A FRAMEWORK FOR STRATEGIC DECISION-MAKING IN CONSTRUCTION PROFESSIONAL SERVICE FIRMS

The construction sector plays a crucial role in the global economy, having critical importance to economic growth, social inclusion and employment. In Ireland, the sector generates a combined value of over €20 billion per annum, with 144,000 persons directly employed in the sector, which is forecasted to grow by 3.9% in 2019. The sector is also hugely complex due to the diverse range of output, from productive infrastructure (roads, railways etc.) to residential (both public and private) and the numerous stakeholders involved throughout its intricate supply chain. The sector is highly susceptible to cyclical economic patterns, making it more challenging to ascertain the specific characteristics of how firms make decisions within it. Despite going through a prolonged, deep recession, the Irish economy has returned to sustained growth, necessitating research into the strategic decision-making process within the construction sector to guard against future negative impacts of economic fluctuation. Strategy is a well-established management discipline; however, the nature of strategic decision-making process within highly knowledge-intensive Professional Service Firms (PSFs) has received little empirical attention, despite the firms comprising a sizable portion of those employed in the construction sector. This study bridges the perceptible gap in the strategic decision making process in construction PSF’s, who collaborate on complex projects but are not well understood on a strategic level. The study explores strategic decision-making across three key professions, with participation from members of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI), the Association of Consulting Engineers Ireland (ACEI) and the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (SCSI) via a mixed methods study (Quantitative: 225 firms; Qualitative: 27 firms). The findings present, for the first time, a multidisciplinary insight into the strategic decision-making process and resulting strategic ii choices made by construction PSFs in Ireland. The central implication of the study is that it presents, for the first time, a strategy-as-practice based framework for strategic decision-making within construction PSFs, bridging the gap in knowledge about strategy formulation in practice within construction. The framework also acts as a guide for practitioners, guiding them to take into account individual organisational contexts in the strategic decision making process, adding to the conversation around collaboration within construction. Until organisational and profession specific contexts are understood, it will be hard to advance to measuring performance of strategic decisions in CPSFs, which is considered “hard to measure” due to intangibility of output, the amount of repeat business generated presents a veritable alternative for strategic decision quality measurement from an industry viewpoint. Lastly, the SAP framework presents an opportunity for the overall construction sector to explore the social dimensions of their decision making process. Practitioners within the sector can now identify the right questions to ask themselves when designing overall industry-wide strategy

COMPETITIVE STRATEGIES IN SMALL AND MEDIUM SIZED ENTERPRISES (SME\u27S): A CROSS- CASE ANALYSIS OF IRISH CONSTRUCTION PROFESSIONAL SERVICE FIRMS

Strategy formulation aims to attain strategic fit between an organisation and its business environment in pursuit of competitive advantage. Although competitive strategy research is long established within industries such as manufacturing, financial services and IT, strategy within construction is still under-investigated by comparison. For construction professional service firms (CPSFs), the dearth of academic inquiry is even more apparent, partly due to the intangible nature of their service offerings, highly customised nature of their services and reliance on intellectual capital. The Irish construction sector is experiencing stable growth since following a prolonged recession, thus understanding the strategy process within professional service firms is becoming increasingly important given the role of the service sector in economic recovery. Although the overwhelming majority of Irish CPSF\u27s are small-sized, there remains a paucity of evidence pertaining to the competitive strategies adopted by Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SME\u27s) within construction. This study is a cross-professional investigation involving architectural, engineering and surveying (AES) firms. These firms work together in the interest of the client on a project-level yet may select different strategic options and are led by different types of strategists. The aim of the study is to investigate the overall corporate objectives i.e. corporate strategy, the mechanism adopted in realising it, and how it positions itself relative to the business environment. The study found via a mono-method, online quantitative survey that although CPSFs adopt different corporate strategic objectives, their business strategies are in many ways similar. Findings also show that as firm size increases, strategists shift from a reactive state to defending their market share. This paper provides critical empirical evidence regarding the competitive strategies in SMEs, and the findings advance the discourse by practitioners on collaboration between CPSFs who are required to work together on construction projects, while adopting different competitive strategic choice

SOCIAL CONTAGION AND KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION IN CONSTRUCTION PROFESSIONAL SERVICE FIRMS

The construction industry in Ireland, including professional service firms (PSF’s) operating therein, are undergoing a period of change and uncertainty driven by economic, demographic, political and technological factors. While considerable evidence exists demonstrating the relationship between environmental turbulence on organisational decision making, there remains a distinct lack of focus on behavioural patterns affecting decision-making process of construction firms. Social contagion (SC) theory asserts that the spread of ideas, attitudes, or behaviour patterns in a group is achieved through imitation and conformity, and is well established within social sciences research, and is increasingly being used to analyse organisational behaviour. However, limited inquiry has been launched into SC theory within construction contexts, particularly within high knowledge intensive PSFs. Using a literature-based meta-synthesis, an exploration as to the usefulness of SC theory in the field of knowledge management in construction is presented. A framework for the analysis of knowledge acquisition using SC theory is provided, as part of an ongoing doctoral study. Based on the interpretations that social contagion research and learning for construction PSF’s are in fact two sides of the same social epistemological coin, a theoretical framework for the synthesis of social contagion into the body of theoretically informed research in construction is thus proposed

A Comparative Analysis of Key Elements of the Strategic Decision-Making Process Across Construction Professional Services Firms: Evidence from the Irish Construction Industry

The Irish construction industry is experiencing a well-established growth phase following a prolonged recession. While the economic impact has been well documented, there remains less emphasis on discipline-specific studies pertaining to strategy within construction firms in Ireland. Additionally, evidence regarding strategic management within the construction sector is predominantly concentrated on contracting organisations, with less emphasis on highly knowledge-intensive professional service firms (PSFs). As the construction sector in Ireland continues its sustained growth, there have been increased calls within the industry for further collaboration between key stakeholders. However, exploring collaboration within project-centric firms without understanding the individual strategic decision-making processes within them may be problematic. In the construction industry in particular, collaboration needs to be integrated into the overall strategy of individual stakeholders to be effective. Therefore, this study reports a unique insight pertaining to the strategic choices and characteristics of the decision-making process within consultant engineering (CE) and Quantity Surveying (QS) practices in Ireland as part of an ongoing study. The paper reports on findings from the first phase of a two-stage data collection, namely a widespread surveying of QS and Consultant Engineering practices in Ireland. The study provides two specific contributions. First, it adds to the body of knowledge by identifying key considerations in the strategic decisionmaking process within the context of highly knowledge intensive firms in a turbulent construction sector environment. Secondly, it addresses the recommendations of earlier studies about the need for cross-profession comparative analysis within PSFs, by comparing the process across two key disciplines within a significantly changed industry. The findings of the study contribute current insights into the state of competitive strategy and decision-making in the highly turbulent construction environment in Ireland

HOW ARE WE BEING INFORMED ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE?

Scientific poster ‘How is Europe being informed about Climate Change?’ This poster was presented as part of the research results that have been delivered on behalf of the Women Partnership for the \u27Climate change, migration & me Challenge\u27 which was organised part of the Young Water Professional program of the Amsterdam International Water Week. The poster won the second prize with the team comprising Elisa Perpignan, Derrick Agyapong, Rollis Jiofack, Oluwasegun Seriki (participating online out of respectively Ghana, Burkina Faso and Ireland), from the case: European Pact for Water. The team was selected to attend the Planetary Security Conference – 12 and 13 December, 2017 – The Hague, the Netherlands. The case was offered by the European Pact for Water & Women for Water Partnership by Lesha Witmer and Annemiek Jenniskens

Disposition of Secondary Students towards Charcoal Production in Ibarapa North Local Government Area of Oyo State

The study assessed the disposition of secondary school student towards charcoal production. A multistage sampling technique was used to select 225 respondents from six secondary schools in the area. Information was elicited from the respondents with the aid of a questionnaire, information collected was analyzed using descriptive (Frequency, percentages, tables and mean) and inferential (chi-square and T-test) statistical tool. The result of the study shows that there is no gender bias in the involvement in the charcoal activities as 50.7% are males, with mean age of 17 years and household size of 8. The result also revealed that 68% of the students are involved with an average period of 4 years while 35% reported their parents are also involved and make an average of N8, 754 on monthly basis. On the activities they are involved in the findings revealed that they are involved in different activities with transportation being the major one while the need to make more money (49.4%), being common occupation in the community (48%) and the prestige associated with it (41.3%) as the major influencing factors of their involvement. Their disposition was largely indifferent (88%) as revealed by the study as many of them are involved just to get the benefit without considering the effect on them. The result of the T-test (t-value 4.117, p=0.000 at P< 0.005) reveals significant difference in the disposition of those involved and those not involved while the chi-square analysis also showed significant relationship between sex(χ2 = 29.874, p = 0.000), household size(χ2 = 17.472, p = 0.002) and parental involvement (χ2 = 8.855, p = 0.012) at p < 0.05. The study therefore concluded that the students are involved and are indifferent in their disposition to charcoal production and recommend that there is a need for proper orientation of the student in relationship to their involvement while inculcating teaching on environmental sustainability. Keywords: Charcoal, Youth, Disposition, Oyo state, Ibarapa and Involvement

A review of the roles of Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) molecules in infections

The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) locus is a group of genes located on the short arm of chromosome 6 in human that code for proteins on the cell surface. They have important roles in immune response by the cells of immune system. Using a comprehensive search method on Google Scholar and PubMed databases, literatures on MHC published in English until 2021 were searched with the terms; “MHC”, “HLA”, “MHC antigen presentation” and “MHC roles in infections”. Relevant publications were identified, screened for duplicates and selected per eligibility. The review highlights the different haplotypes of the MHC that either enhance or depress the body immune system to some important viral, bacterial and parasitic infections. The possibility of utilizing this knowledge in genetic engineering and immunomodulation, to prevent infectious diseases and cancers, are discussed

Assessment of Helianthus tuberosus leaves extract as eco-friendly corrosion inhibitor for Aluminum in sodium hydroxide: Insights from electrochemical, gravimetry and computational consideration

Aluminum is utilized in numerous applications under diverse conditions which often expose it to aggressive substances that cause corrosion. Exposure of Aluminum to alkaline solutions as in aluminum-air batteries is a significant instance. Corrosion of metals has caused environmental and economic problems globally. In this study, Potentiodynamic Polarization (PDP), Electrochemical Impedance Spectrocopy (EIS) and gravimetry were employed to study the inhibitory effect of Helianthus tuberosus (HT) leaves extract as environmental friendly corrosion inhibitor for Aluminum corrosion in sodium hydroxide. Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) was utilized to characterize HT leaves extract. PDP measurements revealed tremendous decrease in corrosion current density (Icorr), from 1241 μAcm-2 in the absence of HT to 87 μAcm-2 in the presence of 1000 ppm of HT and the decrease was concentration dependent. The magnitude of the shift of corrosion potential prior to introduction of HT and after introduction of HT was less than 85 mV which suggest that HT acted as a mixed type inhibitor. EIS showed considerable increase in charge transfer resistance (Rct) from 4719 ( cm2 in the absence of HT to 35824 ( cm2 when 1000 ppm of HT was introduced. 93 % inhibition efficiency was achieved when 1000 ppm of the inhibitor was introduced. GC-MS analysis of HT revealed the presence of numerous compounds such as 1-Pentanol, 5-(methylenecyclopropyl)-, 9,12-Octadecadienoic acid, Bicyclo[4.4.0]dec-1-ene, 2-isopropyl-5-methyl-9-methylene- and (Z,Z)-, Bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate that contains hetero atoms known to aid protective inhibitor film formation on metal surface. Gravimetric measurements revealed tremendous decrease in corrosion rates in the presence of HT and the decrease was consistent with increase in HT concentration. IE increased with increase in HT concentration. Adsorption of HT on the surface of Aluminum obeyed Langmuir isotherm and occurred via physisorption. Helianthus tuberosus (HT) leaves extract demonstrated good performance as corrosion inhibitor for Aluminum in 1 M NaOH.Keywords: Corrosion, Aluminum, corrosion inhibitor, electrochemical, Helianthus tuberosus, adsorption

Evaluation of soybean meal replacement with sesame seed meal using activated charcoal as an additive in the diet of African catfish juveniles, Clarias gariepinus

This study evaluated the effects of 0.25% activated charcoal added to sesame seed meal (SSM) in partial replacement of soybean meal (SBM) of juvenile Clarias gariepinus diet on growth and haematological parameters for 70 day experimental period. Six experimental diets were formulated as: control diet 1 (100% SSM without activated charcoal), control diet 2 (100% SSM plus 0.25% activated charcoal), diet 3 (50% SMB+50% SSM), diet 4 (50% SBM+50% SSM+0.25% AC), diet 5 (30% SBM+70% SSM) and diet 6 (30% SBM+70% SSM+0.25AC). The inclusion of activated charcoal recorded significant improvement in mean weight gain, mean feed intake, specific growth rate (SGR), protein intake (PI) and protein efficiency ratio (PER). The control diet 2 recorded the highest values for growth and nutrient utilization parameters while diet 5 recorded the least values for these parameters. The best values for mean weight gain (65.33±5.57 g), specific growth rate (2.56±0.12% / day) and feed conversion ratio (0.71±0.05) were recorded in fish fed control diet 2 while the worst values (41.30±3.82 g, 1.92±0.11% / day, and 1.07±0.07, respectively) for these parameters were observed with diet 5. However, haematological parameters did not differ significantly across the diets. Thus, from this study 0.25% activated charcoal could favorably be added to the feed of C. gariepinusfor optimum performance without any adverse effect on the health status of the fish