problem attention in the construction sector – understanding the influence of human factors
Authors: Sunding Lars , Ekholm Anders 
Published: October 2014

Problems concerning quality and productivity in the construction sector have been a recurrent issue for many years and seem to remain in spite of various initiatives for resolving them. This situation is a result of human action. From social sciences we know that psychological factors crucially influence action design. Knowledge of this influence seems however to be underestimated in the construction sector, and could represent a missing link between strategies, plans and instructions, and the actions carried out.In order to prospect for new problem solving approaches we undertook a questionnaire-based survey to investigate how individuals in the sector perceive the importance and occurrence of, and attention directed to, different proposed causes of inadequate performance. The design of the questionnaire enabled comparisons of different answers to look beyond the respondents’ overt answers. The result suggests that (1) the whole problem solving situation, including individual, relational and contextual problem components should be addressed as ‘the problem’; (2) the workforce has the ambition and courage to do what is expected but does not always have adequate information and the ability or resources to do it; (3) mental information distortion might be responsible for affecting the way the world is understood.
Supportive Organisational Cultures and their effects on Male Civil Engineers
Authors: Francis Valarie 
Published: October 2014

Substantial changes, not only in the demographic composition of the Australian workforce, but also,in the roles and expectations of men and women, have led to organisational and employee attempts to reconcile work and non-work demands. Research suggests that when work-family balance practices are introduced they can greatly enhance organisational efficency. However factors embedded in the organisational culture can undermine these policies rendering them ineffective. This quantitative study examined the relationship between the perceptions of a supportive work culture and some work and non-work experiences of Australian male civil engineers. The research investigated the prevalence of organisational values supportive of work-life balances as well as the level of work-family conflict perceived by those engineers. This paper reports some initial results of the study. These indicated that male civil engineers experienced moderate levels of work-family conflict but do not perceive their organisations to be very supportive of employee nneeds to balance work and personal life. However those that reported a supportive work environment also reported higher levels of organisational commitment, greater job and life satisfaction as well as lower level of work-family conflict and lower intentions to quit. The implications of the findings for organisations employing civil engineers are discussed.
A Critical Review of Forecasting Models to Predict Manpower Demand
Authors: Wong James , Chan Albert , Chiang Y.H 
Published: October 2014

Forecasting manpower requirements has been useful for economic planners, policy makers and training providers in order to avoid the imbalance of skills in the labour market. Although reviews of the manpower planning models have been conducted previously, with the accumulated experience and the booming of advanced statistical techniques and computer programs, the study of forecasting practices has undrgone considerable changes and achieved maturity during the past decade. This paper assesses the latest employment and manpower dmand estimating methods by examining their rationale, strength and constraints. It aims to identify enhancements for further development of manpower forecasting model for the construction industry and compare the reliability and capacity of different forecasting metodologies. It is cocluded that the top-down forecasting approach is the dominant methodology to forecast occupational manpower demand. It precedes other methodologies by its dynamic nature and sensitivity to aa variety of factors affecting the level and structure of employment. Given the improvement of the data available, advanced modelling techniques and computer programs, manpower planning is likely to be more accessible with improved accuracy at every level of the society.
Civil Society: Overlapping Frames
Authors: Dalton Bronwen 
Published: October 2014

The social sciences are bedeviled by terminological promiscuity. Terms and phrases are used at one time in a certain context and later borrowed and applied in different circumstances to somewhat different phenomena. Sometimes different groups of actors or researchers simultaneously use the same term with somewhat different meanings. Such is the use of the term civil society. In this 5th Anniversary of the Cosmopolitan Civil Societies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, it is timely to trace the evolution of the idea of civil society to its multiple guises in the present. The paper reviews the term’s 18th and 19th century roots, its recent resurrection and the opposing views of civil society, including views that question its applicability to non-western settings. It then discusses prospects for developing agreed approaches to the study of civil society. To guide our thinking the paper presents a brief overview of different approaches to defining civil society taken by some of the major so-called centres for civil society in Australia and internationally. The paper concludes by reflecting on these definitional challenges as it has played out at one particular cross faculty research centre, the University of Technology, Sydney’s Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Research Centre.
The politics of social impact: 'value for money' versus 'active citizenship'?
Authors: Onyx Jenny 
Published: October 2014

There is growing interest in identifying the social impact of everything: academic research, funded projects, organisations themselves, whether in public , private, or community sectors. The central questions are first what benefits do organizations create and deliver for society and second how do we measure these benefits? These questions are notoriously difficult to answer and yet go to the heart of efforts by governments and civil society organisations to create a better world, to generate social value. The importance of finding a way to measure social impact becomes all the more crucial when it comes to arguing that the benefits obtained far outweigh the cost of producing those benefits, and indeed the benefits may directly or indirectly increase economic wealth. This line of thinking has started to generated various attempts in Australia and elsewhere in the neo-liberal world, to find objective indicators of social impact, and preferably to frame these in terms of monetary cost and benefit. Indeed there is increasing insistence on the part of funding bodies that we measure the social impact. However, exactly what it is that we should be measuring remains contested and elusive
Information Practices in Contemporary Cosmopolitan Civil Society
Authors: Olsson Michael 
Published: October 2014

What is the nature of information? What is its role in Contemporary Cosmopolitan Civil Society? What is the basis for the widespread current belief that we live in an ‘information society’? The present article will examine these questions through an examination of the historical origins of established ‘scientized’ views of information in the philosophy of the Enlightenment. It describes how postmodern and poststructuralist critique of such positivist approaches led to profound paradigmatic and methodological shifts in the social and information studies fields in recent decades. It consider how the emergence of social constructivist approaches to information research drawing on discourse analysis, practice theory and ethnographic theories and methodologies has led to a have led researchers to a radically different understanding of central concepts such as: the influence of emergent information and communication technologies on contemporary society; the relationship between knowledge and power, the nature of expertise and authoritative information; a re-thinking of community and consensus; a re-interpretation of notions of space and place in information dissemination, sharing and use and a reconsideration of the role of the researcher. The article illustrates this changing research landscape through reference to the work of scholars in the Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Research Centre at the University of Technology, Sydney, published in the Centre’s journal.
“Diaphanous Irony”:
Authors: Naughton Yulia Pushkarevskaya 
Published: October 2014

Abstract
This is a comparative article exploring the use of exilic irony in the work of a Russian–French writer, Gaito Gazdanov, and Russian–American author, Vladimir Nabokov. I argue that both Gazdanov's Night Roads, written in Russian, and Nabokov's The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, written in English, employ a multilayered irony to deal with exile. Irony remains the driving force of both narratives, but, precisely because so much emotional and aesthetic weight is attached to it, it also becomes their potential breaking point. By combining close readings of these texts with theoretical insights into the phenomenon of exilic irony, chiefly from Kierkegaardian existentialism and Lacanian/Kristevian psychoanalysis, this essay will examine the different levels of irony in these novels. Since the primary focus of attention here is exilic irony rather than exile per se, I contend that this combined theoretical perspective is more compelling than traditional approaches to exile. Via my analysis, I hope to establish two paradigms of exilic irony that may become applicable to a larger body of exilic literature: the one that is insistent on exilic experience and is easily collapsible, and the one that transcends exilic experience and is energizing—intellectually, aesthetically, and metaphysically.