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The purpose of this study is to examine the potential impact of climate change on the built environment in four Northern Asian countries. The impact on roads and buildings infrastructure in China, Japan, South Korea and Mongolia were considered during the decades 2030, 2050 and 2090.

The study is based on a stressor-response approach, where using the analysis of 17 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) approved Global Circulation Model (GCM) scenarios, projections for impacts from flooding events, precipitation amounts and temperature were determined. The cost of the impacts, based on both maintenance and new construction considerations, were then determined. “Adapt” and “No Adapt” scenarios were incorporated to predict potential costs in each era.

Mongolia is vulnerable under the majority of scenarios and faces the greatest opportunity cost in terms of potential loss to enhancing the road stock. China is also vulnerable, but the extent of this vulnerability varies widely based on the climate scenarios. Japan is primarily vulnerable to road stock impacts, although some scenarios indicate buildings vulnerability. South Korea appears to have the least vulnerability but could still face $1 billion annual costs from climate change impacts.

Results indicate the need for proactive policy planning to avoid costly impacts later in the century.

The study illustrates the diverse affects that may occur under climate change scenarios and the potential benefit gained from understanding and planning for the projected climate impacts on the built environment.

The purpose of this article is to provide an introduction to the LEONARDO diagnostic tool which assists organizations in determining their current level of achievement towards a learning culture.

Using a combination of the analytical hierarchy process and the Delphi technique, the research obtained the critical questions for evaluating an organization's investment and progress towards achieving a learning culture. The questions are categorized based on five areas of a learning culture and three levels of learning within an organization. These questions are translated into a web‐based diagnostic that is validated and released for use by engineering and construction organizations.

The paper provides an overview of the LEONARDO diagnostic tool including the mathematical weighting system employed for scoring organization progress and investment, the web‐based availability, and the evaluation report card provided to users. The paper also provides a summary of the validation process including how organizations used the tool to determine internal learning progress.

The study obtained input primarily from large organizations and may not fully represent the entire engineering and construction industry perspective.

The study provides a tool that assists any organization in advancing towards a learning culture that is a requirement for remaining competitive in a changing engineering marketplace.

The paper provides an introduction to how to achieve a learning organization as an advance over collecting and managing knowledge. This is the beginning of a movement toward the next stage in achieving success within the knowledge era.

This paper aims to extend knowledge about virtual teams and their advantages and disadvantages in a global business environment.

Based on a literature review and reported findings from interviews with experts and practitioners in the field, the paper has identified and discussed the advantages and problems associated with creating and managing virtual teams.

In today's competitive global economy, organizations capable of rapidly creating virtual teams of talented people can respond quickly to changing business environments. Capabilities of this type offer organizations a form of competitive advantage.

By identifying the advantages and problems associated with virtual teams, organizations will be better able to successfully establish and manage such teams.

A new conceptual model for corporate strategy in the construction industry is presented that is derived from two principal inputs. First, the fundamental components of the model are based upon observations drawn from an empirical study of 24 international firms competing in global engineering and construction markets. Second, the accumulated intellect of different strategic theories developed over four decades of strategic management research helps to fortify the model with theoretical propositions and establish linkages among the model's basic components. The proposed model is comprised of seven strategic fields, two organizational mechanisms and a boundary notion that divides a firm's internal setting from its external environment. The model's development leads to two central propositions: strategic fields and organizational mechanisms should function as variables to react with external dynamics, and the interaction of these variables consequently promotes higher order differentiation factors that will enhance the strategic outlook of a firm.

Human resource planning (HRP) is important during workforce supply to help organizations appoint the right people in the right job. However, few studies have considered the role of HRP practices for local workforce supply in the Malaysian construction industry. The purpose of this paper is to identify the implementation of HRP and framework development of HRP influencing factors for local workforce supply in the Malaysian construction industry.

A mixed method was adopted to interpret the data of semi‐structured interviews and questionnaire survey. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with ten interviewees from government and non‐government organizations. Questionnaires were distributed to a random selection of contractors in the urban areas of Malaysia. The data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) and the Matrix Table.

The findings revealed that economic changes were dominant HRP influencing factors. Only organization strategy; nature of work; economic changes; and demographic (social) changes are significant HRP influencing factors for local workforce supply in the Malaysian construction industry.

Future research should try to adapt the HRP framework in the suitable HRP model to explain the HRP practices in construction organization.

The paper offers insight into HRP implementation in construction firms and HRP influencing factors for local workforce supply, focusing on the construction industry in Malaysia.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the work of district leadership of a large Canadian school district in becoming a learning organization over four years using knowledge management practices.

A qualitative study conducted from 2000‐2004 using a naturalistic research paradigm with the underlying principles of grounded theory. Data were collected from a sample of six supervisory officers through individual and focus group interviews.

Using knowledge management practices, the senior leaders of a large school district organically developed a unified new amalgamated super‐district. They redefined their roles from managers to knowledge leaders in order to reshape the district into a learning organization that could positively respond to the continual changes being rained down on them.

This paper offers insights that are both theoretical and practical on how senior leaders transform their role from operational managers to knowledge leaders for school improvement. The conceptual framework proves valuable in understanding how change can work in practice.

Although the study is limited by the specific context from which data were drawn, it offers useful lessons and direction for large districts undergoing major reforms.

This paper highlights the role of senior leadership as knowledge leaders managing a district towards becoming a learning organization via organic processes that promote knowledge flow.

Over the past several years there have been intensive discussions about the importance of knowledge management within our society. The management of knowledge is promoted as an important and necessary factor for organisational survival and maintenance of competitive strength. To remain at the forefront organisations need a good capacity to retain, develop, organise, and utilise their employees’ capabilities. Knowledge and the management of knowledge appear to be regarded as increasingly important features for organisational survival. Explores knowledge management with respect to its content, its definition and domain in theory and practice, its use and implications, and to point out some problems inherent in the concept. The main contribution of this paper is an extensive literature survey on knowledge management.

This exploratory paper investigates gamification as a medium for knowledge workers to interact with each other. The purpose of this paper is to open the discussion around the sustaining impact that gamification might have on knowledge management (KM).

The paper employs an exploratory literature review investigating the current state of the art in relation to KM and gamification; this literature review serves as the starting point of subsequent theorizing.

Based on the literature review the authors theorize that the use of gamification in KM can go far beyond the motivational aspects. To name just a few uses of gamification, it can help in: supporting flexibility, facilitating transparency and therefore improving trust, visualizing skills and competences as well as generating requirements for new competences and promoting a collaborative environment among the knowledge workers.

This paper opens the discussion around KM and gamification and suggests a wide range of areas for further research.

In this paper the authors argue that by looking at gamification as more than just a set of tools for improving motivation and engagement a company can address some pitfalls of a particular type of knowledge workers.

Gamification is a new, but increasingly popular approach, which has been shown to be powerful in many areas. This paper is novel in that it initiates a dialogue around the impact that gamification might have on KM.

This study aims to explore the influence of the strength of ties (strong ties and weak ties) on contractual flexibility (term flexibility and process flexibility) and relationship quality among stakeholders in a megaproject network.

This study, via a questionnaire survey, collected 380 valid responses from megaproject professionals (including project managers, department managers and project engineers). The data were analyzed using least squares structural equation modeling.

The results show that both strong ties and weak ties have positive effects on relationship quality. The introduction of contractual flexibility can help improve relationship quality by combining the positive effects of the strength of ties. Interestingly, the indirect influence of strong ties on relationship quality is mainly due to term flexibility. However, the influence of process flexibility is not significant, while weak ties have an indirect influence through term flexibility and process flexibility.

This study, while helpful to megaproject management both in theory and practice, is nevertheless subject to several limitations. First, this study only considers the impact of the strength of ties on contractual flexibility and relationship quality; other factors, such as environmental uncertainty, are not explored. Second, the sample data are limited to just a few regions of China. Future research should cover other influencing factors, in order to make the model more substantial; data should also be collected from different cultural and industrial sources, thereby extending and further verifying the results.

This study makes three contributions to extant megaproject literature. First, this study provides a deep and nuanced understanding of the strength of ties. With the distinction between strong ties and weak ties clearly explained, this research furnishes a subtler understanding of relationship governance than has previously been achieved. Second, by precisely identifying the mechanism of how contract flexibility improves contract control and coordination functions, this research offers a complementary view of how contractual flexibility positively contributes to cooperation and relationship quality. Third, this study identifies which dimension of the strength of ties is more influential. This brings a new explanation for the previous controversy and offers some insight into the determinants of how to improve relationship quality in Chinese megaprojects.