Purpose The primary purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between the unsolicited proposal (USP) and the performance of private participation infrastructure (PPI) projects in developing countries. Design/methodology/approach The main data set for this study was collected from the World Bank database consisting of 8,951 PPI projects that occurred in developing countries from 1996 to 2020. Hierarchical logistic regression was applied for investigating the effects of USPs on project success. Three moderators, namely, control of corruption, presence of local sponsor and project size were also included in the model to test the impact of their interactions with the USP on the performance of PPI projects. Further, to assess the impact of the effect of USPs, the average marginal effect was calculated. The framework used in this study consists of 18 control variables, three moderators and one noncontrolled independent variable (the USP). Findings The results of hierarchical logistic regression indicate that USPs have a significant and negative effect on the success of PPI projects occurring in developing countries. The negative effect of a USP weakens with the presence of local sponsors and stronger control of corruption in the host country. However, contrary to the authors' expectations, the results show that project size does not significantly affect the association between USPs and the success of PPI projects. Moreover, the results of average marginal effects show that the negative impact of USP on the success of PPI projects ranges between 2.4% and 3.8%. Originality/value This study quantifies the negative impact of USP on the success of PPI projects in developing countries, which will be helpful for the practitioners to understand the associated risk with USP projects. Furthermore, it also identifies the moderating roles of control of corruption and the presence of local sponsors on the relationship between USP and the success of PPI projects.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to propose an improved framework for managing Private Participation in Infrastructure ICT (PPI-ICT) projects in the context of developing countries as the requirements to manage them are different in several aspects.Design/methodology/approachThe framework has been proposed based on an exhaustive literature review and statistical analysis of the PPI-ICT projects’ data set using logistic regression, F-test and student’s t-test. The proposed framework was also applied to the PPI-ICT projects.FindingsThe framework is an extension to NTCP (novelty, technology, complexity and pace) approach by including extrinsic factors such as income of the country, climate risk, religious diversity, political stability, regularity quality and control of corruption. The proposed framework was used to analyze project characteristics and their external conditions in the context of developing countries. Based on the analyses, the authors have presented a detailed set of recommendations for project managers, practitioners and governments to improve the success rate of these projects.Originality/valueThe major contribution of this study is the framework, which encompasses the NTCP model as well as extrinsic characteristics of PPI-ICT projects. The proposed framework is meant to assist the project managers to comprehend the project characteristics and its external environment to identify an adequate approach for managing projects successfully.

PurposeThe study aims to examine the impact of key variables on the success of solicited and unsolicited private participation in infrastructure (PPI) projects using machine learning techniques.Design/methodology/approachThe data has information on 8,674 PPI projects primarily derived from the World Bank database. In the study, a machine learning framework has been used to highlight the variables important for solicited and unsolicited projects. The framework addresses the data-related challenges using imputation, oversampling and standardization techniques. Further, it uses Random forest, Artificial neural network and Logistics regression for classification and a group of diverse metrics for assessing the performances of these classifiers.FindingsThe results show that around half of the variables similarly impact both solicited and unsolicited projects. However, some other important variables, particularly, institutional factors, have different levels of impact on both projects, which have been previously ignored. This may explain the reason for higher failure rates of unsolicited projects.Practical implicationsThis study provides specific inputs to investors, policymakers and practitioners related to the impacts of several variables on solicited and unsolicited projects separately, which will help them in project planning and implementation.Originality/valueThe study highlights the differential impact of variables for solicited and unsolicited projects, challenging the previously assumed uniformity of impact of the given set of variables including institutional factors.

Purpose The COVID-19 pandemic has brought profound changes to all sectors of society including the construction sector. The main purpose of this study is to explore and provide insights into the impact and changes that have occurred in the construction sector due to COVID-19 and to present a mitigation framework to minimize the effects. Design/methodology/approach The scope of this study is limited to peer-reviewed articles in Scopus or Web of Science indexed journals. A systemized review was performed with bibliometric and content analyses of articles related to the impact of COVID-19 on the construction sector. Findings Through content analysis, the main topics discussed in the selected articles were grouped into 10 categories. Most of these studies were found to have focused on the challenges, impact, and health and safety at construction sites resulting from the pandemic. The study further identified 39 subtopics through detailed content analysis and organizes them into the categories of negative impacts, positive impacts and opportunities and barriers to COVID-19 safety guidelines in the construction sector. Moreover, the study developed a systematic mitigation strategy based on the recommendations of the literature review to reduce the impact of the current pandemic on the construction sector. The mitigation strategy presents separate set of measures regarding safety guidelines, process improvements, government intervention, psychological support and technology adoption. Originality/value The research insights provided in this study are useful for practitioners in guiding them to design effective strategies for addressing the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and future crises. Furthermore, a systematic presentation of the impacts, challenges and mitigation measures in this study will help researchers to identify existing gaps in the literature and explore other aspects of the impact of the pandemic on the construction sector.

In this paper, we explore strategies for implementing blockchain technology in a supply chain where a manufacturer outsources base warranty (BW) repairs to a retailer and the retailer offers additional after-sales service. We developed a mathematical model and calculated the optimal strategies for supply chain members based on the traditional service platform (TSP), in which the retailer does not use blockchain technology, and on the blockchain service platform (BCSP), where the retailer uses blockchain technology to let the consumer track and trace after-sales service. Our analyses found that the benefits of BCSP include gaining consumers' trust and earning reward tokens as an appreciation, however its implementation costs make it not always the ideal choice. In addition, based on the combined analysis of reward-tokens and consumers' trust, we discovered "triple win regions", where in one of the regions the BCSP benefits manufacturer and retailer simultaneously, but only if the reward-token value exceeds a threshold. The threshold is based on consumers' trust level, the failure rate of a product, and the cost of blockchain installation and operation. At the end, numerical analysis was conducted to validate the analytical results.

Tunnel construction is considered a bottleneck point in mega construction projects because of higher associated risks and uncertainties. This study is an attempt to identify and rank the causes project overruns in tunnel construction projects in Pakistan and propose a mitigation strategy to minimize their effects. For the given purpose, a total of 32 key causes were obtained from the literature and discussion with a team of experts and practitioners. A web-based questionnaire survey was used for data collection. About 55 complete responses were received from the practitioners working as clients, consultants, and contractors in Pakistan. The identified causes were ranked using frequency, severity, and relative importance indexes. The most important causes were found to be inexperienced and incompetent contractors, ignoring consultants' instructions by contractors, inadequate project estimates, delay in issuance of funds to the contractors, and low bids. This study can be employed for controlling the leading causes of overruns in tunnel construction projects. Moreover, it can serve as a guide in further investigation of the causes of project overruns in tunneling in different countries.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) on the outcome of construction projects and explore the moderating effects of emerging technologies on the relationship between COVID-19 and construction project outcomes. Design/methodology/approachData for the study was collected through a Web-based, semistructured questionnaire. The responses of 62 construction practitioners were analyzed using a hierarchical linear regression model. The model consists of 16 independent variables, three control variables (organization size, organization type and project size), one moderator (adoption level of emerging technologies) and three dependent variables (project time, project cost and project quality). FindingsThe study confirms the negative significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the performance of construction projects. It also identifies the significant moderating effects of emerging technologies in mitigating the impact of COVID-19 on construction projects. Further, it shows a significant increase in the application of emerging technologies in construction projects during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on the findings related to the moderating impact of the technology, this study provides a clear set of recommendations for construction firms, public sector and research community in combating the unavoidable situation similar to the COVID-19 pandemic in the future. Originality/valueTo the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to identify the moderating role of technology on the impact of COVID-19 on the performance of the construction sector in Pakistan. The findings can also be used for the construction sectors of other developing countries.

Purpose This study examines scholarly communications in the International Journal of Managing Projects in Business (IJMPB) and identifies the journal's leading trends from 2008 to 2019. Design/methodology/approach This study analyzed a sample of 522 articles published in the IJMPB since its inception in 2008 until 2019. A set of bibliometric measures was used in the study to identify publication trends, citation structures, leading authors, institutions and countries. Additionally, analysis of research methodologies, industrial sectors and research themes of the articles was carried out through a rigorous content analysis. To examine the changes in journal expansion over time, the duration of publications (from 2008 to 2019) was divided into three subperiods. Findings The study findings show that 793 authors from 370 institutions and 58 countries contributed to the journal during this period. In terms of contributions, Australia and the Scandinavian countries are at the top, while Asian and African countries occupy a lower position. Moreover, among authors, Derek H.T. Walker was found to be the most prolific, with the highest weighting score and number of articles. Similarly, RMIT University of Australia emerged as the most productive institution. The articles were predominantly case studies followed by mixed methods (i.e. both surveys and interviews are used for data collection). Most of the articles in the sample were related to project management in general. However, several articles reported on construction, information technology (IT) and manufacturing projects. Practical implications This study is useful for the researcher community to understand the journal's scientific productivity. Further, it will also help identify dominant topics in the field of project management. Originality/value This is the first comprehensive review article presenting a general overview of the journal's leading trends and researchers since its inception in 2008.

PurposeThe coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has negatively affected project management organisations especially those conducting large construction projects that involve a large number of people, complex supply chains, and lack of experience and preliminary arrangements in managing remote work. This study aims to analyse the impact of COVID-19 on the construction sector and how to minimise the effect of pandemic disruptions.Design/methodology/approachThis study is based on the reviews of relevant reports, articles and semi-structured interviews of the construction experts working in the Pakistan construction industry during the current COVID-19 pandemic. The primary data for this study were collected through semi-structured interviews with the construction experts and analysed them using thematic analysis. A total of 15 semi-structured interviews were conducted in this study.FindingsThrough thematic analysis, this study identified approximately 55 initial raw data themes, 15 first-order themes, 11 second-order themes and 4 general dimensions of the impact of COVID-19 on the construction sector. The authors identified working style and behavioural changes, challenges and risks, stakeholders and new directions for the construction sector in the post-pandemic world as the four main dimensions of the effect of the pandemic on the construction sector. Further, least digitalisation, complex cash flow, abundance of labour-intensive methods, diverse stakeholders, and dependencies on foreign expertise, imported material and machineries were identified as the most important reasons for poor resiliency of the construction sector during COVID-19 pandemic in Pakistan.Originality/valueThis study major contributions are: (1) analysing the impact of COVID-19 on the construction sector in relation to Pakistan, (2) discussing new directions for the construction sector and (3) putting in place a set of mitigation measures that will help minimise disruptions in construction-related projects to ensure that set objectives are achieved.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the current literature that has explored project success in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector. Design/methodology/approach The literature search was carried out for related articles in three databases: the Web of Science, Scopus and Ebscohost. Using a systematic literature review (SLR) methodology, 75 related articles were sorted out. Furthermore, the methods of frequency and content analysis were used to identify, categorize and arrange critical success factors (CSF) of ICT projects based on their importance, interrelation and cultural regions. Findings The findings in this study revealed that interest in researching success in ICT projects has increased significantly during the last five years. Through reviewing the selected articles, 25 CSF were identified. User participation, stakeholder relationship, project manager emotional intelligence, communication skills, and leadership skills, and top management support in the project emerged as the most important factors for ICT projects. Furthermore, we found that each regional group gives different level of importance to different CSF. Practical implications This study gives the opportunity to practitioners to control the highest value CSF to increase the success rate of ICT projects carried out in different cultural regions. Originality/value As the first study of its type, CSF were divided for different cultural regional groups. This paper further explained that certain CSF have different levels of importance in different culture regions. This study suggests that regional culture needs consideration during the evaluation of CSF.

In this paper, a warranty-maintenance service contract is designed between a manufacturer and third-party agent who provide warranty and maintenance services respectively and may suffer from financial risks due to the demand uncertainty from consumers. We model the utility functions for the firms considering uncertain demand, risk attitude, and different options of warranty and maintenance service strategies. By using game theory, optimal sale price and warranty period for the manufacturer, whereas the optimal repair price or maintenance price for the third-party agent is explicitly derived by maximizing their expected utilities. Analytical results show that a more risk-averse manufacturer (or third-party agent) sets a lower price and gets lower utility as compared to a risk-neutral manufacturer (or third-party agent), which consequently leads to increases in product demand. The lower price decision of a more risk-averse player benefits a less risk-averse counterpart competitor in the market to set a higher price and get maximum utility. A numerical example is presented to illustrate the results.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop a model that determines whether how much effort of preventive maintenance action is worthwhile for the consumer over the post-sale product life cycle of a repairable complex product where the product is under warranty and subject to stochastic multimode failure process, that is, damaging failure and light failure with different probabilities.Design/methodology/approachThe expected life cycle cost is designed for a warranted product from the consumer perspective. The product failure is quantified with failure rate function, which is the number of failures incurred over the product life cycle. The authors consider the failure rate function reduction method in their model where the scale parameter of a failure rate function is maximized by applying the optimal preventive maintenance level. The scale parameter of any failure distribution refers to the meantime to failure (MTTF). The first-order condition is applied with respect to the maintenance level in order to achieve the convexity of the nonlinear function of the expected life cycle cost function.FindingsThe authors have found analytically the close form of the preventive maintenance level, which can be used to find the optimal reduced form of the failure rate function of the product and the minimum product expected life cycle cost under the given condition of multimode stochastic failure process. The authors have suggested different maintenance policies to consumers in order to implement the proposed preventive maintenance model under different conditions. A numerical example further illustrated the analytical model by considering the Weibull distribution.Practical implicationsThe consumer may use this study in the accurate modeling of the life cycle cost of a product that is under warranty and fails with a multimode failure process. Also, the suggested preventive maintenance approach of this study helps the consumer in making appropriate maintenance decisions such as to minimize the expected life cycle cost of a product.Originality/valueThis study proposes an accurate estimation of a life cycle cost for a product that is under the support of warranty and fails with multimode. Furthermore, for such a kind of product, which is under warranty and fails with multimode, this study suggests a new preventive maintenance approach that assures the minimum expected life cycle cost.

Pakistan facing serious problem of electricity couple with handling of waste water generated from industries. In this regard study was focused to investigate the reduction of waste water from industry couple with energy generation from that source. Different blending ratio of cow dung manure was used with distillery waste water to make substrate for electricity generation in microbial fuel cell. Microbial fuel cell was used alternative environment for anode and cathode chamber. An aerobic condition for anode and aerobic condition for cathode chamber, fish pump is used for creating aerobic condition in cathode chamber for oxidation of proton coming from anode chamber through salt bridge. The maximum power production was measured at 50/50 about 2300 mv/l. and minimum 230mv/l. The addition of cow dung manure could benefit for power generation with distillery waste water.

This paper is a study of staff issues at the bank, ICBC China. Due to extra and imbalanced staff, the system was idle most of the time. By using the qualitative approach, M/M/s queuing model and discrete event simulation, the staff was sub-optimized. First, observation of the system was conducted and recorded using the existing operations system used by the bank. Arrival time of customers, service time, and the waiting time customers are willing to wait are all included in the data collection. Second, we analyzed the inter arrival time and service time by using the quantitative method and forecast the improvement in the system. We find out that the utilization of the system was very ineffective. Next, we suggested qualitative approach in the designing of queuing system of the bank. Finally, building and validation of a computer simulation model of a bank queuing system was conducted by using POM-QM software. A quantitative analysis and simulation was conducted and sub-optimized the system. The resulting design has a fewer number of service representatives, higher utilization and a waiting time within the limit of the customer's expected time.