Suchergebnisse

[EN] Today, critical deficiencies hinder the effective inclusion of social criteria in public-works procurement. The primary reasons for this are the lack of information and objective social assessment methods in the construction industry. Hence, this paper proposes a method to assist agencies in including indicators and objective assessments of social sustainability in public-works procurement. This method applies to civil engineering projects in the infrastructure life-cycle construction stage using design-bid-build delivery. Eight social categories and 22 factors are organized into two organizational levels (project and company). Quantitative and semi-quantitative indicators are proposed to assess the social commitment of construction companies in their organizations and projects. Additionally, two aggregation formulas are established as assessment criteria in public-works procurement. The results highlight that the indicators' importance in assessing social commitment in a project can be defined depending on the local context. Moreover, the method to assess corporate social responsibility can also measure and compare a company's performance, regardless of size. The proposed method can be used in procurement procedures, helping public-works procurers develop transparent decision processes. ; The authors acknowledge the financial support of the Valencian Regional Government (Project No. 05TUI/2020/126904) and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, along with the European Regional Development Fund (Project No. BIA2017-85098-R). The authors are grateful to the expert panel for their participation in this research. ; Montalbán-Domingo, L.; Pellicer, E.; García-Segura, T.; Sanz-Benlloch, A. (2021). An integrated method for the assessment of social sustainability in public-works procurement. Environmental Impact Assessment Review. 89:1-15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2021.106581 ; S ; 1 ; 15 ; 89

This research was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, grant number BIA2017-85098-R and the Valencian Regional Government, grant number GV/2018//085 ; Montalbán-Domingo, L.; Aguilar-Morocho, M.; García-Segura, T.; Pellicer, E. (2020). Study of Social and Environmental Needs for the Selection of Sustainable Criteria in the Procurement of Public Works. Sustainability. 12(18):1-21. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12187756 ; S ; 1 ; 21 ; 12 ; 18 ; Xia, B., Chen, Q., Xu, Y., Li, M., & Jin, X. (2015). Design-Build Contractor Selection for Public Sustainable Buildings. Journal of Management in Engineering, 31(5), 04014070. doi:10.1061/(asce)me.1943-5479.0000295 ; Ruparathna, R., & Hewage, K. (2015). Sustainable procurement in the Canadian construction industry: current practices, drivers and opportunities. Journal of Cleaner Production, 109, 305-314. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.07.007 ; Testa, F., Grappio, P., Gusmerotti, N. M., Iraldo, F., & Frey, M. (2015). Examining green public procurement using content analysis: existing difficulties for procurers and useful recommendations. Environment, Development and Sustainability, 18(1), 197-219. doi:10.1007/s10668-015-9634-1 ; Directive 2014/24/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2014 On Public Procurement and Repealing Directive 2004/18/EChttps://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32014L0024&rid=1 ; Montalbán-Domingo, L., García-Segura, T., Sanz, M. A., & Pellicer, E. (2018). Social sustainability criteria in public-work procurement: An international perspective. Journal of Cleaner Production, 198, 1355-1371. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.07.083 ; Sourani, A., & Sohail, M. (2011). Barriers to addressing sustainable construction in public procurement strategies. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Engineering Sustainability, 164(4), 229-237. doi:10.1680/ensu.2011.164.4.229 ; Ugwu, O. O., Kumaraswamy, M. M., Wong, A., & Ng, S. T. (2006). Sustainability appraisal in ...

[EN] The growing importance of international construction activity forces companies to find out what competitive advantages to provide and barriers to overcome to achieve success, considering the particular characteristics of their origin and destination countries. Seventy six articles regarding success in the international construction market in the period 2008-2017 are reviewed to identify the barriers and the competitive advantages that most affect the international success of contractors. The Chi-Square (chi(2)) statistical test is used to verify the influence of the origin and destination countries on these variables. The literature identifies the provision of trained human resources as the most important competitive advantage and cultural differences and political risks as the main barriers. The Chi-Square (chi(2)) test indicates a dependency relationship between the origin country and the competitive advantage "managerial ability" to achieve international success, and between the external barriers "link between countries", "political environment" and "economic environment" with the target market. Results of this paper provide valuable information for any construction company seeking international success. ; Lozano-Torró, A.; García-Segura, T.; Montalbán-Domingo, L.; Pellicer, E. (2020). Competitive Advantages and Barriers in International Construction: An Origin-Host Market Approach. Journal of Civil Engineering and Management. 26(5):475-489. https://doi.org/10.3846/jcem.2020.12180 ; S ; 475 ; 489 ; 26 ; 5 ; Abdelghany, Y., & Ezeldin, A. S. (2010). Classification of Risks for International Construction Joint Ventures (ICJV) Projects. Construction Research Congress 2010. doi:10.1061/41109(373)126 ; Abdul-Aziz, A.-R., Nor Azmi, H.-A. C. M., Law, Y.-H., & Pengiran, D. N. (2013). Internationalization of Construction-Related Consultants: Impact of Age and Size. Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice, 139(2), 148-155. doi:10.1061/(asce)ei.1943-5541.0000135 ; Ahmed, R., ...

The growing importance of international construction activity forces companies to find out what competitive advantages to provide and barriers to overcome to achieve success, considering the particular characteristics of their origin and destination countries. Seventy six articles regarding success in the international construction market in the period 2008–2017 are reviewed to identify the barriers and the competitive advantages that most affect the international success of contractors. The Chi-Square (χ²) statistical test is used to verify the influence of the origin and destination countries on these variables. The literature identifies the provision of trained human resources as the most important competitive advantage and cultural differences and political risks as the main barriers. The Chi-Square (χ²) test indicates a dependency relationship between the origin country and the competitive advantage "managerial ability" to achieve international success, and between the external barriers "link between countries", "political environment" and "economic environment" with the target market. Results of this paper provide valuable information for any construction company seeking international success.

The growing importance of international construction activity forces companies to find out what competitive advantages to provide and barriers to overcome to achieve success, considering the particular characteristics of their origin and destination countries. Seventy six articles regarding success in the international construction market in the period 2008–2017 are reviewed to identify the barriers and the competitive advantages that most affect the international success of contractors. The Chi-Square (χ²) statistical test is used to verify the influence of the origin and destination countries on these variables. The literature identifies the provision of trained human resources as the most important competitive advantage and cultural differences and political risks as the main barriers. The Chi-Square (χ²) test indicates a dependency relationship between the origin country and the competitive advantage "managerial ability" to achieve international success, and between the external barriers "link between countries", "political environment" and "economic environment" with the target market. Results of this paper provide valuable information for any construction company seeking international success.

During the period between 2008–2013, the internal market in Spain was characterized by economic crisis, the contraction of the demand experienced in a turbulent business environment, and strong competition among companies. This situation forced many of these companies to work abroad. One of the success factors for Spanish engineering companies abroad has been effective risk management, which avoids compromising the company's objectives, market share, or survival. This article examines the importance of risk management in the success of Spanish engineering consulting firms in the international construction market. Ten executives of Spanish engineering companies with international experience were interviewed, analyzing the importance of risk management for them in the success of internationalization compared with other success factors. The results show that the size of the companies interviewed has no influence on the importance that they gave to risk management, but international experience does relate to the assessment of risk identification and management as a success factor. In addition, companies considered risk management a key factor for optimizing their performance in foreign markets.

[EN] Nowadays, sustainability assessment tends to focus on the biophysical and economic aspects of the built environment. The social aspects are generally overestimated during an infrastructure evaluation. This study proposes a method to optimize infrastructure projects by assessing their social contribution. This proposal takes into account the infrastructure¿s interactions with the local environment in terms of its potential contribution in the short and long term. The method is structured in three stages: (1) preparation of a decision-making model, (2) formulation of the model, and (3) implementation of the model through optimization of infrastructure projects from the social sustainability viewpoint. The theory of Bayesian reasoning and a harmony search optimization algorithm are used to carry out the research. The paper presents the application to a case study of a set of alternatives for road infrastructure projects in El Salvador. This approach creates a model of participative decision-making. The results show that the method can distinguish socially efficient alternatives from the short and long-term contributions. In addition, the results suggest that some variables are less sensitive to the short and long-term maximization, while others vary their values to improve one objective or the other. The findings are directly applied to a real case. The method can be employed in the infrastructure formulation and prioritization phases and complemented with economic and environmental sustainability assessments. ; This research was funded by the Government of Chile under the Doctoral Fellowship Abroad Program (grant CONICYT-2015/72160059) and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness along with FEDER funding (project BIA2014-56574-R). The authors are grateful to both the United Nations Development Programme and the Ministry of Public Works, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development of El Salvador for their participation in the implementation of the proposed method (Project 00074250). ...

[EN] Boosting sustainability in public construction procurement implies new challenges associated with incentivizing integrated approaches and the inclusion of sustainability criteria in tendering procedures. Thus, the choice of project-delivery method and procurement procedure is a key decision to ensure project success for sustainable outcomes. This study focused on the social dimension of sustainability and analyzed 451 tendering documents from 10 countries to assess the influence of procurement procedures and delivery methods on the inclusion of social criteria in public construction procurement. Content analysis, descriptive statistics, and logistic regression were applied. The results show the international trends in delivery methods and procurement procedures. Country and contract size were found to be the most influential variables for the inclusion of social criteria in tendering procedures. There were no significant differences between project-delivery methods and between procurement procedures with respect to the inclusion of social criteria. However, criteria associated with employment and cultural heritage were mainly considered in traditional delivery methods, whereas professional ethics and cultural heritage were associated with the lowest price procurement procedures. Finally, subjective methods were predominantly used to assess social sustainability. ; The authors acknowledge the financial support of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, along with FEDER funding (Project BIA2017-85098-R) and the Valencian Regional Government (Project GV/2018//085). Furthermore, the valuable commentaries and suggestions of three anonymous reviewers are highly appreciated. ; Montalbán-Domingo, L.; García-Segura, T.; Sanz-Benlloch, MA.; Pellicer, E. (2019). Social Sustainability in Delivery and Procurement of Public Construction Contracts. Journal of Management in Engineering. 35(2):04018065-1-04018065-10. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)ME.1943-5479.0000674 ; S ; 04018065-1 ; 04018065-10 ; 35 ; 2

[EN] Universities are preparing future professionals to face real problems. Sustainable development is a challenge that requires particular attention from educational programs. In their profession, civil engineers address many decisions that can compromise the sustainability of infrastructure. This paper proposes a sustainable decision-making module to promote student competencies relevant to solving real engineering decision-making problems while meeting sustainability criteria. The module is tested in a project management course for a master¿s in Planning and Management in Civil Engineering program. Students were placed in a procurement process scenario with the objective of designing a sustainable decision-making layout for selecting the best construction company to construct a highway. The assessment of the student performance revealed that most students acquired higher-order cognitive skills, and the perception survey showed that this learning method has been widely accepted for developing competencies related to both decision-making and sustainable thinking. This study could serve as an example for engineering education to promote sustainable practices through the active exploration of decision-making in real professional situations. ; The authors acknowledge the financial support of the Valencian Regional Government (Project No. GV/2018//085) and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, along with European Regional Development Fund (Project No. BIA2017-85098-R). ; García-Segura, T.; Montalbán-Domingo, L.; Sanz-Benlloch, MA.; Lozano-Torró, A. (2020). Sustainable Decision-Making Module: Application to Public Procurement. Journal of Civil Engineering Education. 146(3):04020004-1-04020004-11. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)EI.2643-9115.0000014 ; S ; 04020004-1 ; 04020004-11 ; 146 ; 3

[ES] La industria de la construcción es una de las principales industrias en un país debido a su alto impacto económico. Sin embargo, esta industria tiene un riesgo elevado de incurrir en retrasos, sobrecostes y deficiencias en la calidad. Por lo tanto, para mitigar estos problemas, es vital explorar los factores de riesgo que contribuyen a ello. Diversos factores políticos, económicos, sociales, tecnológicos, ambientales y legales tienden a afectar el desempeño de la obra. Por este motivo, este documento tiene como objetivo explorar las herramientas estadísticas y los modelos analíticos para identificar, clasificar y analizar los factores de riesgo que contribuyen al sobrecoste, retraso y deficiencias en la calidad. A través de una revisión sistemática de la literatura, se extraen y analizan las principales variables. Las variables se dividen en varios grupos según su naturaleza. En cuanto a las herramientas estadísticas, se realiza un metaanálisis para comparar y analizar los diferentes enfoques utilizados para evaluar los factores de riesgo obtenidos de los artículos. Como resultado, a partir de la revisión sistemática de la literatura y el metaanálisis, este documento identifica los factores de riesgo más relevantes que afectan al éxito de una obra y los enfoques estadísticos más adecuados. ; [EN] The construction industry is one of the main important industries in a nation due to its high economic impact. Yet, this industry is continuously at risk of encountering vast losses in time, cost and quality of a delivered project. Thus, to mitigate these losses, it is vital to explore the risk factors contributing at those. Various political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal risk factors tend to affect the performance of the construction work. Thus, this paper aims to explore statistical tools and analytical approaches to identify, classify, and analyze the common risk factors that contribute to cost overrun, time overrun, and poor quality outcome. Through a systematic literature review, ...