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Recent critiques of the BIM literature describe it as largely devoid of critical theoretical perspectives and theorisation capable of explaining the nature of change in work practices in a holistic manner. In response, the authors argue from a theoretical standpoint, that implementing BIM within professional work practices (as activity systems) induces their evolution through dysfunctions created within the systems and their resolution. Cases of professional organisations in South Africa that have implemented BIM within their organisation and in multi-organisational projects, helped to develop new theoretical insights into how professional work practices evolve using activity theory-based re-description of the data. Changes in professional work practices were analysed sequentially within the framework, confirming theoretical propositions and revealing the dynamics between and within the interconnected system of actors, their object, tools, rules guiding work, roles they assume, and the stakeholders. Essentially, the findings imply that the implementation ofBIM significantly changes work practices within organisations, but gradually and over time. This supports an evolutionary, rather than a radical or revolutionary, view ofBIM-induced change. This theoretical perspective could explain future dimensions of change in professional work practices involving BIM, and indeed similar work mediating tools.

Purpose Critics of claims about building information modeling’s (BIM’s) capability to revolutionize construction industry practices describe it as overhyped, fallacious and therefore suggest that there is need for a more critical examination of its change impacts. Others have posited that the changes BIM induces are evolutionary rather than revolutionary. In this vein, the purpose of this paper was to undertake a careful analysis of the nature of such changes to distil actual changes that happened, and the type of agency that brings such changes about. Design/methodology/approach Drawing from appropriate qualitative research strategies, data was collected through key informant interviews from consulting organizations in South Africa that have implemented BIM within their organizations and on projects. Findings Changes in organizations’ work practices were evident in their workflows, formal/informal methods of interaction, norms, leadership and authority structures, remuneration and the way work was conceived or conceptualized. Furthermore, changes in organizational work practices do not solely occur through the direct agency of the BIM tool’s implementation. Instead, BIM-induced change occurs by delegated, conditional and needs-based agency – which are not mutually exclusive. Originality/value The nature of changes in professional work practices could be misconstrued as being solely because of the actions of agents who actively participate in implementing BIM. The discussion in the literature has, therefore, been advanced from general to specific theoretical understandings of BIM-induced change, which emphasize the need for construction stakeholders to actively participate in developing the innovations that drive change in the industry rather than hand the power to drive change to BIM authoring and management application developers who have less stake in the industry.

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Purpose The relatively low capital cost and contributions to mitigating global warming have favoured the continuous construction and operation of nuclear power plants (NPPs) across the world. One critical phase in the operation of nuclear plants for ensuring the safety and security of radioactive products and by-products is decommissioning. With the advent of digital twinning in the building information modelling (BIM) methodology, efficiency and safety can be improved from context-focus access to regulations pertaining to demolition of structures and the cleaning-up of radioactivity inherent in nuclear stations. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to propose a BIM-driven framework to achieve a more regulation-aware and safer decommissioning of nuclear power plants. Design/methodology/approach The framework considers task requirements, and landscape and environmental factors in modelling demolition scenarios that characterise decommissioning processes. The framework integrates decommissioning rules/regulations in a BIM linked non-structured query system to model items and decommissioning tasks, which are implemented based on context-focussed retrieval of decommissioning rules and regulations. The concept’s efficacy is demonstrated using example cases of digitalised NPPs. Findings This approach contributes to enhancing improvements in nuclear plant decommissioning with potential for appropriate activity sequencing, risk reduction and ensuring safety. Originality/value A BIM-driven framework hinged on querying non-structured databases to provide context-focussed access to nuclear rules and regulations and to aiding decommissioning is new.

A project is adjudged successful if it is completed to time, within the budgeted cost and meets client's expectation. However, there is the global issue of construction cost and time overruns, which has contributed to poor project performance. Contractors have always been seen as the culprit in this regard, whereas, the contractor is not solely involved in construction projects, there are other project team members who determine the path of the project success. This study assesses the causes of cost overruns, viewing this from the contractor's assessment of the contribution of its project team members. The study was conducted using questionnaire surveys in which 100 questionnaires were distributed to contractors using purposive sampling; data were analyzed by the use of descriptive statistics. The results show that lack of adequate pre-contract planning and project team coordination are the most significant factor among construction professionals leading to cost overruns. The study made recommendations which are of good benefit to the client, project team members and contractors.

Purpose This paper presents a review of research methodologies used in addressing problems in the financial management of property and construction journals from 2005 to 2020. Design/methodology/approach Content analysis of 258 research papers published in the Journal of Financial Management of Property and Construction was carried out, enabling the exploration of research approaches, epistemology, strategies, data collection and data analysis methods used in addressing problems researched in the area of financial management of property and construction Findings The findings show that quantitative approaches and methods dominate, whereas qualitative and mixed methods were prominent in-depth understanding of a topics were needed. Interestingly, almost a third of the publications did not adopt quantitative approaches. In some journal issues, there was relatively high use of qualitative and multi-method approaches and up to 12% of the articles published over the past 16 years could be described as based on pragmatism. Research limitations/implications An important implication of this paper is that a conventionally number-based area of research does not preclude the use of qualitative and mixed approaches. The findings are only generalisable to the Journal of Financial Management of Property and Construction. Practical implications Financial management researchers could benefit greatly by considering pluralistic approaches more in the design of their studies. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is an original synthesis of the articles published between 2005 and 2020. It provides new insight into the use of research methodologies by authors and how they have been combined to address their research problems. It further investigates an old issue or question about methodological choice-making using new evidence and original empirical work.

As part of the Royal Dutch Shell Group, the Shell Projects organisation, which is responsible for all major construction projects in Shell, shares the Shell-wide Goal Zero aspiration of no harm and no leaks. To help accelerate the journey to Goal Zero, a set of standard safety rules and a roadmap of activities that can help to deliver strong safety leadership have been implemented across all construction sites and installation vessels. This paper will describe the development of this initiative, which is known as Construction Site Safety Standardisation (CSSS), outline its key components and their purpose, and demonstrate how CSSS is impacting the global projects construction sites that are essential to the continued growth of Shell as an energy provider and petrochemical company. CSSS grew out of an analysis of how workers were getting hurt, mainly based on Shell's own data, but also using some wider industry information. A hot spot analysis was made of incident types, including near misses with serious injury potential. The following activities were identified as the most hazardous: Confined SpacesExcavationsHeavy Equipment and Vehicle OperationsHot WorksLifting and HoistingSafe Isolation of EnergyScaffolding and other forms of accessSimultaneous OperationsWorking at Height Requirements that were specific to construction/installation activities were then developed to reinforce and complement already existing cross-Shell HSSE requirements. Standards were also developed for the following safe practices that were regarded as further construction-wide contributory factors in safety performance: ▪Barricades and Open Holes▪Housekeeping▪Line of Fire▪Personal Protective Equipment▪Routine Life Tasks The new, extended requirements, supported by visual materials and toolbox talks, are designed to promote safer work among both employees and contractor staff as well as cross-pollinate lessons learned and best practices across the global projects portfolio. The requirement to use a ‘roadmap’ of enabling activities, supported by a structured set of consistent materials and job aids, reduces waste and streamlines approaches to building worksite safety cultures. This, in turn, improves experience transfer and learning and avoids the potential of continual reinvention of initiatives across projects. Roadmap activities are clustered into five areas: Safety Leadership; Care for People; Staffing, Training, Competency; Communications; and Worksite Set-up. CSSS was initially back-integrated into existing projects and is now an integral part of the start-up of new projects. Consistent uptake across projects is helping to establish a single, global approach to construction site safety management. This paper will include some project examples to show how CSSS is helping to drive positive change and promote consistency in different environments - including greenfield and brownfield sites and vessels - and across projects with varying governance models.