Given that project selection is a vital and recurring strategic decision for construction firms, there is a sizeable collection of studies that examine the factors affecting contractors’ decision to bid (d2b). With the aim to provide a global perspective of factors affecting contractors’ d2b, this study meta-analytically reviews 24 relevant studies published between 1988 and 2021. The results show that that there are 28 critical factors, and the top five factors are (i) project payment terms, (ii) financial capacity of client, (iii) client’s reputation in the industry, (iv) the history of client’s payments in the past projects, and (v) project size. The heterogeneity test results, which show no statistically significant heterogeneity across the included studies, reinforce the generalisability of the findings to a global context. The research findings have practical implications for construction clients in their procurement of construction services, highlighting the importance of good reputation and payment history. For contractors, they now have access to a list of critical factors from a global perspective in facilitating their d2b decision. There are methodological implications for the research community in guiding future efforts in replicating studies.

Changes and challenges in employment are inevitable under the measures enacted to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. Early evidence suggests that the pandemic would disproportionately affect women compared to men. Focussing on women workforce in construction, this exploratory study examines the challenges associated with changes in their job situations, the adopted strategies in addressing the challenges and their opinions on employment situation of women workforce during the pandemic. Results of a content analysis show that the top ranked challenges are: (i) overworked; (ii) working space; (iii) social interactions; (iv) collaboration; and (v) parenting. The most cited strategies in addressing these challenges are: (i) increased visual communication; (ii) a dedicated workspace; (iii) self-scheduling; (iv) flexible working arrangements; and (v) breaking out work time and personal time. The evidence is suggestive that most challenges are interrelated, and the strategies adopted by the respondents are multi-level and interdependent. The results also show that the most mentioned opinion is the increased caring and domestic responsibilities among women workforce. Under the uncertainty about the duration of the pandemic and future contagion waves, these findings are critical in informing employing organizations’ human resource management challenges to better support their female employees during pandemic time and beyond.

With a growing diverse workforce in the construction industry, properly fitting personal protective clothing and equipment (PPE) is an essential component of safety for any worker. As a minority group in the industry, there is much anecdotal evidence of women’s difficulties in accessing properly fitting PPE. Based on a large-scale online survey, this study explores the difficulties experienced by women in the Australian construction industry in accessing properly fitting PPE. While PPE for women is available on the market, the results show that access to properly fitting PPE is still a major issue for women workforces in the industry. The problems they are facing include: the need to make alterations or adjustments to ill-fitting PPE, the lack of adequate training or proper use of PPE in their job tasks, and ill-fitting PPE has hampered their work in some way. The male-dominated culture of the construction industry has been identified as the top key reason for their lack of access to properly fitting PPE. These thus call for the industry stakeholders to address women’s PPE concerns, and one key step would be to promote awareness of women’s PPE needs within the construction industry.