The increasing digitalisation of construction projects has transformed how information is produced, stored, and exchanged. Yet despite widespread adoption of digital platforms and standards, many projects continue to experience coordination failures, safety issues, and weak organisational learning, suggesting that information availability alone does not guarantee improved outcomes. This paper examines how Project Information Management (PrIM) influences project success in digitalised environments, moving beyond traditional delivery-focused criteria. Using a structured literature-based synthesis of 27 journal articles combined with a mechanism mapping approach, it develops a mechanism-based explanation of how PrIM bridges digital infrastructure and project success through organisational processes. The analysis identifies recurring mechanisms, including information integration, governance, feedback, interpretive artefacts, and data reuse. These mechanisms enable organisations to coordinate action, recognise risks early, and adapt decisions under changing conditions, whereas weak PrIM is associated with fragmented understanding and delayed response. The paper proposes an integrated conceptual framework linking digital infrastructures, PrIM capabilities, and organisational mechanisms to multidimensional project success. It contributes by repositioning information management as a core organisational capability and by conceptualising project success as an emergent outcome of information-driven processes rather than a direct result of digitalisation.

Purpose This paper aims to provide an integrated BIM-based approach for quantity take-off for progress payments in the context of high-rise buildings in Vietnam. It tries to find answers for the following questions: (1) When to start the QTO processes to facilitate the contract progress payments? (2) What information is required to measure the quantity of works to estimate contract progress payment (3) What are the challenges to manage (i.e. create, store, update and exploit)? What are the required information for this BIM use? and (4) How to process the information to deliver BIM-based QTO to facilitate contract progress payment? Design/methodology/approach The paper applied a deductive approach and expert consensus through a Delphi procedure to adapt to current innovation around BIM-based QTO. Starting with a literature review, it then discusses current practices in BIM-based QTO in general and high-rise building projects in particular. Challenges were compiled from the previous studies for references for BIM-based QTO to facilitate contract progress payment for high-rise building projects in Vietnam. A framework was developed considering a standard information management process throughout the construction lifecycle, when the BIM use of this study is delivered. The framework was validated with Delphi technique. Findings Four major challenges for BIM-based QTO discovered: new types of information required for the BIM model, changes and updates as projects progress, low interoperability between BIM model and estimation software, potentiality of low productivity and accuracy in data entry. Required information for QTO to facilitate progress payments in high-rise building projects include Object Geometric/Appearance Information, Structural Components' Definition and Contextual Information. Trade-offs between “Speed – Level of Detail–Applicable Breadth” and “Quality – Productivity” are proposed to consider the information amount to input at a time when creating/updating BIM objects. Interoperability check needed for creating, authoring/updating processing the BIM model's objects. Research limitations/implications This paper is not flawless. The first limitation lies in that the theoretical framework was established only based on desk research and small number of expert judgment. Further primary data collection would be needed to determine exactly how the framework underlies widespread practices. Secondly, this study only discussed the quantity take-off specifically for contract progress payment, but not for other purposes or broader BIM uses. Further research in this field would be of great help in developing a standard protocol for automatic quantity surveying system in Vietnam. Originality/value A new theoretical framework for BIM-based QTO validated with Delphi technique to facilitate progress payments for high-rise building projects, considering all information management stages and the phases of information development in the project lifecycle. The framework identified four types of information required for this QTO, detailed considerations for strategies (Library Objects Development, BIM Objects Information Declaration, BIM-based QTO) for better managing the information for this BIM use. Two trade-offs of “Speed – LOD–Applicable Breadth” and “Quality – Productivity” have been proposed for facilitating the strategies and also for enhancing the total efficiency and effectiveness of the QTO process.

In response to rapid urbanization and associated challenges, city planners worldwide are increasingly turning to the development of smart sustainable cities (SSC). Blockchain technology has emerged as a disruptive force with the potential to facilitate this transformation. While existing research has explored the concept, features, and applications of blockchain within SSC, limited attention has been given to the perspectives of construction practitioners regarding its adoption. This study seeks to address this gap by assessing the acceptance level of construction practitioners toward blockchain technology in SSC. Through the distribution of questionnaires to construction practitioners, comprising 153 responses, this research reveals a generally high level of acceptability toward blockchain technology in SSC, with notable exceptions in property or asset transactions and data management. Furthermore, significant disparities in acceptance were observed across different age groups and educational backgrounds, with older generations and those with lower levels of education demonstrating lower levels of acceptance. These findings provide valuable insights for city planners and relevant authorities, enabling them to design informed strategies and roadmaps to ensure the successful integration of blockchain technology in SSC by considering the acceptance levels of construction practitioners.

A mediation and moderation model was developed to investigate the effects of innovation capability on the links between radical and incremental innovations and business performance. The findings showed that innovation capability fully mediates the relationship between radical innovation and business performance. Additionally, construction companies with a low innovation capability have a strong effect on incremental innovation and business performance relationships. The findings illustrate the heterogeneous effects of innovation capability on the link between radical and incremental innovations and business performance. Construction practitioners should understand the forms of innovation they pursue to leverage innovation capability for superior business performance.

Sustainable urban drainage system is a critical solution for urban development in unfavorable natural conditions due to the impacts of climate change in and around the Mekong Delta. Information and database related to stormwater drainage management are unreliable. To address this issue, new integrated maps are produced from remote sensing images and spatial statistics to assess the capacity of urban stormwater drainage in a sustainable orientation. With the Sentinel-2 satellite opensource date, new maps related to the urban land cover and statistical analysis were integrated to determine the distribution characteristics of permeable spaces and the level of interleaving spaces in Vinh Long City, Vietnam. The results indicate that analyzing the spatial accessibility of natural drainage of an urban area is an important factor for quantitative assessment of sustainable drainage capacity. It also identified the disadvantageous problem of Vinh Long’s stormwater drainage system related to the land cover distribution and proposed urban planning solutions to enhance the sustainable urban drainage ability.

Purpose While there is an established body of literature that discusses the importance of stakeholder management, and also the need for involvement of all stakeholders so that all values of a heritage site can be captured in a heritage management plan, the concepts are not generally developed in ways that make them useful in practice. This research seeks to bring greater clarity to the practice of stakeholder engagement in built heritage, so that organisations can manage their stakeholders in ways that meet their strategic goals. This study proposes a novel method to identify stakeholders, a stakeholder preference mapping approach, which will depict their influence on decisions based on a of power-interest scale. Design/methodology/approach This research posits a stakeholder preference mapping approach. Virtual Stakeholder Groups (VSG) were identified and stakeholder's significance impacts were measured using the RIBA Plan of Work 2013 to determine in-depth consideration of each stakeholder's power and interest against differing stages of a heritage project. Participants were convened through a 5-day workshop, consisting of 20 Malaysian and 19 international participants (80% academics and 20% Malaysian civil servants). The Multi-Attribute Decision Analysis (MADA) technique was then used to demonstrate how stakeholder identification and analysis can be used to help heritage teams meet their mandates. Findings The research identified eight virtual VSG (Extremist, Expert, Economic, Social, Governance and Tourists) and their scale of power-interest influence at different stages of the heritage management process. The findings reveal varying levels of engagement from each of the different groups of stakeholders at each work stage – with Stage 5 (Construction) being the least engaged. Originality/value It is anticipated that through stakeholder preference mapping, heritage teams can increase the robustness of their strategies by identifying and effectively managing the important concepts; heritage teams can effectively manage the interface between the many (often competing) demands of differing stakeholders. Using Georgetown as a case study, the research team were able to delineate the interaction and interplay between the various stakeholders in the complex decision-making processes for a UNESCO heritage site. Applying the RIBA 2013 Plan of Work as a framework to the heritage management process enables a formalised mapping approach to the process.

Resource-based view (RBV) is the theory that has been adopted as the theoretical background in construction project management (CPM) research to examine the impact of resources and capabilities on firm performance. Its primary assumption is that firms’ performance and competitive advantages are enhanced by properly utilising valuable resources and capabilities. This paper aims to examine the effect of various constructs and relations used in preceding research by proposing a conceptual framework in the lens of RBV, which combined the multiple paths found in the literature. Then, hypotheses were developed to test the research framework empirically. This paper reports a meta-analysis of 20 journal papers published in the Scopus database in the area of CPM. The findings indicate that all the relationships between resources, capabilities, competitive advantage and performance were verified as significant. Moreover, the review pointed out that using capabilities and sustained competitive advantage in a mediated model is better than the direct effect model. Finally, a flowchart combining all the variables, construct, and paths was developed based on the results.

Oversupplied emission basically will create a global economic downturn, which will lead to the implications for the climate action more broadly. Though the pandemic has test the resilience of carbon initiatives, there is urgency in identifying the carbon tax to strengthen as jurisdiction around the world ambitious in adopting and mitigating the targets as an introductory of the associated policy tools. Based on different situations and disciplines, the carbon tax model is simulated in different ways. The purpose of this study is to compare the available approaches that have been utilised by researchers and to determine the methods that suitable the most. The carbon tax and its influence on the construction sector are being benchmark and discussed as the whole of this document. A bibliometric approach is the method in this study in between the keyword of a carbon tax and the construction industry based on the data available in database of Scopus and Web of Science to foresee the interconnection between the knowledge of understanding and definition. The definition of carbon tax is the Pigovian tax that is designed to reduce the greenhouse gases (GHGs) emitted with aim to act as a green tax and been paid by the industries that emitted GHGs as for the carbon emission reduction agenda. The implementation is parallel to the other government policies and in sync to the sustainable development goals.

Absorptive capacity has been acknowledged as a critical component for organisations to sustain, compete and excel in the marketplace. With the current volatile environment, there is increased demand for new knowledge, skills and implementation of new technologies. Every organisation must have the ability to be able to absorb and leverage from new technologies. This research aims to identify the absorptive capacity of Malaysian small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) construction organisations. The research design adapted was based on qualitative approach. Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with SMEs operating in six different states in Malaysia. Data were analysed using NVivo 12 Pro software and thematic approach was used to categorise the data. This research found 29 main indicators of how construction SMEs developed their absorptive capacity and 10 factors influenced their absorptive capacity. Owners and employees with higher education background and with more industry experience tend to be more receptive to absorb new knowledge. In addition, human resource departments and formal office communications were found to have positive impacts on SMEs' absorptive capacity. Suppliers and manufacturers were also identified as important external factors. This research provides clear indicators of how SME construction organisations can develop their absorptive capacity and further improve their productivity. It also provides indication for Construction Industry Development Board on how they can assist the SME construction organisations to absorb and apply new technology in construction processes.

The thermal benefits of Vertical Greenery System (VGS) in providing thermal comfort, reducing internal building temperature, and lowering operational energy consumption are not widely known. There is a lack of research and technical knowledge on the effects of vertical greenery systems related to thermal performance, especially in tropical climates, such as that of Malaysia. Therefore, this paper addresses this gap by investigating the effect of VGS on heat transfer and the thermal performance of hypothetical buildings. In this paper, a data prediction method is used to identify the overall thermal transfer value (OTTV) from several hypothetical case studies. A variety of combinations of variables have been used to identify the best design with the lowest OTTV reduction through VGS. From the calculation, Linear Greenery System achieved the highest OTTV reduction with an average of 6.87%, followed by Modular Green Wall (6.82%), Double-skin Green Facades (2.97%), and Direct Green Facades (1.32%). Therefore, this paper can conclude that Linear Green Wall is the best greenery system for reducing heat transfer for the tropical climate of Malaysia.

All governments, industry sectors and societies each have a pivotal role to play if we are to mitigate anthropogenic climate change. For the construction industry, limiting emissions and addressing issues of sustainability is not just important for reducing the environmental impacts of the sector, but is simply good practice. This research investigates the nexus between the generation and management of waste and greenhouse gas performance in the refurbishment sector, with specific focus on UK student accommodation projects. Performance data from three case study projects were analysed in order to: evaluate the types and extent of wastes and how they are managed; the greenhouse gas impacts of each project waste management strategy; and an assessment is undertaken to estimate the number of BREEAM waste credits that each project would have achieved. The research concludes that the overall greenhouse gas performance of a project's waste management strategy is highly dependent on how specific high emission impact factor waste streams are managed, and notably, there is a disconnect between waste targets, legislation and sustainability benchmarking schemes that measure success based on the levels of diverting waste from landfill, and the emission performance of waste management strategies. A key area of risk potentially overlooked relates to the scenarios where proportionally small quantities of high emission wastes (e.g. plastics) were sent to landfill alongside large quantities of low emission wastes (e.g. aggregates, bricks, etc.). To ensure the increased emission performance of the refurbishment sector, greater focus is needed on preventing specific categories of waste from the landfill pathway.

Significant BIM uptake barriers in Vietnam include the lack of awareness and knowledge on BIM, high investment costs, and shortage of regulations, standards or guidance related to the AEC industry. This research focuses on enhancing BIM diffusion through eight selected projects with diversity in the type, scale (grade), location and funding sources - representing the myriad of construction project classification in Vietnam. Additional reporting and interview sessions were held with BIM professionals involved in the projects, with the notion of immersing into professional experience during the project. These experiences were extracted to provide implementation experience and lessons learnt for future projects in Vietnam. This research highlighted the key issues around BIM skills and competencies, BIM investment and BIM regulations, standards and guidance. The research findings will support stakeholders to adopt the solutions to meet BIM adoption challenges to enhance the effectiveness of BIM implementation in future construction projects.

The construction industry is known for its fragmentation, poor performance and negative impacts on the environment. In recent years, Building Information Modelling (BIM), lean principles and sustainability concerns have emerged as trends in the industry, since they aim to improve how buildings are delivered throughout their entire lifecycle. Value aggregation and efficiency in operational and environmental terms are major concerns by stakeholders and wider society. Integrating these practices would yield better project outcomes. However, majority of studies are focused on these elements in isolation or in pairs and there are no comprehensive frameworks suggesting an integration. This study researched, analysed and articulated existing work on a possible integration framework of BIM, lean and sustainability principles (BLS) to promote performance improvements. Current proposals were analysed along with drivers, benefits, barriers and challenges for integration. Academics and industry practitioners will benefit from this framework as it looks into future requirements of the industry, which is aiming to achieve better efficiency and enhancement of sustainability outcomes.

The rise of global urbanisation has led to massive pressures on resources such as food, water, infrastructure, and energy demand to support growing populations. It brings adverse impacts on the liveable condition and economic growth of a country if this problem remains unsolved. Smart city is a potential solution to address the challenges of urbanisation by leveraging the technological breakthrough such as internet of things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning, big data, and cloud computing to facilitate scarce resources planning and management. With numerous connected devices and vast communication networks, it poses a challenges of security threat which cannot be addressed by the conventional cybersecurity solutions. Blockchain offers a solution in securing the huge numbers of connected devices in smart city network. The application of blockchain technology is leading in the banking and financial industry. However, the uses and implementations in smart city have emerged in recent years. The combination of blockchain technology and smart city has offered a great potential for sustainable development. Thus, it is imperative to discuss the potential of these two elements in making the city safer and sustainable. This paper explores how the blockchain technology application can help in managing smart city and achieve sustainability. The findings revealed that there are five key areas of blockchain application in smart city which are smart governance, smart mobility, smart asset, smart utility and smart logistic. A framework for smart sustainable city with blockchain technology is presented as an outcome of this study. It gives a clear overview for the policy makers and regulators of how blockchain supports within smart city framework. It facilitates the transition towards smart and sustainable cities through the use of blockchain.

Purpose There is a long-standing interest in performance improvement within the construction industry. Approaches based upon cost, time and quality (often called the Iron Triangle), have been the focus of attention despite criticism of the validity of the Iron Triangle as a performance measure due to its simplistic approach. Furthermore, little emphasis has been placed on synthesising performance to understand whether this concept has evolved from the traditional view. An analysis of prominent literature was reviewed by classifying performance indicators which establish criteria for measuring performance in the construction industry. The purpose of this paper is to review the literature (1998–2018) on performance at a project level to determine a final rank of key performance indicators (KPIs) which will establish how projects are currently being measured. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses a combined qualitative and quantitative approach – a comprehensive literature review on overall performance at a project level and the statistical Kendall’s W test to find concordance among the authors on performance in the construction industry to determine a final rank of KPIs. Findings The results demonstrate there is no congruent correlation on what performance is and the traditional iron triangle of “cost-time-quality” is still the preferred method of analysing performance, despite it being proven to be ineffective. Originality/value Performance in the construction industry is an ambiguous concept that can be interpreted differently by the construction industry’s stakeholders. Despite this lack of concordance, a starting point on the definition of performance can be obtained from the literature. The paper presents a final rank of KPIs.

The ongoing Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has infected over 58 million people and claimed over 1.58 millions deaths globally (as of 11th December 2020) since its first outbreak in Wuhan, China in December 2019. Initially, the numbers of infected patients and death was largely contained in China with 98% of all confirmed infected cases. However, the increased rate of new infected cases outside of China like United States, Italy, and Spain raises questions on the virus characteristics and its routes of transmission. Although the main transmission modes of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are through direct contact and respiratory droplet/aerosol inhalation, current studies stipulate that SARS-CoV-2 RNA is found in sewerage, suggesting the potential transmission of SARS-COV-2 through wastewater systems. This paper seeks to review potential exposure routes of SARS-COV-2 in urban environments, the survival rate of coronaviruses that pose human health risks, and to provide relevant safety recommendations to reduce the impact of ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. There is an urgent need for wastewater effluent and water treatment supply epidemiology surveillance, especially in developing countries with subpar wastewater treatment systems and infrastructure to reduce human and ecological risks to protect populations from infectious diseases outbreak.

The construction industry's ability to innovate in order to improve its practices has been widely debated.As organisations in other sectors globally are addressing technology challenges, is the UK construction industry e-ready?Of particular concern is the plethora of small and medium enterprises (SME) that constitute over 80% of the UK construction industry.There are noticeable SME laggards in the uptake of new processes and technologies.This paper aims to assess the e-readiness levels of UK SME building services provider in order to leverage the advantages of technology opportunities in the future.The resultant self-assessment ERiC framework enables SMEs to quantify and measure ereadiness from an organisation, technical and process perspective.

Buildings? functional and physical characteristics can be digitally represented through Building Information Modelling (BIM) which creates a sharing platform for all stakeholders involved in the project lifecycle. The application of BIM has been studied throughout the years mainly in new buildings with less emphasis in refurbishing existing ones due to the limited availability of accurate data of the original project. However, maintaining and refurbishing existing buildings often contributes to higher risk and cost. In addition, more buildings are required to undertake building assessment schemes such as Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM), Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), Green Star, Green Mark, and Green Building Index (GBI) ? most were not designed to assess existing buildings. In this sense, laser scanning can be used to collect existing parametric building data as point clouds, which can be developed and used for modelling of energy consumption, comfort and costing. This can be then translated back into assessment schemes. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the process flow in the usage of laser scanning for existing buildings to support sustainability-led design by a new scan-to-BIM process.

Malaysian government has a special commitment to provide the adequate, affordable housing and quality to all income levels, particularly for low-income group. Over the recent years, Malaysian property market was not balance in terms of supply and demand, where the demand is exceeding supply especially for low-cost housing. However, high demand for housing in urban areas could affect the homeownership issue for low-income group. The first objective of this paper is to study the relationship between household income and housing affordability. Besides, the second objective is to examine housing satisfaction level by the residents focusing on the public low-cost flats under the supervision of Kuala Lumpur City Hall. A survey has been carried out using questionnaires distributed to 500 residents of the three-low-cost housing in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The finding contributes to an establishment of a strategy to improve homeownership of the low-income earners to own PPR house. This study is recommended that more effort should be taken by the government to improve quality of house to ensure the better life of low-income population in the current PPR flats.