Leadership styles of women managers in the UK construction industry

This paper is part of an ongoing doctoral study about exploring the contribution of women managers towards the construction industry. UK construction is typically portrayed as a male dominated industry. Women are highly under-represented particularly at the managerial and technical sectors of the construction industry. This research intends to explore the contribution women managers could bring to the construction industry. Exploring the benefits women could bring to construction will help to recruit more women workforce to construction industry which in turn will help to address the skills shortages in the industry by bringing in a wide range of skills and talents. Women’s presence in managerial workforce is growing and continues to motivate research on the leadership styles typically exhibited by women to determine if women have their own ways of leading. Further leadership is considered as an important quality for those who occupy managerial positions in organisations. In this context this paper takes the leadership styles exhibited by women managers in construction industry as the primary unit of analysis. Thus this research fall under three major knowledge domains namely gender, leadership and construction. In order to ensure the comprehensiveness and completeness of this study, an expert knowledge capturing exercise has been undertaken. This paper shares the captured expert opinions about the identified knowledge domains

Contribution of women managers towards the construction industry: Preliminary findings

UK construction industry faces many challenges such as low performance, high dissatisfaction among clients, low productivity, poor image, high fragmentation etc. Recruiting employees, particularly for senior/ middle level management, to fulfil the skills and labour shortages has also been a challenge faced by the industry for many years. The gender segregation pattern of the construction industry seems to be highly according to the societal expectations of the traditional gender roles. In evident to that, more than 85\% of the women who are attached to the UK construction industry hold administrative or secretarial positions which are not construction specific occupations. This typical gender segregation has led the industry being unable to benefit from the diverse skills that women could offer. In this context, increasing the number of women managers may have an impact on the typical gender segregation pattern of the industry and in turn may help the industry fulfilling their skills needs. However, it needs to be assured whether the increment in the number of women managers will make the industry better. This research, therefore, explores and investigates the contribution of women managers towards the construction industry. The contribution of the women managers are analysed based on the leadership styles that woman managers typically exhibit in the construction industry. This research adopted case study as the research strategy and used questionnaires and semi-structured interviews as the research techniques. Based on the preliminary analyses of the case studies, all the women managers have demonstrated certain level of leading roles such as commanding, motivating and coaching while maintaining a balance between work and personal life. In terms of gender qualities, all women managers were found to be strong in both their masculinity and femininity adjectives. Further, the women managers perceive themselves as using transformational leadership styles more often than the transactional styles. The above mentioned preliminary findings of the case studies are presented in this paper

Gender and Disability Inclusion in Post-Disaster Rebuilding ‘Build Back Better’ Programmes in Sri Lanka: A Literature Review

In the last decade, many South Asian developing countries have suffered natural dis-asters. Severe disaster destruction results in an overwhelming need to rebuild hous-ing and infrastructure within a brief amount of time. United Nation Development Programme has sought to make this reconstruction program a "Build Back Better (BBB)" opportunity, hence gender inequality and marginalisation of people with disa-bilities remain a problem in many countries. Although the international community has sought to promote this resilience and inclusion, the Post-Disaster Rebuilding (PDR) process still overlooks these sectors of society and their needs. Therefore, this paper aims to bring in literature synthesis addressing gender and disability inclusion in PDR ‘BBB’ programmes in Sri Lanka. Besides, involvement in the mitigation of vulnerability and community resilience to disaster risks and relocation was found to play a significant role. Vulnerability and the risk of disasters can be dramatically re-duced by ensuring a culture of disaster prevention and resilience for all segments of populations, particularly rural areas, girls and women, and the disabled. All aspects of socially inclusive, formal, and non-formal commitments are important to take their desires and requirement into consideration

Malaysian experience with Public Private Partnerships (PPP) – managing unsolicited proposals

Purpose – Lack of competition in procurement processes may affect the sustainable procurement due to overpriced and low quality infrastructure. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the current practices of Malaysia in handling unsolicited proposal within PPP and to suggest ways in which the practices can be improved to achieve sustainability. Design/methodology/approach – Case study on Unit Kerjasama Awam Swasta (UKAS) was conducted within which 13 semi-structured interviews were carried out with different groups: the policymakers, the practitioners and the experts. The study also scrutinised published guidelines and relevant regulations used by UKAS for unsolicited proposal. Findings –UKAS welcomes unsolicited proposal from the private sector, even though it does not publish any established mechanisms to handle such proposals. Lack of competition in unsolicited proposal is a major concern in achieving sustainable goals of procurement. This could be addressed by introducing a competitive element to unsolicited proposal, Originality/value – There is limited study and reports on the implementation of unsolicited proposal by the Malaysian Government. Besides adding to the literature, this paper reveals the actual practices of UKAS in managing unsolicited proposal. Most importantly, it is useful in assisting potential Malaysian PPP stakeholders and investors in what to expect, based on findings from the actual practice