Editorial

Abstract

On behalf of the editorial team of the Journal of Construction Business and Management, I warmly welcome you to the seventh issue. In line with the objectives of the journal, the issue presents scholarly discussions on theoretical and empirical challenges confronting best practices and policies in infrastructure and engineering projects. The intention is to understand what is obtainable in practice and whether it aligns with theory to work on the gaps. The topics in this issue covered ethics in construction, accounting in construction projects, socio-economic impacts of civil works, entrepreneurship in construction, finance of infrastructure projects and a framework on construction subcontracting policy. The issue contains six articles that were written by sixteen scholars based in Botswana, Nigeria, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The first paper by Akintola, Jagboro, Ojo and Odediran assesses effective mechanism for the enforcement of ethical standards to improve public confidence in construction professionals. The study reveals that personal reputation, promotion of civic right, and good citizenry were moderately significant as ethical standards. The study concludes that four major mechanisms that are effective in the enforcement of ethical standards in the construction industry in Nigeria are roles to be played by the stakeholders, individual, industry and legal instruments. The second paper by Rwelamila and Mogome investigates challenges of formally closing the final account of construction projects in Botswana local authorities. The results show that the process of final account closure was inefficient and marginally effective. The rationale for such inefficiency and ineffectiveness are contractors abandoning projects when they realize that the cost of rectifying the defects far exceeds the outstanding balance. Also, clients taking too long to agree and approve final accounts and loss of information when key personnel leave the project on the contractor's side before the final account is finalized. The study concludes that all adopted contract conditions be modified to address the challenges.

Alade’s paper assesses the environmental and socio-economic effects of the upgrade of Ojodu Berger road in Lagos, Nigeria and the mitigating measures of the adverse effects. The article reveals that poor environmental conditions happen at the pre-construction stage, which becomes escalated at the construction phase while noise pollution is the most significant environmental problem. At the construction phase, encroachment on pedestrian facilities has the most significant impact. Socio-economic impacts such as increased rental value, unemployment and displacement of businesses are also significant. Mitigating measures against adverse socio-economic impacts were neither effective nor ineffective, while some adverse effects were not mitigated. There is no evidence that an environmental impact assessment was carried out before the implementation of the project.

The fourth paper by Adu, Lamptey-Puddicombe and Opawole examines survival strategies for building construction management entrepreneurs and factors affecting the adoption of the survival strategies at the infancy stage. Results reveal that all the strategies considered are significant and the dominant ones are innovativeness, required skills, willingness to take risks, entrepreneurial attitudes and behaviours, entrepreneurial organization structure and strategies, and financial resource management. Dominant factors affecting the adoption of survival strategies of construction entrepreneurs are availability and access to finance, the poor state of infrastructure, poor managerial/executive capacity in implementing strategies, characteristics of entrepreneurs and failure to adapt to the changing business environment. Adu et al. conclude that regular training is essential for entrepreneurs to acquire the required skills for effective management of their enterprises. 

The fifth paper by Tshehla and Mukudu investigates the critical success factors for assessing project finance for infrastructure development in Zimbabwe. The study grouped the identified factors into governmental, financing, project, special purpose vehicle, and politics and economies, which are extremely important as critical success factors for accessing finance and project financing. The paper concludes that there are critical factors for assessing project finance in Zimbabwe. The last article by Mambwe, Mwanaumo, Phiri and Chabota analyzes policies on the subcontracting practices of local contractors intending to develop a framework that can be used to build capacity within the construction sector in Zambia. The study establishes that critical deficiencies in implementing subcontracting policies are that subcontractors do not participate early in the procurement process and are introduced after the contract is awarded. It also emerged that no clear guidelines on the implementation of the policy are available. It is challenging to grow the capacity of local contractors using the existing subcontracting policy because main contractors are not interested in building the capabilities of local contractors due to lack of incentives.

Finally, I acknowledge all authors who submitted papers for consideration. I also value the contributions and unrelenting efforts of the JCBM editorial board members and panel of reviewers in ensuring that manuscripts are of high quality and keeping the journal on the path to attaining the expected standard and quality. We always welcome criticisms, feedbacks and suggestions from readers on how to improve the quality of the journal. 

Abimbola Windapo PhD

Editor-in-chief