Tendering ethics : a study of collusive tendering from a marketing perspective

This thesis provides a behavioural perspective to the problem of collusive tendering in the construction market by examining the decision making factors of individuals potentially involved in such agreements using marketing ethics theory and techniques. The findings of a cross disciplinary literature review were synthesised into a model of factors theoretically expected to determine the individual's behavioural intent towards a set of collusive tendering agreements and the means of reaching them. The factors were grouped as internal cognitive (the individuals' value systems) and affective (demographic and psychographic characteristics) as well as external environmental (legal, industrial and organisational codes and norms) and situational (company, market and economic conditions). The model was tested using empirical data collected through a questionnaire survey of estimators employed in the largest Australian construction firms. All forms of explicit collusive tendering agreements were considered as having a prohibitive moral content by the majority of respondents who also clearly differentiated between agreements and discussions of contract terms (which they found to be a moral concern but not prohibitive) or of prices. The comparisons between those of the respondents that would never participate in a collusive agreement and the potential offenders clearly showed two distinctly different groups. The law abiding estimators are less reliant on situational factors, happier and more comfortable in their work environments and they live according to personal value and belief systems. The potential offenders on the other hand are mistrustful of colleagues, feel their values are not respected, put company priorities above principles and none of them is religious or a member of a professional body. The research results indicate that Australian estimators are, overall law abiding and principled and accept the existing codification of collusion as morally defensible and binding. Professional bodies' and organisational codes of conduct as well as personal value and belief systems that guide one's own conduct appear to be deterrents to collusive tendering intent and so are moral comfort and work satisfaction. These observations are potential indicators of areas where intervention and behaviour modification can increase individuals' resistance to collusion.

An architecture for user configurable mobile collaborative geographic applications

Geographic information is increasingly being touted for use in research and industrial projects. While the technology is now available and affordable, there is a lack of easy to use software that takes advantage of geographic information. This is an important problem because users are often researchers or scientists who have insufficient software skills, and by providing applications that are easier to use, time and financial resources can be taken from training and be better applied to the actual research and development work. A solution for this problem must cater for the user and research needs. In particular it must allow for mobile operation for fieldwork, flexibility or customisability of data input, sharing of data with other tools and collaborative capabilities for the usual teamwork environment. This thesis has developed a new architecture and data model to achieve the solution. The result is the Mobile Collaborative Annotation framework providing an implementation of the new architecture and data model. Mobile Collaborative Mapping implements the framework as a Web 2.0 mashup rich internet application and has proven to be an effective solution through its positive application to a case study with fieldwork scientists. This thesis has contributed to research into mobile computing, collaborative computing and geospatial systems by creating a simpler entry point to mobile geospatial applications, enabling simplified collaboration and providing tangible time savings.

Marketing VM services to achieve competitive advantage in the Malaysian Construction Sector

Value Management (VM) has been proven to provide a structured framework, together with supporting tools and techniques that facilitate effective decision-making in many types of projects, thus achieving ‘best value’ for clients. It is identified at International level as a natural career progression for the construction service provider and as an opportunity in developing leading-edge skills. The services offered by contractors and consultants in the construction sector have been expanding. In an increasingly competitive and global marketplace, firms are seeking ways to differentiate their services to ever more knowledgeable and demanding clients. The traditional demarcations have given way, and the old definition of what contractors, designers, engineers and quantity surveyors can, and cannot do in terms of their market offering has changed. Project management, design and cost and safety consultancy services, are being delivered by a diverse range of suppliers. Value management services have been developing in various sectors in industry; from manufacturing to the military and now construction. Given the growing evidence that VM has been successful in delivering value-for-money to the client, VM would appear to be gaining some momentum as an essential management tool in the Malaysian construction sector. The recently issued VM Circular 3/2009 by the Economic Planning Unit Malaysia (EPU) possibly marks a new beginning in public sector client acceptance on the strength of VM in construction. This paper therefore attempts to study the prospects of marketing the benefits of VM by construction service providers, and how it may provide an edge in an increasingly competitive Malaysian construction industry.

The mobile phone as a multi OTP device using trusted computing

The rapid growth in the number of online services leads to an increasing number of different digital identities each user needs to manage. As a result, many people feel overloaded with credentials, which in turn negatively impact their ability to manage them securely. Passwords are perhaps the most common type of credential used today. To avoid the tedious task of remembering difficult passwords, users often behave less securely by using low entropy and weak passwords. Weak passwords and bad password habits represent security threats to online services. Some solutions have been developed to eliminate the need for users to create and manage passwords. A typical solution is based on giving the user a hardware token that generates one-time-passwords, i.e. passwords for single session or transaction usage. Unfortunately, most of these solutions do not satisfy scalability and/or usability requirements, or they are simply insecure. In this paper, we propose a scalable OTP solution using mobile phones and based on trusted computing technology that combines enhanced usability with strong security.