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PurposeEffective flow of data and communication at every stage of a construction project is essential for achieving required coordination and collaboration between the project participants, leading to successful management of the projects. In present scenario, when project participants are geographically separated, adoption of information communication technology (ICT) enables such effective communication. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to focus on ICT adoption for building project management.Design/methodology/approachIt is difficult to quantitatively evaluate the benefits of ICT adoption in the multiple enterprise scenario of building project management. It requires qualitative analysis based on the perceptions of the construction professionals. The paper utilizes interpretive structural modeling (ISM) technique to assess importance of perceived benefits and their driving power and dependence on other benefits.FindingsThe developed ISM model shows that all the categories of benefits, i.e. benefits related to projects, team management, technology, and organization are inter‐related and cannot be achieved in isolation. But, organization‐ and technology‐related benefits have high‐driving power and these are “strategic benefits” for the project team organizations. Thus, organizations are required to give more attention on strategically increasing these benefits from application of ICT.Originality/valueThis analysis provides a road map to managers or project management organizations to decide that if they are planning ICT adoption for achieving certain benefits then which are the other driving benefits that should be achieved prior to that and also which are the dependent benefits that would be achieved by default.

Quantitative measures of transport disadvantage are reviewed in this paper from the perspective of their effectiveness to investigate social exclusion. The effectiveness is assessed using criteria derived through a review of the concepts of transport disadvantage and social exclusion and their operationalisation. The specified criteria are related to issues of spatial (e.g., urban accessibility, and public transport accessibility), temporal (e.g., public transport availability, and facility opening hours), and social attributes of travel and activity participation (e.g., personal mobility, and disability). Four groups of transport disadvantage measures are identified and evaluated. These include deprivation-based measures, mobility-based measures, accessibility-based measures, and activity-based measures. The review suggests that although the first three categories of measures have traditionally been used to identify transport disadvantage, they do not satisfy issues surrounding activity participation-the key outcome of social exclusion. The activity space concept is a way in which these issues can be incorporated, as it is a measure of the outcomes of activity participation and their associated travel to that activity. Participation in an activity means that an individual has overcome the spatial, temporal and social barriers of travel for that activity. The research using the activity space concept has, however, inadequately identified individual travel and activity participation. This has been due to a separate application of a range of different indicators to assess activity space size. These indicators are by their nature multidimensional-e.g., area visited, distance travelled, and number of activity sites visited. Although each indicator represents a specific qualitative/quantitative aspect of travel and activity participation, researchers have treated these indicators in an isolated manner to identify transport disadvantage and consequently transport-related social exclusion. This paper identifies the weaknesses and strengths associated with these measures; and methods are directed to overcome the limitations.

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Purpose -This paper presents findings of a research study aimed at identifying critical sustainability factors for improved implementation of Industrialised Building Systems (IBS).It also highlights the importance of decision support, through the establishment of decision making guidelines, for sustainability deliverables in IBS development.Design/methodology/approach -A broad range of sustainability factors, as perceived by researchers and practitioners, are identified through a comprehensive literature study. A study of the survey and statistical data analysis is conducted to examine the criticality of these sustainability factors in IBS implementation.Findings -18 sustainability factors are identified as critical to IBS implementation. Their interrelationships and driving forces are explored, which leads to the development of a conceptual model to map these factors for actions or potential solutions. The work provides a sound basis towards a set of decision making guidelines for sustainable IBS implementation.Originality/value -Compared with previous studies that focus on technical or economical aspects, this study extends existing knowledge on construction prefabrication by linking all aspects of sustainability issues with the design process. It also covers industry characteristics of developing countries, as represented by Malaysia's scenarios.

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Knowledge management (KM) is important to the knowledge-intensive construction industry. The diversified and changing nature of works in this field warrants us to stocktake, identify changes, and map out KM research framework for future exploration. The study involves three aspects. First, three stages of KM research in construction were distinguished in terms of the time distribution of 217 target publications. Major topics in the stages were extracted for understanding the changes of research emphasis from evolutionary perspective. Second, the past works were summed up in a three-dimensional research framework in terms of management organization, managerial methodology and approach, and managerial objective. Finally, potential research orientations in the future were predicted to expand the existing research framework. It was found that (1) KM research has significantly blossomed in the last two decades with a great potential; (2) major topics of KM were changing in terms of technology, technique, organization, attribute of knowledge, and research objectives; (3) past KM studies centred around management organization, managerial methodology and approach, and managerial objective, thus a threedimensional research framework was proposed; (4) within the research framework, team-level, project-level, and firm-level KM were studied to achieve project, organizational, and competitive objectives by integrated methodologies of information technology, social technique, and KM process tool; and (5) nine potential research orientations were predicted corresponding to the three dimensions. Finally, an expanded J Knowl Econ research framework was proposed to encourage and guide future research works in this field. The paper only focused on the construction industry. The findings need further exploration in order to discover any possible missing important research works which were not published in English or not included in the time period. The paper formed a systematic framework of KM research in construction and predicted the potential research orientations. It provides much value for the researchers who want to understand the past and the future of global KM research in the construction industry.