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The purpose of this paper is to examine the features and tendency of cost indices in the global construction setting.

Data from 22 countries/regions are collected and analyzed using maximum variance formulation and Kendall rank correlation coefficient.

It is found that global construction cost indexes (CCIs) have commonly maintained a steady increase for decades, and the CCIs synchronize with each other. Overall synchronicity and synchronicity of different countries pairs have increased with time significantly.

The major limitation, however, is the availability of data: only 22 regions/countries are examined, the distribution of these regions/countries is imbalanced between different continents and various indices are adopted around the world, of which statistical methods are not same.

The implication is that a better perception of CCIs enables contractors to have a robust estimation for bidding prices and to improve the efficiency of construction projects management. The research findings also provide a useful reference for those countries that have not established construction cost indices databases to forecast the tendency of domestic construction industries.

This paper contributes to the overall body of knowledge by presenting the co-movement of global CCIs and measuring the changes of CCI synchronicity with time and in different countries pairs.

Prefabricated construction has been rapidly developing and intensifying the reliance on the supply chain. The pandemic of COVID-19 induced severe disruptions to the supply chain operation and thus attracted the research attention on the supply chain resilience (SCR) under various events. Assessing the resilience of the prefabricated construction supply chain (PCSC) is essential for surviving the shifting disruptive attacks and ensuring consistent, reliable operation. Based on the ripple effect and supply chain performance (SCP), this study aims to develop an assessment model for SCR of PCSC.

Having identified the roles and material flows among stakeholders, a PCSC network is established. Utilizing the ripple effect model, it develops an assessment framework tailored for PCSCs, which then evolves into a comprehensive assessment model for evaluating the SCR by integrating the disruptive influence and the pre-and post-disruption SCP. Case study is then applied to validate the model.

Using SCP metrics and disruptive influence assessment as basic dimensions, the SCR can be assessed and expressed through a vector formula. Operating costs and asset utilization can effectively reflect changes in resilience, paying attention to their real-time changes can provide a better judgment of the current stage of disruptions.

The assessment model of SCR accounts for the ripple effect within prefabricated construction, offering a thorough understanding of how disruptions impact the entire supply chain network. Additionally, this model introduces a novel approach to evaluating SCR in reverse by leveraging SCP metrics instead of direct measurement, thereby minimizing potential biases.

Construction enterprises increase their competitive advantage by joining the project ecosystem, but the dual nature of the enterprise’s niche has attracted attention, and existing research has gaps in understanding niche and ecosystem governance issues. This study aims to promote ecosystem compliance governance by exploring the impact of the niche of the key role of construction enterprises on compliance behavior.

First, the study proposes a model on the impact of the enterprise's niche on its compliance behavior and the mediating role of the enterprise's perception of sanctions and the moderating role of a shared vision for compliance of ecological partners within these relationships. Second, we used 205 samples, who were Chinese contractors with international construction project experience through a questionnaire survey. Third, the study conducted a hierarchical regression to test the hypothesis.

The results show that construction enterprises with a wider niche or with a higher degree of niche overlap are more inclined to performance compliance. Enterprises' perception of sanctions plays a part in mediating the enterprise's niche and compliance behavior. The relationship between enterprises' perception of sanctions and compliance behavior can be moderated by the shared vision for compliance of ecological partners. Given a low compliance shared vision of ecological partners, the impact of enterprise perception of sanctions on compliance behavior is positively stronger.

The findings provide valuable evidence upon which ecosystem governance needs to focus and leverage the role of key members, using the advantageous resources of key members as a fulcrum to leverage a larger governance scope. Construction enterprises should keep improving their niche and the shared vision for partners' compliance to promote the evolution and upgrading of cooperation to an ecosystem model that creates greater value.

This study provides new insights for future compliance governance in the project ecosystem by introducing the concept of niche and answering whether construction enterprises with a higher niche in the project ecosystem are more willing to implement compliance behavior.

This study aims to map out contractors' thoughts on construction-related environmental recovery as an excuse for deliberately carrying on unsustainable construction.

A typical highway construction project in China was investigated. Textual materials were collected through semistructured interviews. Content analysis was conducted to derive qualitative data from the textual materials.

The research findings reveal a trend of environmental recovery associated with construction activities. It is found that contractors utilize this trend to maintain unsustainable construction. Furthermore, the effects of environmental recovery equip local governments with a tolerance for environmental degradation, and the environmental tolerance allows contractors to continue unsustainable construction without being discovered.

This paper presents an environmental recovery-based perspective on unsustainable construction and sheds some light on the promotion of sustainable construction.

“Competition intensity” is a factor in addressing competitiveness. The understanding on competition intensity is prerequisite to the formulation of industrial competition policies as well as firms’ competition strategies. In the construction context, whereas competition intensity can be measured using a number of traditional approaches (e.g. competitor number, concentration), the measurement is often criticized for poor efficiency. The purpose of this paper is to propose a new model for measuring competition intensity in light of the theory of discriminant analysis.

The proposed model is composed of predictor variables concerned with market operation as well as criterion variables that classify markets into a few predefined groups based on the values of competition intensity. Empirical data of China's local construction markets were collected to verify the proposed model.

The research findings indicate that the model can offset the drawbacks of traditional measures in the construction market.

It is recommended using the proposed model to predict the competition trend of construction market especially when data for the traditional approaches are poor or not readily available.

The proposed model is a development of the literature in examining competition intensity.

The risks and uncertainties of public–private partnership (PPP) projects threaten their sustainability. Contract flexibility, which is based on the theory of incomplete contract and transaction cost, may be a viable solution to this issue. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between contract flexibility and the sustainability performance of PPP projects. The multiple mediating roles of justice perception and cooperation efficiency are assessed, thereby allowing the pathways and conditions to be understood more comprehensively for improving the sustainability performance of PPP projects.

Nine hypotheses in the proposed research model are tested via structural equation modeling using data acquired from 218 Chinese PPP professionals.

Results show that contract flexibility positively affects PPP project sustainability performance. Justice perception and cooperation efficiency play direct and sequential mediating roles in this effect.

This study validates that contract flexibility positively impacts the sustainability performance of PPP projects, where justice perception and cooperation efficiency serve direct and sequential mediating roles. The findings of this study contribute to an improved understanding of the effect of contract flexibility on the sustainability performance of PPP projects. Furthermore, they provide important theoretical and practical insights into contract management as well as beneficial information and valuable initiatives for improving the sustainability of PPP projects.