Biases and heuristics in judgment and decision making: The dark side of tacit knowledge

The crux of knowledge management theory is to devise different strategies to capture the tacit knowledge of the people in the organization, to make it explicit and to share it throughout the organization. This paper draws from the literature in cognitive psychology and highlights the limitation of the human mind by observing that knowledge is lost out of memory over time. Judgment and gut feelings are usually associated with different forms of biases and heuristics that may influence decision making negatively by altering the context in which the knowledge has been constructed. The paper argues that the timing and context in which tacit knowledge has been shaped is of immense importance when attempting to capture it. It is suggested that, while striving to capture the tacit knowledge of the individuals, it is important to make sure that it is not under the influence of any bias and its context is accurately perceived and preserved. Biased and incomplete knowledge may do more harm than good and should be avoided

Current state of knowledge management, potential and trends; Implications for the construction industry

During the past decade a paradigm shift in the domain of knowledge management (KM) has emerged out of learning occurred from unfulfilled KM initiatives. This emerging perspective of KM considers it to be more as a human activity rather than a technological endeavour. The notion that knowledge can readily be captured and made part of the machines and then easily shared with others has lost its strength. Rather, knowledge creation and sharing is being advocated through socialisation processes like building communities of practice, either real or virtual. The esoteric, contextual and problematic nature of knowledge is becoming evident as KM research is advancing into the realms of social constructivism. These constraints in KM are being recognised, and KM strategies are being devised that consider these limitations. Issues like leadership, vision and culture have become central to the successful KM initiatives. This paper presents the changing face of KM through the review of the literature. It argues that KM is not just another management fad or a recycled concept. Rather, the various trends and potentials of KM research are identified within the context of expanding boundaries and domain, and the potential benefit for the construction industry

Autonomous production tracking for augmenting output in off-site construction

Problems in existing methods of production tracking in off-site construction result in schedule delays and increased costs. To eliminate these deficiencies, an autonomous production tracking that analyzes real-time production data is proposed. A specific implementation of the proposed production tracking mechanisms has been developed for a large off-site construction plant in Australia, and is in the process of installation. The paper shows that: (i) The production model in off-site construction is always nonlinear in the outcome due to the presence of variability (ii) in systems with a periodic production target, deviation from the schedule converges to zero at the end of production period and the same downward trend should be followed in designing plan buffers and (iii) long-term production performance in off-site construction can autonomously be monitored and controlled by observing critical variables of production. The paper provides those who manage off-site construction with recommendations on effective production tracking and management. The models and propositions in this research are of practical value and can be used to detect impending production shortfalls against periodic targets in the short-term, and adjust capacity parameters and production targets in long-term planning

Lessons learnt from the use of relationship-based procurement methods in Australia: clients' perspectives

This paper aims to review the use of various construction procurement systems and present the development of Relationship-Based Procurement (RBP) Methods currently in use within the Australian construction industry. Therefore, this paper provides the historical development of procurement briefly and then focuses on the adoption of Relationship-Based Procurement (RBP) approaches in the Australian construction industry to investigate the future direction of the collaborative project procurement arrangements. Semi-structured interviews with high-level managers in the Australian state government organizations have been conducted to answer the research question. A discussion has been presented about the potential future tendency of the industry in adopting a RBP. The findings suggest that even though relationship based procurement systems offer significant benefits; they are not popular among the public sector decision makers because of inability to demonstrate Value for Money (VfM) propositions for public projects. Other reasons which may cause a move away from using RBPs in the future include the need for managers to fully engage throughout the project, and the lack of collaborative environment within the construction industry in general

Role of knowledge management in supporting innovation and learning in construction

The research investigates the role of Knowledge Management (KM) in supporting innovation and learning in the construction industry. The Construction industry is complex in nature and notoriously fragmented suffering high losses in productivity. Being a substantial part of the national economy, the construction industry greatly influences the country's GDP (Gross Domestic Product). Innovation has lately been regarded as the key to improve its productivity and to change traditional and fundamental thinking that has plagued the industry for a long time leading to new and more rational philosophies. The research demonstrates that KM may act as an enabler of such innovation by facilitating organisational learning. The research is carried out in two phases. In Phase 1, the research employs grounded theory methodology to develop and map out the current state of knowledge related activities being undertaken in two leading Australian construction organisations. This results in the development of a model, the main depiction of which is a segregation between three crucial components (people, process & technology) of an organisation required to successfully carry out the construction work. It also helps identify the gap between the organisation's internal and external knowledge sources that restricts the pull of knowledge from external knowledge sources. The culture of the organisation is considered to provide this resistance. An improvement in this state through KM is the main objective of the research which is realised in Phase 2. Soft System Methodology (SSM) is utilised as a KM tool to achieve this objective in this phase. As one of the systems approaches, it has the capacity to make sense of intricate systems like const ruction where a complex interaction between people, process and technology occurs all the time. A mission critical business process of pre-tendering of a leading Australian construction contractor organisation is selected to carry out the SSM investigation that resulted in four SSM case studies. This investigation helps explain how KM initiatives through SSM improve the integration of people, process and technology; increasing the capacity of the organisation to pull external knowledge and improve its own internal knowledge bank. All these improvements help an organisation to transform itself into a learning organisation that could continually innovate

The influence of zinc fertilization on bioavailable zinc content in lentil

Non-Peer Reviewe

TQM Practices in Public Sector : Case of Finnish Healthcare Organizations

This study aims to discuss the evolution, principles, and stages of total quality management (TQM) in public health care organizations. It also makes a comparison that how case organizations think about quality and TQM along with its applicability within public sector. The study can be categorized as qualitative research. The data is collected from semi structural interviews of the informants and the concerning documents, which consist of strategy, policy papers and audit reports of the case organizations. Altogether there are two case organizations. Furthermore, data is analyzed with the help of content analysis. Most vital issues in TQM practices are its comprehensiveness, and its application in such a way which is appropriate for the organization, with a logical way of operation and the participation of management and personnel. Training, guidance, teamwork, involvement and learning are imperative for achieving a continuous improvement culture and are vital elements when adopting TQM. Managers should learn from the experience of TQM implementers by studying expected challenges and pitfalls. They should also pay more attention to the crucial role of all stakeholders in the TQM implementation. The study could be quite valuable from a strategic perspective in providing guidelines to build up a proper plan for TQM practices more promptly. The paper also manages to shed light on TQM practices of public service organizations by comparing their current approaches to quality.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Single capstone or multiple cornerstones? Distributed model of capstone subjects in construction education

Capstone experiences provide critical opportunities for undergraduate students to integrate and apply the skills and knowledge they have previously developed in their degree or program. Commonly, this involves students engaging in learning experiences that involve real-world issues and which in turn enhance the student experience and employability skills. The research on capstone experiences in the construction management education literature indicates a need to develop customized delivery models that addresses the specific requirements of construction industry and education providers. This paper aims to showcase an innovative model of distributed delivery for multiple capstones (cornerstones) in a construction management program. The case study described in this paper realized an improvement in capstone design and practice-based learning by incrementally enhancing a student's knowledge of construction project management skills. The model of multiple capstones discussed here is applicable to diverse disciplines, including construction engineering and management programs

Guidelines for the empirical vulnerability assessment

These Guidelines provide state-of-the-art guidance on the construction of vulnerability relationships from post-earthquake survey data. The Guidelines build on and extend procedures for empirical fragility and vulnerability curve construction found in the literature, and present a flexible framework for the construction of these relationships that allows for a number of curve-fitting methods and ground motion intensity measure types (IMTs) to be adopted. The philosophy behind the design of the framework is that the characteristics of the data should determine the most appropriate statistical model and intensity measure type used to represent them. Hence, several combinations of these must be trialled in the determination of an optimum fragility or vulnerability curve, where the optimum curve is defined by the statistical model that provides the best fit to the data as determined by a number of goodness-of-fit tests. The Guidelines are essentially a roadmap for the process, providing recommendations and help in deciding which statistical model to attempt, and promote trialling of models and IMTs. The Guidelines are targeted at analysts with Master’s level training in a numerate subject that includes some level of statistics. The Authors recognise that the statistical analysis understanding of analysts varies. To accommodate for these differences, two levels of statistical approaches for constructing empirical fragility functions that include procedures of increasing complexity, are proposed. All stages of the fragility and vulnerability curve construction are reviewed and presented in the Guidelines with practical advice given for the preparation of empirical data for use in the construction of these curves, for the identification of sources of uncertainty in the data and in the chosen intensity measures, and where possible, for uncertainty quantification and modelling. To facilitate adoption of the Guidelines, the code and commands required for the implementation of the described statistical models are provided for the open source software R (2008). Appendices B to G also provide example applications of the guidelines, where each step of the guideline is illustrated for empirical datasets deriving from the 1980 Irpinia, Italy, earthquake, the 1978 Thessaloniki, Greece, Earthquake, the 1989 Newcastle and 2010 Kalgoorlie, Australia, earthquakes and for two earthquakes that affected the town of Christchurch New Zealand in 2010 and 2011. The fragility and vulnerability curves developed from these applications are all presented using a reporting template (presented in Appendix A) designed to facilitate the evaluation and inclusion of empirical fragility curves derived using these Guidelines into the Global Earthquake Model (GEM)

Synthesis, characterization, molecular modeling and anti-algal activities of a Schiff base and its m+2 complexes

In present work Four new complexes of 2-hydroxy-5-methylbenzaldehyde -N-(2-oxo-1,2-dihydro-3H-indol-3-ylidene)hydrazine have been synthesized with some transition metals, i.e. Ni+2, Cu+2 , Co+2 and Zn+2 in non-aqueous medium. Complexes were characterized by magnetic moment, conductance, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and spectroscopic investigations including infrared, ultraviolet-visible and atomic absorption spectroscopy. To support experimental characterization, quantum mechanical and molecular mechanical (QM/MM) calculations were performed. Experimental results with the support of QM and MM computations highlighted the proposition about the ligand to be bound to the metal ions in a tridentate manner through its phenolic oxygen, azomethine nitrogen and carbonyl group (C=O). On the basis of experimental and computational results, tetrahedral geometry is proposed for Cu+2 complex and distorted tetrahedral geometry is proposed for Zn+2 complex while octahedral geometries are proposed for Co+2 and Ni+2 complexes. For all compounds, anti-cyanobacterial (algicidal) activity was evaluated against three marine cyanobacteria i.e. Pseudoanabaena lonchoides, Lyngbya contorta, and Spirulina major. It was found that the metal complexes are more potent anti-cyanobacterial agents than the ligand