High-profile failures of infrastructure systems are often attributed to design flaws. However, these incidents can also stem from a broader set of interconnected decisions made by stakeholders involved in the planning, management, and operation of these systems. While ethical guidelines and professional codes are designed to prevent such failures, cognitive biases may undermine adherence. Previous research efforts, primarily focused on ethical violations using case studies, have overlooked how behavioral ethics constructs and professional conduct could drive these breaches. This paper addresses this knowledge gap by (1) conducting an analysis of three system failure cases at the micro, meso, and macro levels to identify key decisions made by primary stakeholders; (2) overlaying these decisions with violations of the ASCE Code of Ethics as well as the known behavioral constructs that triggered ethical breaches; (3) providing quantitative metrics to assess the impact and extent of these decisions on project failure; and (4) constructing visual graph networks to reveal critical patterns of behavioral constructs and code violations. Results showed that conformity, slippery slope, and overconfidence biases negatively influenced decision-making, while the moving spotlight effect had a positive influence. These behavioral constructs formed a self-reinforcing cycle of unethical decisions that explicitly emphasized the need for targeted interventions. As such, ethical risk factors were identified as early warning signs to proactively mitigate unethical decision-making. Moreover, several recommendations were proposed including educating professionals and students about the impact of behavioral biases and implementing organizational reforms that promote transparency, accountability, and diverse perspectives. Through addressing these behavioral patterns, this study offers actionable strategies for professionals, policymakers, and educators to mitigate unethical decision-making and hopefully prevent future infrastructure system failures.

The fragmented nature of the construction industry has hindered its transition toward circular economy (CE) practices. While game theory (GT) has been successfully applied to support the strategic decisions of CE transitions in other sectors, CE-GT models in the construction domain remain extremely limited. This paper addresses two research questions: (1) how are CE network governance activities currently modeled using GT across domains? (2) How can such models be transferred and adapted to solve strategic interactions within the construction value chain in a manner that enables CE practices to emerge as equilibrium outcomes? These questions are driven by the need to reorganize the construction value chain's decision-making environment to better align with CE principles. To answer these questions, the paper adopts a mixed-methods approach combining deductive content analysis with network analysis. Findings show that market creation games, primarily based on Stackelberg models, are most common and are used for CE pricing mechanisms and profit determination. Evolutionary games follow in frequency, typically applied to evaluate macroscale policies and sociocultural changes. Despite the diversity of models identified, most have been developed for manufacturing-oriented value chains, revealing a need for adaptations to reflect the unique characteristics of the construction sector, such as project-based operations, immobility, uncertain demand, fragmentation, and assembly processes. Several gaps were identified, including the need for modeling workforce education, skill development, and improved integration of policy formulation and implementation in CE transitions. Alongside the proposed adaptations to GT models for the construction sector, future research recommendations include incorporating discount factors, consumption decisions, and learning algorithms to enhance model accuracy and decision-making. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by providing a conceptual framework for integrating GT models into network governance processes, supporting more effective decision-making and policy development for CE implementation within the construction value chain.

Previous studies consistently highlight a gap in the achievement of Materials and Resources (MR) credits across different versions of the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating system, despite its critical role in the transition to a Circular Economy (CE). Furthermore, there is a lack of studies benchmarking the level of the MR credit achievement in the latest version of LEED, v4. This paper examines the integration of CE principles in LEED v4 BD+C (Building Design and Construction): NC (New Construction and Major Renovations), focusing on the 971 certified projects in the US. The study benchmarks the achievement degrees of five MR credits, Building Life-Cycle Impact Reduction (C1), Environmental Product Declarations (C2), Sourcing of Raw Materials (C3), Material Ingredients (C4), and Construction and Demolition Waste Management (C5). The study highlights rather minimal levels of achievement, particularly in credits C1 and C3 where both were fully achieved in only 63 out the 971 studied projects. The findings align LEED certified projects with the lower tier of CE R-frameworks, emphasizing the need for collaboration across project stakeholders, as well as the need for enhanced material data availability to improve CE practices in LEED projects. Ultimately, the study supports discussions on sustainable building practices, advocating for building reuse, optimized life cycle assessments, incentivizing environmental product declarations, and responsible material sourcing.

Infrastructure system failures often result from decisions made by key stakeholders responsible for their development and management. Despite the presence of ethical codes designed to prevent such failures, cognitive biases can undermine compliance. Previous research has focused on ethical violations but has overlooked how behavioral ethics constructs drive these breaches. This paper bridges the gap by analyzing an infrastructure system failure case study, then mapping key decisions to violations of the ASCE Code of Ethics and associated behavioral constructs. Following, a graph network analysis quantified the impact and extent of these decisions on project failure. Findings revealed a self-reinforcing cycle of biases such as conformity, slippery slope, and overconfidence, which negatively influenced the decisionmaking network. Ultimately, the study assists professionals, policymakers, and educators to prioritize behavioral ethics interventions to mitigate violations and ultimately prevent future infrastructure failures.

This study develops a generalizable dynamic modeling framework to analyze embodied emissions of urban stocks and evaluate the decarbonization potential of sufficiency and efficiency interventions. Using national warehouse building stocks as a case study, the framework leverages warehouse archetype distributions across the national stock, their corresponding building embodied carbon intensity values, and forecasted floorspace growth projections. Results reveal that given the rapid growth pace of warehouse stocks, efficiency measures offer relatively higher reductions under equal thresholds, while the threshold for sufficiency interventions would need to increase by a factor of approximately 1.2 to achieve comparable results. Merging sufficiency and efficiency approaches yields the synergistic outcomes with the 10% threshold scenario reducing cumulative emissions by 17.6% by 2050. Ultimately, the proposed framework introduces a dynamic dimension to forecasting emissions and evaluating growth- aware policies, enabling the tailoring of policy frameworks to specific archetypes and growth trends.

Construction Engineering and Management (CEM) is a broad domain with publications covering interrelated subdisciplines and considered a key source of knowledge sharing. Previous studies used scientometric methods to assess the current impact of CEM publications; however, there is a need to predict future citations of CEM publications to identify the expected high-impact trends in the future and guide new research efforts. To tackle this gap in the literature, the authors conducted a study using Machine Learning (ML) algorithms and Social Network Analysis (SNA) to predict CEM-related citation metrics. Using a dataset of 93,868 publications, the authors trained and tested two machine learning classification algorithms: Random Forest and XGBoost. Validation of the RF and XGBoost resulted in a balanced accuracy of 79.1% and 79.5%, respectively. Accordingly, XGBoost was selected. Testing of the XGBoost model revealed a balanced accuracy of 80.71%. Using SNA, it was found that while the top CEM subdisciplines in terms of the number of predicted impactful papers are “Project planning and design”, “Organizational issues”, and “Information technologies, robotics, and automation”; the lowest was “Legal and contractual issues”. This paper contributes to the body of knowledge by studying the citation level, strength, and interconnectivity between CEM subdisciplines as well as identifying areas more likely to result in highly cited publications.

The United States has invested heavily in water and wastewater infrastructure projects to address growing demand and aging systems. To ensure the effective delivery of these projects, agencies are shifting toward alternative delivery methods such as progressive design build (PDB), which has demonstrated accelerated schedule and enhanced cost performance across the literature as well as multiple projects compared to traditional DB. This has raised a need for evaluating PDB's state of adoption and performance in the water and wastewater sector. To this end, the authors: (1) conducted descriptive and statistical analyses of the 21 PDB water and wastewater projects available on the Design-Build Institute of America database evaluating their characteristics and performance metrics; (2) investigated the frequency of materialized risks impacting schedule and cost in these projects; and finally (3) identified the key adoption drivers and challenges for PDB in the water and wastewater sector by triangulating findings from the studied narratives with a literature and practice review. Results revealed that 71% and 57% of the investigated projects were completed on or before the contracted schedules and costs, respectively. From the studied project narratives, owner-led changes and COVID-19 impacts were the most frequently encountered risks. Also, it was shown that project planning and risk management drivers were the most influential causes for PDB adoption, whereas legal and contractual restrictions as well as the owner's mindset and culture-related concerns were the most pressing challenges. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by delivering managerial insights through an aggregated snapshot of PDB implementation in the water and wastewater sector. Ultimately, the provided managerial insights can assist stakeholders in making better-informed decisions by weighing the advantages and challenges of PDB identified in this research against more traditional delivery approaches.

Integrated project delivery (IPD) method is associated with numerous benefits, including enhanced project performance, collaboration, and information sharing among project stakeholders. However, the lack of adequate incentive and reward mechanisms is still considered as the main reason for slowing down the adoption of IPD. As such, the goal of this paper is to identify a fair and efficient risk pool distribution among IPD project stakeholders. The adopted methodology included (1) assigning the risks associated with each stakeholder, (2) computing valuations for all possible subset coalitions among IPD project stakeholders that reflect their risk control capabilities as well as their coordination effects, and (3) utilizing cooperative game theory to generate fair and efficient distribution mechanisms given different a priori working and coalitional preferences. As such, a total of 22 risks were identified and quantified to calculate the risk control valuations of all subset coalitions using Monte-Carlo simulations. Afterward, these valuations were utilized to generate fair risk and reward distributions using the Shapley value and Owen value for games with a priori unions. The coalitional stability of the generated results was evaluated using propensity-to-disrupt ratios. Ultimately, the findings of this paper indicate that an IPD- multiparty agreement where all parties are engaged early on in establishing the contract results in the most balanced willingness to cooperate among stakeholders. Finally, the outcome of this paper equips industry practitioners with a distribution mechanism that corresponds to the adopted IPD relational configuration on one hand and the overall IPD project stability on the other.

Despite the recognition of the built environment as a sector with high potential for reducing embodied emissions, there is a lack of national-level data on embodied carbon emissions attributed to the US commercial building stocks. Hence, there is a need to benchmark the current state of embodied emissions attributed to the commercial built environment and the impact of circular economy (CE) policies for their decarbonization to facilitate well-informed decision-making. This paper fills this knowledge gap through providing policy makers with a framework that estimates the current and future projections of embodied carbon emissions attributable to the US commercial building stocks and highlighting the decarbonization potential of multiple CE policies. To this end, the following multistep research methodology was adopted: (1) collecting and integrating relevant data; (2) conceptualizing and initializing a system dynamics (SD) model; (3) developing subsystems and coflow structures within the SD model using aggregated stock data from the National Energy Modeling System; (4) verifying and testing the developed SD model; and finally (5) suggesting policies and conducting scenario analysis using CE policy precedents. Findings reveal that in the baseline scenario, cumulative emissions are projected to reach 5,605 MtCO2e by 2050. As for the scenario analysis, the unit size reduction policy emerged as the most impactful single policy, achieving a remarkable 38.8% decarbonization. Whereas the comprehensive CE policy that optimizes floorspace demand and the carbon intensity of materials, exhibited a 52% decarbonization potential by midcentury. As such, this study contributes to the body of knowledge by benchmarking emissions projections, providing insights regarding CE decarbonization strategies, their associated primary stakeholders and implementation pathways. Ultimately, by embracing a holistic approach toward CE policies and harnessing accurate and standardized data on building embodied emissions, stakeholders can effectively attain decarbonization goals and promote a sustainable built environment.

Sharing of risks and rewards is considered to be one of the key benefits and principles of integrated project delivery (IPD). Despite its importance, risk-reward strategies are not implemented widely in IPD construction projects due to the lack of a well-defined basis for establishing adequate allocation plans. This paper fills this knowledge gap. This research followed a multistep methodology. First, the authors calculated the risk control valuations of all potential combinations of coalitions for IPD stakeholders. This was performed using interrelated steps of risk identification and quantification, risk assignment based on associated contractual analysis, establishment of a coordination network, and Monte Carlo simulation. Second, the authors adopted cooperative game theoretic solutions-including Shapely, Owen, and Myerson partition-graph restricted game values-to allocate risk-reward shares for three IPD relational structures. Third, for each IPD relational structure, the authors evaluated the stability and associated negotiation power of coalitions for the IPD stakeholders using the propensity-to-disrupt ratio. Ultimately, the outcomes of this study show that having a multiparty agreement, in which all stakeholders-the owner, designer, contractor, and subcontractor-have open communication channels, creates the most balanced coalition. In this case, all stakeholders have equal willingness to cooperate in the project. Furthermore, as the engagement of the subcontractor in the IPD coalition decreases, the liability and contribution of the contractor increase in terms of project risk control. The latter emphasizes the importance of the technical capabilities of the contractor in the case of restricted subcontractor's engagement in the project. This research contributes to the body of knowledge by offering a basis for negotiation among various IPD stakeholders in terms of the degree of the subcontractor's engagement on the one hand and the proportionate share of each stakeholder on the other hand.

Despite the increasing recognition of the potential of Circular Economy (CE) strategies, their effective application to decarbonize the construction value chain faces multiple challenges. Ambiguity surrounding CE, stemming from a lack of clarity on actionable strategies, is a common concern. Existing studies lack a holistic approach for systematically integrating CE principles throughout the construction value chain, resulting in a scarcity of information on how to practically adopt CE within projects. This research aims to accelerate CE adoption by creating a value chain-structured portfolio of CE strategies and analyzing the implementation of such strategies in actual projects. To this end, a portfolio of CE strategies was compiled in a value chain-based-structure, which was evaluated against 71 US-based projects of exemplary sustainability criteria to scrutinize their successful implementation. Additionally, the study examined the interconnections and network dynamics among these strategies through association rule mining, network, and statistical analysis techniques. Results revealed a pronounced focus on strategies within the design, construction, and end-of-life value chain phases, with significant gaps existing in areas related to project financing, planning, logistics, property market, and operations. "Requiring sustainability certifications, standards, or labels" emerged as the most pivotal strategy in terms of frequency and number of associations, highlighting owners' significant role in CE transition. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by providing practical guidance and insights for industry practitioners in terms of actionable CE strategies and their state of implementation, ultimately fostering a more sustainably built environment.

With the anticipated growth in construction activities, minimizing value chain emissions, including those attributed to activities beyond an organization's direct control—aka "Scope 3" emissions, and adopting circular economy (CE) practices have become critical to attaining the 2050 climate goals. Extant literature lacks a value-chain-comprehensive set of CE strategies on one hand, and an analysis of their actual project applications on the other. This research aims to build a holistic portfolio of CE actionable strategies that span across the entire built environment value chain, analyzing their extent of implementation and interlinkages within the literature versus actual projects. To this end, the authors conducted a systematic literature and practice review to extract and collate CE strategies and project case studies, and quantified the implementation frequency for each of the strategies and their interlinkages through a network analysis. Results revealed a broad yet fragmented implementation, with the most frequently implemented strategies including requiring sustainability ratings, passive design measures, and landfill diversion, whereas strategies targeting logistics and property market phases were rather scarce. Ultimately, the findings herein can serve as a foundation for a multifunctional database of value chain-specific strategies and case studies that can guide the industry on its track to decarbonization.

Environmental concerns over embodied carbon-which is generated during the extraction, transportation, manufacturing, construction, and disposal of building materials-have been increasing as the industry shifts to renewable energy and grid decarbonization efforts prevail. Commercial buildings, a rapidly growing sector and a major source of embodied carbon, can contribute immensely to the national climate goals by transitioning into a circular economy (CE). Nevertheless, embodied carbon research is rather dispersed, with sparse data on the actual impact of different CE strategies and how they scale on nationwide commercial building stocks. To address this research need, the goal of this paper is to provide policymakers with a conceptual model that depicts the potential of CE strategy portfolios on embodied carbon reduction of commercial building stocks. Using US commercial buildings data from the Energy Information Administration, the authors (1) developed a systems dynamics model to conceptualize and serve as a baseline for calculating existing embodied emissions; and (2) evaluated the influence of various policy packages in terms of their overall emissions reduction potential over a planning horizon between the years 2022 and 2050. Findings of the study highlight the effectiveness of early design and construction CE interventions as compared to end-of-life strategies such as recycling, as well as traditional and business-as-usual approaches. Ultimately, results of the developed model can aid decision-makers to create multiple "what-if" scenarios for their policies, in addition to capitalizing on the most effective strategies for narrowing material loops and curbing embodied carbon emissions.

Construction engineering and management (CEM) domain covers multiple evolving sub-disciplines and directions. To understand those directions, numerous research efforts have conducted scientometric analysis of publications to explore their significance and impact. Despite their valuable insights, such research endeavors have been limited to exploratory analyses, whereas no previous attempt has been conducted to predict the future impact of research in CEM. This study fills this knowledge gap by performing a predictive analysis of citation metrics of publications in CEM using machine learning (ML). The developed model was trained on a dataset of 93,868 publications using an XGBoost algorithm. Testing showed that the model could predict high-impact research after 5 years from publication with an accuracy of 80.71%. Further analysis of the predicted model results identified "project planning and design," "organizational issues," and "information technologies, robotics, and automation" as the top forecasted CEM research subdisciplines that are anticipated to attract high citation counts. Ultimately, this research contributes to the CEM body of knowledge with a framework that can predict future citation trends, which can help guide researchers and stakeholders in academia identify research and funding opportunities.

Previous studies consistently label the Materials and Resources (MR) credit category of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) as the least attainable, despite its critical role in transitioning to a circular economy (CE). To this end, a long-standing gap exists in understanding the MR credit achievement, especially in LEED v4, which has been in use for nearly over a decade. This paper evaluates the level of CE integration in LEED v4 across 971 US-based certified projects. The study comprehensively analyzed the projects achievement patterns of the five MR credits: Building Life Cycle Impact Reduction (C1), Environmental Product Declarations (C2), Sourcing of Raw Materials (C3), Sourcing of Material Ingredients (C4), and Construction and Demolition Waste Management (C5). Results revealed that the most prevalent point achievement pattern was 0-1-0-1-2 out of a maximum of 5-2-2-2-2 for C1, C2, C3, C4, and C5. C1 and C3 posed significant challenges, with 588 and 601 projects receiving zero points, respectively. Additionally, the study statistically investigated differences in achievement across project groups of different certification levels, space use, and floorspace categories. Findings are further validated through interviews with LEED experts, who emphasized challenges such as additional costs, inadequate project specifications, and delays in engaging LEED professionals. Results align the status of LEED projects with the lower impact end of the reduce, reuse, recycle framework of CE, which is limited to waste management approaches. Research implications stress the need for collaborative efforts across the industry, owners, and policymakers to enhance CE practices within LEED projects. Ultimately, this study advocates for incentivizing building reuse, the integration of optimized life cycle assessments, as well as enhancing material data availability and transparency.

This paper investigates the ethical and professional responsibilities of engineering Graduate Students (GSs) and Faculty Members (FMs) in relation to Graduate Recruitment Offers (GROs). The authors developed an academic survey for data collection and subsequently evaluated the collected data based on common ethical theories and principles, as well as relevant professional codes of conduct. Based on the survey responses, this study identified the most common driving and preventive reasons for FMs and GSs not to honor a signed GRO. Further, the perception of GSs and FMs in relation to GROs was investigated using statistical methods. Finally, the authors provided an educational framework in the form of a checklist aimed at promoting ethical and professional decision-making as related to GROs. Ultimately, the outcomes of this research can be incorporated into senior seminar courses to enhance engineering undergraduate students’ ethical education and promote their ethical thinking as they grow into professional roles.

Celebrating the Journal of Construction Management and Economics (CME) 40th anniversary, the goal of this paper is to investigate the knowledge structure and evolution of research trends in CME since its inception. The associated objectives include: (1) analyzing CME's scholarly characteristics; (2) studying CME's publication output over time; (3) examining interconnectivities between CME's research trends; and (4) exploring the potential citation impact of recently published CME's papers. In doing so, this paper implemented a multistep methodology that consists of descriptive assessment, social network analysis (SNA), and predictive machine learning (ML). Results of descriptive assessment showed that CME has witnessed over the years a noticeable growth in the number of publications, citation trends, and collaborative research as depicted increased co-authorship, and that highest percentage of publications were related to "Strategy, Decision Making, Risk, and Finance", "Project planning and Design" and "Contemporary Issues". Output of SNA highlights that research areas with the highest interconnectivity included "Strategy, Decision Making, Risk and Finance" and "Project Planning and Design", and "Labor and Personnel Issues". Furthermore, predictive ML revealed that CME papers have a high probability of becoming high impact publications. In addition to that, the predictive ML results re-emphasized the outcomes of the performed descriptive assessment by reflecting the importance of "Contemporary Issues", "Organizational Issues", "Strategy, Decision Making, Risk, and Finance", and "Labor and Personnel Issues" as emerging research topics with increased potential impact in the future. Ultimately, this paper benefits all CME stakeholders by quantitatively studying current research patterns, their interconnectivities, and future potential.

Construction joint ventures (CJVs) are often perceived as risky endeavors due to the differences in technical, cultural, and political backgrounds between the participating parties. Fair apportionment of risk costs is considered as one of the critical success factors of a CJV. This research aims to allocate CJV risk-contingency costs based on the formation risks attributed to each party. To this end, the authors developed a parametric framework that allocates potential CJV additional risk-contingency costs among parties via cooperative game theory (CGT). First, CJV formation risks are identified and assessed using an existing model from the literature that utilizes analytical hierarchy process and utility theory. Next, estimates for contingency costs required for risk mitigation are divided among partners using CGT. To demonstrate the proposed framework, an illustrative case study is presented. Results of the study highlight the utility of CGT in generating axiomatically fair shares of risk contingency costs that ultimately enhance the stability of the CJV.

Construction joint ventures (CJVs) execute business by pooling diverse technical and financial contributions from collaborating entities. Traditional CJV profit-allocation approaches account only for investment shares, and do not address the marginal contribution of the participating parties. Therefore, disagreements may arise between stakeholders. This research aims to reduce profit-share-related disagreements among multiple CJV members by allocating profit based on the marginal contribution of each party. The authors developed a conceptual framework using the Shapley value as an alternative to the traditional investment-based approach. Three illustrative examples demonstrated the possible use of the developed conceptual framework. Results of the study highlighted the potential of Shapley value as an alternative profit allocation scheme. The stability of the generated results was validated mathematically, and decision makers' perception of fairness was addressed following the methods of prior experimental cooperative game theory research. This paper contributes to the body of knowledge by proposing an axiomatically fair methodology for profit-sharing negotiations among multiple collaborating parties in a project. This approach can be utilized in other engineering domains where the management needs to foster stable and fair collaborations among its stakeholders. (C) 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.

AbstractGame theory provides a rigorous mathematical approach to evaluate and predict stakeholders’ interactions. Even though the construction industry is rich with encounters among its stakeholder...