Le Chen

The University of Hong Kong | HKU · Department of Civil Engineering

Purpose This paper explores the vocational training of construction workers in Guangdong Province of China and identifies its position in the global political-economic spectrum of skill formation. Design/methodology/approach The paper reviews construction vocational education and training (VET) of major political economies to develop a theoretical...

Purpose While the investment in construction projects has increased over the past few decades, low construction project productivity (CPP) appeared to be persistent, thereby reflecting an “investment-in-failure” paradox between the investment and CPP. Hence, this paper aims to develop a systematic and holistic CPP evaluation framework to explain th...

Construction vocational education and training (VET) systems serve the mission of enhancing construction productivity and social cohesion, which are essential attributes to regional competitiveness. It is imperative to reveal the policy implications of the construction labor force's skill formation that concerns both the economic and social develop...

Previous construction productivity research focused on developing productivity measurement methods and quantifying the impact of influencing factors. However, the development of holistic strategies for productivity enhancement of a construction industry has received limited attention. This paper examines the nature of the constraints on productivit...

Collaborative approaches to infrastructure procurement are increasingly popular around the world due to their potential to provide improved project performance compared with more traditional approaches. The problem is that project outcomes continue to be unpredictable. Previous research has shown that this is the case regardless of whether the chos...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the complex interdependence of the factors in driving or hindering construction productivity at the industry, project and activity levels in a systemic manner. Design/methodology/approach A mixed-methods design, which combines a critical literature review, an interview-based survey with 32 indu...

Collaborative learning helps construction organizations adapt their governance structures (GS) to maximize project performance (PP). Although previous studies indicated that governance directly influences performance, and that learning directly influences performance, there is little deductive evidence exploring the relationship between all three v...

Construction firms that employ collaborative procurement approaches develop operating routines through joint learning so as to improve infrastructure project performance. This paper reports a study based on a survey sample of 320 construction practitioners which were involved in collaborative infrastructure delivery in Australia. The study develope...

Purpose Collaboration is thought to offer significant benefits over traditional contracts, however there is little existing research concerning how these benefits can be optimized. To address this gap, a survey investigated the impact of client characteristics on the time and cost efficiency of collaborative infrastructure projects. Design/methodo...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a new model to show how continuous joint learning of participant organisations improves project performance. Performance heterogeneity between collaborative infrastructure projects is typically examined by considering procurement systems and their governance mechanisms at static points in time. The...

Knowledge management (KM) strategy is the planned or actual coordination of a firm's major goals and learning in time; this coordination continually co-aligns the firm's knowledge-based resources with the environment. Based on the organic perspective of strategy, a KM performance evaluation approach should be able to 1) review the knowledge governa...

Collaborative contracting has emerged over the past 15 years as an innovative project delivery framework that is particularly suited to infrastructure projects. Australia leads the world in the development of project and program alliance approaches to collaborative delivery. These approaches are considered to promise superior project results. Howev...

In Australia, collaborative contracts, and in particular, project alliances, have been increasingly used to govern infrastructure projects. These contracts use formal and informal governance mechanisms to manage the delivery of infrastructure projects. Formal mechanisms such as financial risk sharing are specified in the contract, while informal...

Collaborative infrastructure projects use hybrid formal and informal governance structures to manage transactions. Based on previous desktop research, the authors identified the key mechanisms underlying project governance, and posited the performance implications of the governance. The current paper extends that qualitative research by testing the...

Learning capability (LC) is a special dynamic capability that a firm purposefully builds to develop a cognitive focus, so as to enable the configuration and improvement of other capabilities (both dynamic and operational) to create and respond to market changes. Empirical evidence regarding the essential role of LC in leveraging operational manufac...

Dynamic capability theory asserts that the learning capabilities of construction organisations influence the degree to which value-for-money (VfM) is achieved on collaborative projects. However, there has been little study conducted to verify this relationship. The evidence is particularly limited within the empirical context of infrastructure deli...

This paper reports the findings of an in-depth literature review, which was designed as the first phase of a study that ultimately aims to rank the importance of key governance mechanisms on collaborative construction projects, in terms of impact on value-for-money. The absence of such information in the global knowledge base has prompted the curre...

A firm, as a dynamic, evolving, and quasi-autonomous system of knowledge production and application, develops knowledge management capability (KMC) through strategic learning to sustain competitive advantages in a dynamic environment. Knowledge governance mechanisms and knowledge processes connect and interact with each other, thereby forming learn...

The focus of knowledge management (KM) in the construction industry is moving towards capability building for value creation. The study reported by this paper is motivated by recent assertions about the genesis and evolution of knowledge management capability (KMC) in the strategic management field. It attempts to shed light on the governance of le...

This paper investigated the critical role of knowledge sharing (KS) in leveraging manufacturing activities, namely, integrated supply management (ISM) and new product development (NPD), to improve business performance (BP), within the context of Taiwanese electronic manufacturing companies. The research adopted a sequential mixed method research de...

Purpose – Tacit knowledge is perceived as the most strategically important resource of the construction organisation, and the only renewable and sustainable base for its activities and competitiveness. Knowledge management (KM) activities that deal with tacit knowledge are essential in helping an organisation to achieve its long‐term organisational...

Purpose – Integrated supplier management (ISM), new product development (NPD) and knowledge sharing (KS) practices are three primary business activities utilised to enhance manufacturers' business performance (BP). The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the relationships between these three business activities (i.e. ISM, NPD, KS) a...

Knowledge has been widely recognised as a determinant of business performance. Business capabilities require an effective share of resource and knowledge. Specifically, knowledge sharing (KS) between different companies and departments can improve manufacturing processes since intangible knowledge plays an essential role in achieving competitive ad...

Attributed to the changing social, political and economic landscape of the 'knowledge economy', Australian universities are under pressure to produce researchers that have a variety of skills that meet the demands of an increasingly diverse job market. As a consequence, the umbrella of Australian Research Higher Degree (RHD) offerings has broadened...

Manufacturing companies have strived to enhance managerial and technical capabilities to improve business performance. Building these capabilities requires effective share of knowledge - the strategic resource. Specifically, knowledge sharing (KS) between different manufacturing departments can improve manufacturing processes since leveraging organ...

Australia is the driest inhabited continent in the world and persisting droughts have triggered a move toward sensible and sustainable water consumption. Understanding how and where water is consumed in households enables streamlined development of demand management programs and efficient engineering of water infrastructure. End use water consumpti...

Knowledge has been widely recognised as a determinant of business performance. Business capabilities require an effective share of resource and knowledge. Specifically, knowledge sharing (KS) between different companies and departments can improve manufacturing processes since intangible knowledge plays an enssential role in achieving competitive a...

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Purpose – Within the construction industry there is a growing awareness of the need for linking knowledge management (KM) to business strategy, organisational objectives and existing performance measures. This study was undertaken within the context of construction organisations, and attempts to provide the empirical evidence about the relationship...

Purpose – Recent knowledge management (KM) literature suggests that KM activities are influenced by the elements of the internal business environment (BE) of organisations. This paper attempts to provide some unique insights into the contextual input of the KM process through empirically identifying the major factors (i.e. “forces”) within the inte...

Attributed to the changing social, political and economic landscape of the 'knowledge economy', Australian universities are under pressure to produce researchers that have a variety of skills which meet the demands of an increasingly diverse job market. As a consequence, the Australian PhD now includes a range of doctoral degrees. This paper report...

Manufacturing companies have strived to enhance managerial and technical capabilities to improve business performance. Building these capabilities requires effective share of knowledge – the strategic resource. Specifically, knowledge sharing (KS) between different manufacturing departments can improve manufacturing processes since leveraging organ...

Purpose – Recent knowledge management (KM) literature suggests that KM activities are not independent of each other, rather they interact with each other to form a process which receives input from both external and internal business environments, and then produces new knowledge for future utilisation. The purpose of this paper is to empirically in...

Knowledge Management (KM) is a process that focuses on knowledge-related activities to facilitate knowledge creation, capture, transformation and use, with the ultimate aim of leveraging organisations' intellectual capital to achieve organisational objectives. The KM process receives input from its context (e.g. internal business environment), and...

Knowledge is a commodity. It is a by-product of learning that involves the creation, sharing, processing and possible use of information in the mind of an individual. Knowledge management (KM) is, therefore, concerned with the effective implementation of such activities within the organisation. It is simply the process of leveraging organisational...

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