A relational approach to high reliability organising for construction project safety: a conceptual framework

In Hong Kong, current safety management regimes in the construction industry are largely based on compliance, error detection and prevention, and safety climate intervention. While these approaches have improved construction project safety performance, significant limitations still exist. First, compliance and error detection/prevention approaches are based on rigid and ideal formulations of construction work processes. Second, safety climate interventionist approaches have a limitation of mixing psychological and human factors issues that are somehow detached from construction work contextual consideration. As a result, current safety management approaches are less effective in ensuring safety in construction operations which are emergent and dynamically complex. These situations require adaptive human inputs and interactions to ensure safety on projects that are grounded in the social capital among project team members. However, as social capital is a primordial feature of human interactions that is likely to lie dormant, its impact on safety performance is likely to be indirect and mediated by some organising processes such as high reliability organising (HRO) processes. Adopting the systems view of safety, we draw on these concepts to highlight the relational aspects in the management of construction project safety, and explain how these relational aspects can contribute to improving project safety. We accomplish these objectives by putting forth a conceptual framework and methodological suggestion.postprin

Stakeholder management through relationship management

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Relational pluralism in project settings: towards a research agenda

Conference Theme: Research to PracticeConstruction projects are characteristically complex undertakings whose successful realization requires the engagement of a myriad of individuals, teams and organisations. Projects therefore provide a platform for the emergence of multiplex (i.e. entities having more than one type of relationship), heterogeneous (i.e. entities connected to others from different backgrounds) and overlapping (i.e. entities belonging to clusters or spanning boundaries) relationships. This notion of the existence of relational pluralism in projects has implications for project constituents and project delivery. For individuals, it is how to grapple with multiple and conflicting identities in achieving outcomes. For teams, it is how to grapple with multiple types of inter-team relations and still maintain harmony to achieve goals, and for organisations, it is how to deal with the multiplicity of relationships among individuals and teams and still achieve goal congruence. This paper draws on social identity theory, social network theory and social capital, and their complementarity to explicitly examine the presence of multiplex, heterogeneous and overlapping relationships in projects and explain how relational pluralism can be exploited to facilitate effective project delivery. We further highlight the research avenues relational pluralism presents in project settings and examine the methodological implications of such research agendas.postprin

Social capital and construction project management: a vignette and theoretical framework

Conference Theme: Research to PracticeExtant discourse of organizational social capital has been concentrated on permanent organizational settings. The basic tenet of the concept of social capital is that the social relations of actors within social sphere can be used to facilitate actions among the focal actors and those others that are directly or indirectly associated with the focal actors. This utilitarian notion of the concept should transcend organizational settings. In this respect, although paradoxical, with the construction project peculiarities of fragmentation, the lack of a central authority, transient organizing, interdependence and the resultant need for integration, and relative closure, social capital may be more relevant to project organizing. However, given that social capital represents the primordial feature of social activities among actors and its utility is contingent upon active use and engagement, the effects of social capital on project organizing is likely to be channeled through project organizational processes. We examined this proposition with the use of a vignette derived from case study of a building construction project in Hong Kong. Through the vignette, we demonstrate the applicability of the concept in construction project settings in relation to the proposition. Based on the findings, we put forth a theoretical framework of the social embeddedness approach to project organizing.postprin

A modern contract: Developments in the UK and China

The form of contract plays a significant role in the governance of relationships between parties. Recent research in project procurement emphasises relationships and cultural/behavioural issues. Such relationships operate within a formal (contractual) framework as well as an informal (interpersonal/social) framework since no contract is entirely transactional or entirely relational in nature. Sir Michael Latham suggested a cultural/behavioural change is required in the construction industry such that project participants should embrace a 'modern contract'. This paper examines the 13 Latham requirements of a modern contract in the latest edition of the NEC. The requirements are categorised, under what are labelled here as pillars of a modern contract, namely 'fairness', 'roles and functions of project participants', and 'payment operating mechanisms'. Developments in contracting practices in the Chinese construction industry, with a cultural tradition grounded in Confucian values of cooperation and sharing, are then examined and juxtaposed against the UK construction industry's movement towards a modern contract rooted in relational contracting. The developments show that China has nurtured a change towards the more formal, contractual, system of rights and obligations in their 'modernisation' of construction procurement in sharp contrast to the UK movement towards greater collaboration and cooperation.published_or_final_versio

Oxidative stress in pregnancy and fertility pathologies

Oxidative stress designates the state of imbalance between reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and antioxidant levels. In a healthy placenta, there is an increase in ROS production, due to formation of new tissues and inherent metabolism, but this is balanced by higher levels of antioxidants. However, this balance is lost in some situations, with a consequent increase in oxidative stress levels. Oxidative stress has been implicated in several placental disorders and pregnancy pathologies. The present review intends to summarize what is known about the relationship between oxidative stress and well-known pregnancy disorders

Stroke genetics informs drug discovery and risk prediction across ancestries

Previous genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of stroke - the second leading cause of death worldwide - were conducted predominantly in populations of European ancestry(1,2). Here, in cross-ancestry GWAS meta-analyses of 110,182 patients who have had a stroke (five ancestries, 33% non-European) and 1,503,898 control individuals, we identify association signals for stroke and its subtypes at 89 (61 new) independent loci: 60 in primary inverse-variance-weighted analyses and 29 in secondary meta-regression and multitrait analyses. On the basis of internal cross-ancestry validation and an independent follow-up in 89,084 additional cases of stroke (30% non-European) and 1,013,843 control individuals, 87% of the primary stroke risk loci and 60% of the secondary stroke risk loci were replicated (P < 0.05). Effect sizes were highly correlated across ancestries. Cross-ancestry fine-mapping, in silico mutagenesis analysis(3), and transcriptome-wide and proteome-wide association analyses revealed putative causal genes (such as SH3PXD2A and FURIN) and variants (such as at GRK5 and NOS3). Using a three-pronged approach(4), we provide genetic evidence for putative drug effects, highlighting F11, KLKB1, PROC, GP1BA, LAMC2 and VCAM1 as possible targets, with drugs already under investigation for stroke for F11 and PROC. A polygenic score integrating cross-ancestry and ancestry-specific stroke GWASs with vascular-risk factor GWASs (integrative polygenic scores) strongly predicted ischaemic stroke in populations of European, East Asian and African ancestry(5). Stroke genetic risk scores were predictive of ischaemic stroke independent of clinical risk factors in 52,600 clinical-trial participants with cardiometabolic disease. Our results provide insights to inform biology, reveal potential drug targets and derive genetic risk prediction tools across ancestries.</p

Stroke genetics informs drug discovery and risk prediction across ancestries

Previous genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of stroke — the second leading cause of death worldwide — were conducted predominantly in populations of European ancestry1,2. Here, in cross-ancestry GWAS meta-analyses of 110,182 patients who have had a stroke (five ancestries, 33% non-European) and 1,503,898 control individuals, we identify association signals for stroke and its subtypes at 89 (61 new) independent loci: 60 in primary inverse-variance-weighted analyses and 29 in secondary meta-regression and multitrait analyses. On the basis of internal cross-ancestry validation and an independent follow-up in 89,084 additional cases of stroke (30% non-European) and 1,013,843 control individuals, 87% of the primary stroke risk loci and 60% of the secondary stroke risk loci were replicated (P < 0.05). Effect sizes were highly correlated across ancestries. Cross-ancestry fine-mapping, in silico mutagenesis analysis3, and transcriptome-wide and proteome-wide association analyses revealed putative causal genes (such as SH3PXD2A and FURIN) and variants (such as at GRK5 and NOS3). Using a three-pronged approach4, we provide genetic evidence for putative drug effects, highlighting F11, KLKB1, PROC, GP1BA, LAMC2 and VCAM1 as possible targets, with drugs already under investigation for stroke for F11 and PROC. A polygenic score integrating cross-ancestry and ancestry-specific stroke GWASs with vascular-risk factor GWASs (integrative polygenic scores) strongly predicted ischaemic stroke in populations of European, East Asian and African ancestry5. Stroke genetic risk scores were predictive of ischaemic stroke independent of clinical risk factors in 52,600 clinical-trial participants with cardiometabolic disease. Our results provide insights to inform biology, reveal potential drug targets and derive genetic risk prediction tools across ancestries