Responding to project uncertainty: Evidence for high reliability practices in large-scale safety–critical projects

The Cost Burden of Safety Risk Incidents on Construction: A Probabilistic Quantification Method

The construction sector is vulnerable to safety risk incidents due to its dynamic nature. Although numerous research efforts and technological advancements have focused on addressing workplace injuries, most of the studies perform empirical and deterministic postimpact evaluations on construction project performance. The effective modeling of the safety risk impacts on project performance provides decisionmakers with a valuable tool toward incidents prevention and proper safety risk management. Therefore, this study collected Australian incident records from the construction industry from 2016 onwards and conducted discrete event simulation to quantitatively measure the impact of safety risk incidents on project cost performance. Moreover, this study investigated the correlation between safety risk incidents and the age of injured workers. The findings show a strong correlation between the middle-aged workforce and the severity of incidents on project cost overruns. The ex-ante, nondeterministic analysis of safety risk impacts on project performance provides insightful results that will advance safety management theory in the direction of achieving zero harm workplace environments.

Reviewing High Reliability Team (HRT) Scholarship: A 21st Century Approach to Safety

High reliability team (HRT) theorizing emerged from high reliability organization (HRO) theory and now represents a distinct subset of HRO literature. Seeking to capture the development and range of HRT research, a comprehensive literature review was conducted. This systematic review of HRT scholarship, the first of its kind, provides a foundation from which small group and team scholars across disciplines may reflect on key lessons and chart future research. This review includes 71 articles across 21 disciplines and incorporates historical reflection on HRT theory foundations, existing empirical support, critiques and rivals, theory extensions, and ideas for future scholarship efforts.

Conceptualising Project Uncertainty in the Context of Building Refurbishment Safety: A Systematic Review

Project uncertainty is an inherent attribute in safety-critical projects, such as building refurbishment. While it has been suggested that project safety performance is often challenged due to project uncertainty, uncertainties are yet to be conceptualised in building refurbishment projects. The purpose of this research is to propose an industry-specific factor model of project uncertainty that can be used to diagnose and assess uncertainty in construction refurbishment research and practice. An extensive review of existing literature, following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines, where 53 articles were selected to identify the determinants of project uncertainty and strategies for managing uncertainty. In total, 23 project uncertainty factors were identified and clustered under the taxonomy of uncertain information, uncertain complexity, uncertain temporal clarity, and uncertain understanding. Thus, 12 management strategies for coping with uncertainty in building refurbishment projects were determined. Learning and a flexible working environment were the most frequently raised strategies among all the reviewed articles. The factor model proposed enables project managers and academics to better understand, assess and manage project uncertainty and deliver safer building refurbishment projects. As such, it also provides a sufficient platform and initiates debate towards the development of uncertainty management strategies to better prepare for surprises as projects progress.

Project Managers’ Competences in Managing Project Closing

Closing is a strategic but frequently overlooked project phase, in which project managers play pivotal roles as project team leaders. This study pinpoints project managers’ competences underpinning the effective management of project closing, defined as project managers’ closing competence (PMCC). A conceptual model of how PMCC contributes to project closing performance (PCP) was developed from related literature. Based on questionnaire data from 163 project management practitioners, partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed to test the model and identify the most influential PMCC dimensions and indicators. The results reveal four PMCC dimensions (i.e., knowledge and skills, external stakeholder management, leadership in project team, and organization-level ability) significantly affecting PCP. The PLS-SEM results also quantify the relative importance of the indicators in each PMCC dimension. Comparing the findings with recent literature, we found that risk awareness, closing contract relationships, helping staff with career planning, participating in project closing decisions, and obtaining support from other departments are crucial aspects of PMCC that deserve more attention in research and practice. The findings heed the call for identifying competences according to project tasks, and operationalize PMCC and PCP into detailed indicators. The proposed PMCC framework also provides practical implications for project manager evaluation and selection.

Contract structure for nuclear power projects

The UK government chose an unusual contract structure for the procurement of their programmes of civil nuclear power projects. British manufacturing and construction companies were invited to form consortia to compete for ‘turnkey’ contracts to design and supply complete power stations. The government continued with this structure until late in their second programme of projects. The results met the objective of national independence in power supply, but at a cost. This paper reviews the structure used in the UK, its evolution through two programmes of projects and lessons to be learned for new projects. The paper draws on published material, official papers, private records and reports from other countries. The most important lessons are that project sponsors should give rigorous attention to the choice of contract structure when initiating such major projects and that the structures open to them are not unique to their industry.