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The purpose of this paper is to explore contemporary attitudes amongst UK construction professionals regards fire safety post the Grenfell Tower disaster. Specifically, the research examines practitioner’s perceptions of fire safety design, material specification, construction and maintenance of high-rise blocks throughout a building’s whole life cycle.

A multi-methodology approach was adopted that utilises a mix of research methods. Extant literature and media content is used as a secondary data source, providing a more insightful interpretivist analysis – the results of which guided the development of the survey’s main question set. Primary survey data are sourced from structured interviews and questionnaires completed by participating industry professionals and built environment undergraduate students using non-representative sampling methods. In addition, a Grenfell Tower special advisory panel member was interviewed to add further validity to the overall findings.

The quantitative findings present evidence to suggest that the Grenfell disaster (and media storm that has surrounded this event) has raised the general level of fire safety knowledge and competency amongst construction professionals. However, qualitative feedback from the special advisory panel member suggests specific fire prevention knowledge remains elusive within both industry and taught programmes at Higher Education Institutes. As a consequence, changes in the taught curriculum are proposed together with an extension of the role of facilities managers in practice to cover fire safety in greater depth.

This paper provides thoughtful insights into the contemporary discourse on fire safety within the UK construction industry. The research also provides critical suggestions to both industry and policy makers which seek to prevent a repeat tragedy occurring again.

Framed as a pilot study, the purpose of this paper is to study the perceived appropriateness of an existing collaborative procurement procedure (CPP) framework from the housebuilder’s perspective, seeking to improve its utility and stimulate further exploration.

Informed by an existing CPP framework and conducted by a UK-based development professional, four in-depth semi-structured interviews were undertaken with senior housebuilding practitioners from London and surrounding counties. A qualitative analysis was then conducted for this sociological study.

Perceived appropriateness of the framework was high; however, a number of procedural improvements were identified, along with limitations. Future studies are recommended including the influence upon project performance of groundworker integration at the design stage.

Limited to four interviews from one regional area, the study provides an initial insight into the appropriateness of an existing CPP framework. Insights into why CP uptake is marginal within housebuilding were also gained. The research purpose was achieved but by offering a self-reflection upon practice (vis-à-vis wider generalisations), the findings provide a springboard for further studies.

The research identifies with current practice, industry perceptions and paths towards improving the utility of the CPP framework.

This study offers insights into the perceptions of private housebuilding practitioners of their own practices and the factors they find challenging within the social constructs of their industry.

This research constitutes one of the first studies in the UK to examine the CPP framework from the perspective of the private housebuilder and is undertaken with the express purpose of furthering that framework’s utility.

Illustrates how quality function deployment (QFD) can be used to measure customer satisfaction in educational institutions. Specifically, utilizes QFD in evaluating the MBA programme at Grand Valley State University. The inputs for the QFDs were obtained through several brainstorming sessions of MBA students, faculty members, administrators, and business people. The preliminary results of the pilot field test show that QFD is a very useful tool in ascertaining customer desires, prioritizing them, and directing organizational resources towards customer satisfaction.

Due to the practical complexity and fragmented nature of the construction industry, digitalisation, like other innovations, is not easily achieved. This study aims to explore organisational influences on digitalisation within construction firms.

The study uses structured open-ended questions as a data collection tool for a qualitative investigation. The qualitative approach enabled participants to express their inputs and maximise the diversity of data, offering new insights and discussions that are distinct from previous works.

Construction professionals from 22 organisations provided their perspectives on digital transformation and their organisations. Under four constructs – structure, culture, leadership and internal processes, findings uncovered 16 determinants critical to digitalisation in construction firms. The study offers a theoretical perspective supported by empirical data to explore the complex dynamics and internal interactions of organisational influence on the uptake of digitalisation in the construction industry.

This paper offers arguments from a theoretical lens by applying the organisational influence model and capturing the variables under each construct in an exploratory manner to highlight the reasoning behind the low digital uptake in construction firms. This research aids academia and practice on the pressure points responsible for enhancing, or undermining, digital uptake in construction firms at an organisational level.

The New Zealand building code has played a vital role in reducing the impact of disasters in the built environment. Following the nature of earthquake occurrences, the associated impacts such as building collapse and the increase in technological innovation in the building sector, the New Zealand building code has been frequently amended. The building code amendment ensures that buildings and other related infrastructures can withstand the impact of ground shaking without substantial damages to buildings. The purpose of this paper is to identify and explore the benefits of building code amendments in New Zealand.

Document analysis and closed-ended questionnaire were adopted as data collection instruments for this study. The relevant stakeholders comprise structural engineer, geotechnical engineer, architect, building services consulting engineer, licensed building practitioner, project manager, building contractor, local authority, academic/researcher and quantity surveyor.

A significant proportion of the survey participants that agreed to the importance of building code amendments in New Zealand justify the benefits of the amendments. The study serves as a useful guide to policy regulators and researchers who are exploring other aspects of regular building code amendments in New Zealand. The findings from this study suggest that amending the New Zealand building code needs a proactive approach to promote local technology, enhance low-cost construction materials, training of code users and reducing bureaucracy in design approval and construction inspection. The study concludes that improving on the 28 factors identified in this study would contribute intensively to disaster risk reduction in the built environment and an increase in compliance level in New Zealand.

This paper originality comes from its practical approach towards identifying the benefits of building code amendments

This study aims to describe how the Hoshin Kanri (HK) strategic methodology facilitates implementation of lean management (LM), achieving greater integration of the strategic and operational levels, resulting in higher performance level.

The authors conducted an in-depth case study of a top-10 Spanish food retail company with experience in HK and LM. First, the authors conducted 17 semi-structured interviews with the management team. Second, the authors analyzed all minutes from meetings of the key management entities for HK monitoring over a period of 3 years (2016–2019). Third, the authors evaluated the reports and key scorecards for the same period. Finally, authors visited the operating facilities and attended multiple team management meetings.

This study demonstrates that deploying HK creates the strategic ecosystem for operations management that facilitates successful implementation of LM. By sharing common cultural concepts, both methodologies generate faster transformation of the organization and thus push it towards its strategic objectives with more determination and better performance.

The lack of strategic alignment is one of the most important reasons for LM failure. Although HK is a strategic methodology that facilitates this alignment, a gap exists in the literature on the benefits of HK for implementation of continuous improvement initiatives such as LM. Our research shows how HK enables a participative connection between the strategic and operational areas of the firm that reinforces the fundamental elements of LM. Employee involvement, widespread use of plan-do-check-act (PDCA) methodology and multidisciplinary work (among other effects) make HK a key element for successful implementation of LM.

Large-scale change involves modifying not only the structures and functions of multiple organizations, but also the mindsets and behaviours of diverse stakeholders. This paper focuses on the latter: the informal, less visible, and often neglected psychological and social factors implicated in change efforts. The purpose of this paper is to differentiate between the concepts of organizational culture and mental models, to argue for the value of applying a shared mental models (SMM) framework to large-scale change, and to suggest directions for future research.

The authors provide an overview of SMM theory and use it to explore the dynamic relationship between culture and cognition. The contributions and limitations of the theory to change efforts are also discussed.

Culture and cognition are complementary perspectives, providing insight into two different levels of the change process. SMM theory draws attention to important questions that add value to existing perspectives on large-scale change. The authors outline these questions for future research and argue that research and practice in this domain may be best served by focusing less on the potentially narrow goal of “achieving consensus” and more on identifying, understanding, and managing cognitive convergences and divergences as part of broader research and change management programmes.

Drawing from both cultural and cognitive paradigms can provide researchers with a more complete picture of the processes by which coordinated action are achieved in complex change initiatives in the healthcare domain.