Discovering the Transition Pathways toward Sustainability for Construction Enterprises: Importance-Performance Analysis

Abstract

There has been growing awareness and demand for construction enterprises transition towards sustainability with an aim to maximize the economic, social and environmental values of construction. This presents a significant challenge to both policy makers and industry practitioners as sustainability is such a complex concept that includes various aspects whereas construction firms are usually resource constrained. There is lack of studies classifying various aspects of sustainability according to their managerial priorities, thereby identifying the efficient transition pathways towards higher sustainability levels for construction enterprises. This paper proposes Transition Pathways towards Sustainability (TPS) for the construction enterprises by conducting an importance-performance analysis of the critical sustainability aspects. The construction enterprises were firstly classified into different clusters based on their sustainability performance by means of cluster analysis. Consequently, the importance-performance analysis was employed to classify the various sustainability aspects of the identified firm clusters, followed by the development of the TPS. The results show that although there is general agreement on the high importance of economic sustainability aspects, significant differences exist in the perceptions and performance of social and environmental sustainability aspects across firm groups. Therefore, there are considerably different transition pathways for the various firm groups towards higher sustainability levels. This research provides a useful reference for construction enterprises to evaluate their positions in the sustainability transition journey and to optimize their resource allocation for sustainable development.

Factors Affecting Sustainability Performance during the Construction Stage in Building Projects-Consultants’ Perspective

“…The results clarify that the variable 'professional fees of engineers and consultants' was ranked first with mean = 3.29 and RII = (65.81%). These results are consistent with those of the study [23] who reported that this variable is important because it has a managerial focus, that is, engineers and consultants control most other variables affecting sustainability performance during the construction stage of project development. The factor 'energy cost' came second with mean = 3.23 and RII = (64.52%).…”

“…Waste management [10,23,45] Depletion of dependency resources (water-energy-raw materials-land) [6,10,15,23,25,29,43,44,46] Site attributes [38] Pollution generation [10,15,23,25,45] Natural habitat destruction [15,22] Changes in the environment lead to the discomfort of people and the biological system. [15,22] Health and safety risks [15,22] Where, SS = Sample Size; Z = Z value (e.g.…”

Risks in Prefabricated Buildings in China: Importance-Performance Analysis Approach

“…Since then, Importance-Performance Analysis has been widely employed in management studies [21][22][23]. In the construction context, Importance-Performance Analysis has been conducted in order to understand the sustainability attitude and initiatives of construction enterprises and their employees [24][25][26]. The entire research process is shown in Figure 1.…”

“…It is a common approach to employ a quantitative approach in previous studies related to Importance-Performance Analysis. One of most common approaches is to employ a five-point Likert scale to measure importance and performance [25][26][27]. Therefore, a five-point Likert scale was employed in this study to measure the importance and performance levels of the management of each individual risk perceived by industry practitioners.…”

Evaluation of the Policy of the Creative Industry for Urban Development

“…Moreover, IPA can analyze the results to improve the scheduling of the program and help the industry to improve its service, as well as customer satisfaction [42]. Chang et al (2017) [43] apply the importance-performance analysis (IPA) to analyze the transition pathways toward sustainability for construction enterprises. Liao and Lou (2013) [44] apply the analysis network process (ANP) and importance-performance analysis (IPA) to analyze the service quality and customer satisfaction of home-delivery service providers in the Taiwan market.…”