Untangling rhetoric and reality in the CSR debate – the role of corporate social responsibility in effective business strategy

While there is a strong moral case for corporate social responsibility (CSR), the business case for CSR is certainly not irrefutable. A better understanding of how to integrate CSR into business strategy is needed but with ever increasing momentum towards sustainability as a business driver, it is often difficult to untangle the rhetoric from reality in the CSR debate. Through an analysis of eight case studies of leading firms from throughout the construction supply chain who claim to engage in CSR, we explore how consulting and contracting firms in the construction and engineering industries integrate CSR into their business strategy. Findings point to an inherent caution of moving beyond compliance and to a risk-averse culture which adopts very narrow definitions of success. We conclude that until this culture changes or the industry is forced by clients or regulation to change, the idea of CSR will continue to mean achieving economic measures of success, with ecological goals a second regulated priority and social goals a distant third

Safety training and positive safety attitude formation in the Australian construction industry

© 2018 Elsevier Ltd Poor safety is a perennial problem for the construction industry worldwide. While there has been a large amount of research on construction safety training and its importance in developing positive safety attitudes, much of the evidence has been anecdotal. To address this gap in knowledge, this paper presents the results of an attitudinal survey of 228 construction employees from a variety of professional and trade backgrounds operatives in Australia who went through mandatory site safety training. It was found that the training was largely ineffective in changing workers’ safety attitudes. The minor change in safety attitudes that did occur were largely cognitive and behavioural in nature while the affective component of safety attitudes remained virtually unchanged. In other words, construction operatives emerged from the training with a slightly better knowledge of safety risks, a better intention to behave safely but not caring any more about safety as an issue. It was also found that gender, age and education are potential mediators in the safety attitude formation process. It is recommended that when developing safety training programs in the future, more attention should be paid to tailoring programs to the demographic characteristics of the people being trained and to the use of new interactive and immersive technologies and learner-centric andragogical pedagogies

The social procurement practices of tier-one construction contractors in Australia

© 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Social procurement is becoming an increasingly important requirement in the delivery of private- and public- sector construction projects across the world, yet there is relatively little research done in this area. Mobilising Furneaux and Barraket’s social procurement typology, semi-structured interviews were conducted with senior managers from eight tier-one contractors in the Australian construction industry to explore and classify the types of social procurement strategies used in projects, the types of social value created and the barriers to implementation. Documentary data were collected in the form of company policies and contract requirements. Results demonstrate the conceptual merit of Furneaux and Barraket’s typology in a construction industry context by highlighting different constraints on social value creation for each type of social procurement. These results also indicate that approaches to social procurement in the Australian construction industry are generally driven by a philosophy of risk mitigation rather than opportunity maximisation, and are confined to low-value and low-risk construction activities and are constrained by a lack of existing and new supply chain social-value creation capacity. Construction industry social value chains are fragile in Australia, and it is concluded that in building the sector’s significant untapped capacity to deliver social value to the communities in which it builds, priority should be given to three main strategies: third sector capacity building; barrier-to-entry reduction and skills development in managing new cross-sector collaborations among public, private and third sector organisations

The Impact of Inhaled Salbutamol on Repeated Sprint Ability in Pre- Fatigued Soccer Players

Objectives: Investigate the ergogenic effect of inhaling up to 1600 μg of salbutamol on intermittent running performance in pre-fatigued soccer players. Methods: In a single blind randomised repeated measures design seven male and six female soccer players volunteered to participant. All participants were regularly playing competitive soccer and had no history of asthma. Following familiarisation sessions participants visited the exercise physiology laboratory on three occasions to complete an intermittent running protocol followed by twelve 17.5 m sprints. Prior to each trial participants inhaled either: placebo, 800 μg inhaled salbutamol (SAL800) or 1600 μg inhaled salbutamol (SAL1600). Following completion of the sprints a sample from the first urine passed was analysed for salbutamol concentration. A repeated measures ANOVA was used to compare the mean sprint time, maximal sprint power, peak blood lactate post sprints and post sprint salbutamol urine concentration between conditions. Results: Mean sprint time, maximum power, maximum velocity, peak HR and peak blood lactate during the 17.5 m sprints were not significantly different between treatments in soccer players. There was no significant difference between male and female players in urine drug concentration following SAL800 (mean + SD; 201.47 + 294.47 ng.ml-1 vs. 180.2 + 102.15 ng.ml-1) or SAL1600 (739.24 + 549.21 ng.ml-1 vs. 879.58 + 633.14 ng.ml-1). Three players urine drug concentrations were above the WADA decision limit set at 1200 ng.ml-1. Conclusions: Inhaling up to 1600 μg inhaled salbutamol did not significantly improve repeated sprint performance. However, inhalation of 1600 μg may result in a urine concentration above the current WADA upper limit and decision limit leading to a positive test. Athletes should ensure they use inhaled salbutamol at therapeutic doses to avoid the risk of breaching the WADA decision limit

Designing theoretically and evidence-based social procurement programmes in construction: A capability empowerment approach

Social procurement policies require companies to develop and implement initiatives to create social value, yet many programmes created in response to these emerging policies lack a reliable empirical and theoretical foundation. Addressing this problem and brining a new theoretically informed evidence-based approach to social procurement research in construction, this paper presents a theoretically informed and methodologically robust social return on investment (SROI) analysis of a construction training programme developed to reduce the risk of youth homelessness. Mobilising Sen and Nussbaum's Capability Empowerment Approach, the paper provides robust, testable and transparent evidence of the social impact of the programme on the lives of the homeless people who went through it. Robust theoretically informed social procurement initiatives are critically important in ensuring that social procurement policies have their intended social outcomes

The Effect of 400 µg Inhaled Salbutamol on 3 km Time Trial Performance in a Low Humidity Environment.

The Objectives of the study were to investigate whether 400 µg inhaled salbutamol influences 3 km running time-trial performance and lung function in eucapnic voluntary hyperpnoea positive (EVH+ve) and negative (EVH-ve) individuals. Fourteen male participants (22.4 ± 1.6yrs; 76.4 ± 8.7kg; 1.80 ± 0.07 m); (7 EVH+ve; 7 EVH-ve) were recruited following written informed consent. All participants undertook an EVH challenge to identify either EVH+ve (↓FEV1>10%) or EVH-ve (↓FEV110% from baseline) in FEV1 following any time-trial. Administration of 400µg inhaled salbutamol does not improve 3 km time-trial performance in either mild EVH+ve or EVH-ve individuals despite significantly increased HR and FEV1

Decolonising indigenous social impact research using community-based methods

© 2019 Association of Researchers in Construction Management, ARCOM 2019 - Proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference. All rights reserved. Indigenous procurement policies encourage the construction sector to provide new training, employment and business opportunities for Indigenous people suffering from economic and social disadvantage. However, the success of these policies is often distorted by the failure of policy evaluations to account for Indigenous perceptions of social value. Since these often differ markedly from non-Indigenous values, this can distort the allocation of funds to Indigenous communities and exacerbate the marginalisation of the communities these policies are meant to help. Drawing on theories of community-based research, this methodological paper seeks to reconceptualise approaches to measuring Indigenous social value in an Indigenous social procurement policy context. Working in partnership with a peak body for Aboriginal business in Australia, we have co-designed a novel approach to Indigenous social impact research that recognises the legitimacy of Indigenous perspectives when investigating the social value Indigenous procurement policies create. We argue that culturally appropriate focus groups (yarning discussion groups) are appropriate in Indigenous social impact research because they prioritise Indigenous people's experiences of Indigenous procurement policies, rather than focusing on simplistic policy targets. As a method that promotes community involvement in social impact research to define how social value is perceived, yarning discussion groups have significant implications for future research seeking to represent Indigeonus perspectives of social value. It is concluded the approach developed here can be operationalised in the field to better understand the nature of Indigenous social value and the impact created by Indigenous procurement policies in Australia and other countries with disadvantaged Indigenous populations

Optimization of job allocation in construction organizations to maximize workers' career development opportunities

© 2019 American Society of Civil Engineers. Workforce planning in the construction industry too often ignores the symbiotic relationship between employee and employer objectives by overly concentrating on corporate objectives such as maximizing productivity at the expense of construction workers' career development needs. Overall, the consequence of this approach is suboptimal performance. To address this problem, this paper presents an innovative multiobjective model that enables managers to optimize the relationship between these interdependent corporate priorities. The proposed model was implemented and solved using mixed-integer nonlinear programming on a case study involving the allocation of tasks to employees with different skill levels in a multidisciplinary engineering consulting company. While leading to a small loss of productivity, the results show a significant improvement in the career development of workers compared to conventional productivity-oriented workforce planning models, with on average 8.6% improvement in employees' closeness to their ideal skill set. Furthermore, the model produced Pareto-optimal points and a Pareto curve that enabled client-model users to select optimum job allocation based on their preferences. This research represents a paradigm shift toward a new class of socially responsible workforce planning models in which the objectives of both employees and employers are optimized

Theoretical Framework of Social Value in Construction Employment

Construction companies are increasingly being required to demonstrate the social value they create when tendering for projects for both public and socially responsible private sector clients. However, the concept of social value remains theoretically under-developed and there are many unanswered questions about how to define and measure it. Addressing these gaps, the aim of this empirical paper is to present a new theory of social value grounded in Meinong’s (1894) Value Theory and in the context of social procurement practices in the Australian construction industry. We test this theory using a survey of 61 construction workers in Australia, showing that construction companies create social value when they provide employment that promotes 'work benefits' and 'culture benefits. Critical work benefits include adequate training; autonomy; and fair remuneration. Critical culture benefits include fostering good quality working relationships; promoting employees' autonomy and personal identity and values; and high levels of engagement with local communities and workers. It is concluded that other researchers should test or develop this theory in other settings to explore geographical or cultural variables in other countries