Final report implementation of relational management

Construction teams and construction organisations have their own distinctive cultures. There also exists an infrastructure, both social and contractual, which ensures that these projects within which the teams operate are completed successfully. It is these issues which this research has addressed. The project was instigated by Queensland Department of Main Roads, Public Works and John Holland Group in order to address how they might better implement relationship management (RM) on their construction projects. The project was devised initially in order to facilitate a change in culture which would allow the project to be run in a relational manner and would lead to effective performance in terms of the KPIs that the organisations set for themselves, described as business better than usual. This report describes the project, its outcomes and deliverable and indicates the changes that were made to the project during the research process. Hence, the initial premise of the project and the problem to investigate was the implementation of relational contracting: • throughout a range of projects; • with a focus on client body staff. The additions that were made to the project, and documented in the variations to the project, included two major additional areas of study: • client management and stakeholder management; • a live case study of an alliancing project. The context within which the research was undertaken is important. The research was driven by main roads with their desire to improve their operations by focusing on the relationship between the major project participants (however, stakeholder and client organisation management became an obvious issue as the research progressed, hence the variations). The context was initially focussed on main roads, public works and John Holland group organisations but it became clear very quickly that this was in fact an industry-wide issue and not an issue specific solely to the project participants. Hence, the context within which this research took place can be described as below: The deliverables from the project are a toolkit for determining RM needs in an organisation, a monograph describing the practical implementation of RM and the outline for a RM CPD and Masters course

Report on relationship management and culture change

Brisbane Water (BW), a commercialised business arm of Brisbane City Council (BCC) entered into an alliance with a number of organisations from the private sector in order to design, construct, commission and undertake upgrades to three existing wastewater treatment plants located at Sandgate, Oxley Creek, and Wacol in Brisbane. The alliance project is called the Brisbane Water Environmental Alliance (BWEA). This report details the efforts of a team of researchers from the School of Management at Queensland University of Technology to investigate this alliance. This is the second report on this project, and is called Stage 2 of the research. At the time that Stage 2 of the research project was conducted, the BWEA project was nearing completion with a further 8 months remaining before project completion. The aim of this report is to explore individuals’ perceptions of the effectiveness and functioning of the BWEA project in the latter stages of the project. The second aim of this report is to analyse the longitudinal findings of this research project by integrating the findings from Stage 1 and Stage 2 of the project. This long-term analysis of the functioning and effectiveness of the alliance is important because at the current time, researchers have little knowledge of the group developmental processes that occur in large-scale alliances over time. Stage 2 of this research project has a number of aims including assessing performance of the BWEA project from the point of view of a range of stakeholders including the alliance board and alliance management team, alliance staff, and key stakeholders from the client organisation (Brisbane Water). Data were collected using semi-structured interviews with 18 individuals including two board members, one external facilitator, and four staff members from the client organisation. Analysis involved coding the interview transcripts in terms of the major issues that were reported by interviewees.

Venture idea newness, relatedness and performance in nascent ventures

Principal Topic The study of the origin and characteristics of venture ideas - or ''opportunities'' as they are often called - and their contextual fit are key research goals in entrepreneurship (Davidsson, 2004). We define venture idea as ''the core ideas of an entrepreneur about what to sell, how to sell, whom to sell and how an entrepreneur acquire or produce the product or service which he/she sells'' for the purpose of this study. When realized the venture idea becomes a ''business model''. Even though venture ideas are central to entrepreneurship yet its characteristics and their effect to the entrepreneurial process is mysterious. According to Schumpeter (1934) entrepreneurs could creatively destruct the existing market condition by introducing new product/service, new production methods, new markets, and new sources of supply and reorganization of industries. The introduction, development and use of new ideas are generally called as ''innovation'' (Damanpour & Wischnevsky, 2006) and ''newness'' is a property of innovation and is a relative term which means that the degree of unfamiliarity of venture idea either to a firm or to a market. However Schumpeter's (1934) discusses five different types of newness, indicating that type of newness is an important issue. More recently, Shane and Venkataraman (2000) called for research taking into consideration not only the variation of characteristics of individuals but also heterogeneity of venture ideas, Empirically, Samuelson (2001, 2004) investigated process differences between innovative venture ideas and imitative venture ideas. However, he used only a crude dichotomy regarding the venture idea newness. According to Davidsson, (2004) as entrepreneurs could introduce new economic activities ranging from pure imitation to being new to the entire world market, highlighting that newness is a matter of degree. Dahlqvist (2007) examined the venture idea newness and made and attempt at more refined assessment of the degree and type of newness of venture idea. Building on these predecessors our study refines the assessment of venture idea newness by measuring the degree of venture idea newness (new to the world, new to the market, substantially improved while not entirely new, and imitation) for four different types of newness (product/service, method of production, method of promotion, and customer/target market). We then related type and degree of newness to the pace of progress in nascent venturing process. We hypothesize that newness will slow down the business creation process. Shane & Venkataraman (2000) introduced entrepreneurship as the nexus of opportunities and individuals. In line with this some scholars has investigated the relationship between individuals and opportunities. For example Shane (2000) investigates the relatedness between individuals' prior knowledge and identification of opportunities. Shepherd & DeTinne (2005) identified that there is a positive relationship between potential financial reward and the identification of innovative venture ideas. Sarasvathy's 'Effectuation Theory'' assumes high degree of relatedness with founders' skills, knowledge and resources in the selection of venture ideas. However entrepreneurship literature is scant with analyses of how this relatedness affects to the progress of venturing process. Therefore, we assess the venture ideas' degree of relatedness to prior knowledge and resources, and relate these, too, to the pace of progress in nascent venturing process. We hypothesize that relatedness will increase the speed of business creation. Methodology For this study we will compare early findings from data collected through the Comprehensive Australian Study of Entrepreneurial Emergence (CAUSEE). CAUSEE is a longitudinal study whose primary objective is to uncover the factors that initiate, hinder and facilitate the process of emergence and development of new firms. Data were collected from a representative sample of some 30,000 households in Australia using random digit dialing (RDD) telephone survey interviews. Through the first round of data collection identified 600 entrepreneurs who are currently involved in the business start-up process. The unit of the analysis is the emerging venture, with the respondent acting as its spokesperson. The study methodology allows researchers to identify ventures in early stages of creation and to longitudinally follow their progression through data collection periods over time. Our measures of newness build on previous work by Dahlqvist (2007). Our adapted version was developed over two pre-tests with about 80 participants in each. The measures of relatedness were developed through the two rounds of pre-testing. The pace of progress in the venture creation process is assessed with the help of time-stamped gestation activities; a technique developed in the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED). Results and Implications We hypothesized that venture idea newness slows down the venturing process whereas relatedness facilitates the venturing process. Results of 600 nascent entrepreneurs in Australia indicated that there is marginal support for the hypothesis that relatedness assists the gestation progress. Newness is significant but is the opposite sign to the hypothesized. The results give number of implications for researchers, business founders, consultants and policy makers in terms of better knowledge of the venture creation process.

Final report : feasibility study linking best value procurement assessment to outcome performance indicators

This feasibility study was established to investigate the application of the concept of ‘best value’ in construction procurement in Australia. In the case of ‘best value’ in the business enterprise, ‘best value’ is that which returns greatest value to the business enterprise’s shareholders. However, in the case of the public sector, ‘best value’ is more complex. For that reason, this research project focuses mainly on public sector construction project procurement.

Facilities management action agenda : the Australian government and industry working together for improvement

This paper provides an overview of the Australian Government’s Facilities Management (FM) Action Agenda as announced in 2004 as a key policy plank designed to facilitate growth of the FM industry. The resulting consultation with industry leaders has seen the criterion and release in April 2005 of the FM Action Agenda’s strategic plan entitled ‘Managing the Built Environment’. This framework, representing a collaboration between the Australian Government, public and private sector stakeholders and Facility Management Association of Australia (FMA Australia) and other allied bodies, sets out to achieve the vision of a more “…productive and sustainable built environment…” through improved innovation, education and standards. The 36 month implementation phase is now underway and will take a multi-pronged approach to enhancing the recognition of the FM industry and removing impediments to its growth with a 20 point action plan across the following platforms: • Innovation – Improved appreciation of facility life cycles, and greater understanding of the key drivers of workplace productivity, and the improved application of information technology. • Education and Training – Improved access to dedicated FM education and training opportunities and creation clear career pathways into the profession. • Regulatory Reform – Explore opportunities to harmonise cross jurisdictional regulatory compliance requirements that have an efficiency impact on FM. • Sustainability – Improved utilization of existing knowledge and the development of tools and opportunities to improve the environmental performance of facilities. Additional information is available at www.fma.com.au

Sydney Opera House : facilities management exemplar project

The paper presents an interim summary of research and case studies being undertaken in the Sydney Opera House FM Exemplar Project covering procurement, benchmarking and building information models. The final outcomes of the FM Exemplar Project will be presented through various forums open to all FM practitioners and published in Australia and elsewhere through relevant journals. Sydney Opera House is an Australian icon, attracting some 4.5 million visitors per year who admire its built form and enjoy an evening of theatre. The building is the attraction, part of the experience. Therefore, facilities management is critical to the success of the Sydney Opera House enterprise and an ideal subject for the study of facilities management. Significantly the three research themes are heavily intertwined – effective risk sharing in procurement requires historic information and benchmarks for future performance, benchmarking gathers vast quantities of data that can only be exploited if properly related to one another and a building information model provides the means to manage such data. The case studies are emerging as real-life examples of how one organisation is addressing FM issues common to many, and will provide useful lessons for practitioners pursing similar strategies in their own organisations.

The efficacy of waste management plans in Australian commercial construction refurbishment projects

Renovation and refurbishment of the existing commercial building stock is a growing area of total construction activity and a significant generator of waste sent to landfill in Australia. A written waste management plan (WMP) is a widespread regulatory requirement for commercial office redevelopment projects. There is little evidence, however, that WMPs actually increase the quantity of waste that is ultimately diverted from landfill. Some reports indicate an absence of any formal verification or monitoring process by regulators to assess the efficacy of the plans. In order to gauge the extent of the problem a survey was conducted of twenty four consultants and practitioners involved in commercial office building refurbishment projects to determine the state of current practice with regard to WMPs and to elicit suggestions with regard to ways of making the process more effective. Considerable variation in commitment to recycling policies was encountered indicating a need to revisit waste minimisation practices if the environmental performance of refurbishment projects is to be improved.

The interrelations among the project team’s conduit networks, knowledge network and its performance

From the perspective of network, a project team’s social capital consists of conduits network, and resource exchange network. Prior research intensively studies the effect of the structure of conduits network on the team’s performance, assuming knowledge transfer is the causal mechanism linking conduits network to performance. This paper attempts to explore the interrelations between conduits network and knowledge network, and further distinguish the different influence between various conduit networks, and hypothesizes that a project team’s knowledge network mediates the effect of various conduit networks on the team’s performance. This research can enrich our knowledge of disparate influence of the various conduit networks on knowledge transfer, and imply some management practices to enhance the organization’s social capital, and hence improve the organization’s performance.

Decision support system for improving construction companies’ business performance

As part of a decision making process, the controlling process in construction companies can be supported by computer application that provides faster and reliable decision. This paper discusses the development of a knowledge-based decision support system for controlling construction companies’ business performance. The knowledge-base was developed using questionnaire survey and case studies. A questionnaire survey was conducted to identify potential problems that can occur in construction companies as well as the source of the problems and their impact on companies’ performance. Case studies were used to identify and analyse various corrective actions. The result of the study shows that decision support system using knowledge-based management system improves the effectiveness and the efficiency of decision making process for selecting the most appropriate corrective action that can improve construction companies’ performance. The application, which had been developed in this research, was designed to support the process of controlling construction companies’ business performance and to assist young manager in selecting the most optimum corrective actions for the problems related to achieving companies’ objectives. This computer application can be used as a learning tool for identifying potential problems that a construction company faces and the most optimum corrective action.

The impact of internal and external market orientations on firm performance.

The role of internal marketing in developing organisational competencies is identified as a key area for continued research (Rafiq and Ahmed, 2003). One competence of particular interest to marketers is market orientation. This paper examines the impact of internal marketing, operationalised as a set of internal market orientated behaviours (IMO) on market orientation (MO), and consequently organisational performance, and provides the first quantitative evidence to support the long held assumption that internal marketing has an impact on marketing success. Data from UK retail managers were analysed using structural equations modelling employing LISREL software. These data indicate significant relationships between internal market orientation, employee motivation and external marketing success (market orientation, financial performance and customer satisfaction). Our results also support previous findings indicating a positive impact of external market orientation on customer satisfaction and financial performance. For marketing practitioners, the role of internal market orientation is developing marketing strategies is discussed.

A comparative study of manufacturing practices and performance variables

The reported study was conducted to compare and contrast current manufacturing practices between two countries, Australia and Malaysia, and identify the practices that significantly influence their manufacturing performances. The results are based on data collected from surveys using a standard questionnaire in both countries. Evidence indicates that product quality and reliability is the main competitive factor for manufacturers. Maintaining a supplier rating system and regularly updating it with field failure and warranty data and making use of product data management are found to be effective manufacturing practices. In terms of the investigated manufacturing performance, Australian manufacturers are marginally ahead of their Malaysian counterparts. However, Malaysian manufacturers came out ahead on most dimensions of advanced quality and manufacturing practices, particularly in the adoption of product data management, effective supply chains and relationships with suppliers and customers.

Project team’s internal and external social networks and their influence on project performance

The research on project learning has recognised the significance of knowledge transfer in project based organisations (PBOs). Effective knowledge transfer across projects avoids reinventions, enhances knowledge creation and saves lots of time that is crucial in project environment. In order to facilitate knowledge transfer, many PBOs have invested lots of financial and human resources to implement IT-based knowledge repository. However, some empirical studies found that employees would rather turn for knowledge to colleagues despite their ready access to IT-based knowledge repository. Therefore, it is apparent that social networks play a pivotal role in the knowledge transfer across projects. Some scholars attempt to explore the effect of network structure on knowledge transfer and performance, however, focused only on egocentric networks and the groups’ internal social networks. It has been found that the project’s external social network is also critical, in that the team members can not handle critical situations and accomplish the projects on time without the assistance and knowledge from external sources. To date, the influence of the structure of a project team’s internal and external social networks on project performance, and the interrelation between both networks are barely known. In order to obtain such knowledge, this paper explores the interrelation between the structure of a project team’s internal and external social networks, and their effect on the project team’s performance. Data is gathered through survey questionnaire distributed online to respondents. Collected data is analysed applying social network analysis (SNA) tools and SPSS. The theoretical contribution of this paper is the knowledge of the interrelation between the structure of a project team’s internal and external social networks and their influence on the project team’s performance. The practical contribution lies in the guideline to be proposed for constructing the structure of project team’s internal and external social networks.

Key performance indicators for innovation implementation : perception vs. actual usage

This paper aimed to explore the proportion associated with the perceived importance and the actual use of performance indicators from manufacturing and non manufacturing industries. The sample was 86 small and medium sized-organizations in Thailand. The perceived importance and the actual use of financial and non financial indicators were found to be significantly related among manufacturing and non manufacturing industries. KPI 3, 9, and 12 (i.e. sales and sales growth; quality of products and /or services; and process time) were perceived the most importance among manufacturing managers (85.3%, 79.4% and 76.5% respectively). While KPI 6, 9, and 12 (i.e. customer satisfaction, quality of products and /or services; and process time) were perceived the most importance among non manufacturing managers (84.8%, 93.5%, and 84.8% respectively). Interestingly, the most used KPIs for manufacturing were sales and sales growth (64.7%); profit margins (61.8%); and customer satisfaction (84.8) while non manufacturing used quality products/services (60.9%); sales and sales growth (54.3%) and employee development (54.3%) respectively. Limitation and implication were also discussed.

An empirical study : a role of financial and non-financial performance measurement and perceived innovation effectiveness

Practitioners and academics often assume that investments in innovation will lead to organizational improvements. However, previous research has often shown that implemented innovations fail to realise these potential improvements. On the other hand, organisation, perhaps, has been growing and productive because of the innovation, but traditional measurements have failed to capture that growth. In order to help organizations capture their innovation performance effectively, this study examined the organizations which employ different types of performance measurement and their perception of innovation effectiveness.