All Change in Construction: A Comparative Analysis of Construction Industry Reform in the UK, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Start Date: 01 September 2009
End Date: 31 December 2011
Project Status: Current

• Introduction
• Recent outputs
• Team Details
• More information (PDF 344KB)

Introduction

It is now ten years since Sir John Egan (1998) published his seminal report on the UK construction industry entitled Rethinking Construction. This was followed by similarly high-profile reviews of the construction industries in Singapore and Hong Kong, published in 1999 and 2001 respectively (Construction 21 Steering Committee, 1999; CIRC, 2001). The two studies, inspired by the Egan Report, were initially activated by local construction industry concerns. In all three cases the espoused intention was to attain a radical transformation of construction performance through a planned series of change initiatives. The purpose of the proposed research is to offer a comparative evaluation of the extent to which the three initiatives have been successful.

The research will study the implementation of the respective construction industry improvement programmes in Hong Kong, Singapore and the UK. The specific objectives are:

1. To ascertain and evaluate against their original objectives, the outcomes from the implementation of the construction industry performance improvement programmes in Hong Kong, Singapore and the UK since 2001, 1999 and 1998 respectively.
   
2. To assess the respective roles of government agencies and the private sector including professional and trade bodies, in the implementation of the advocated reforms.
   
3. To compare the institutional characteristics of the construction industries in Hong Kong, Singapore and the UK, and the extent to which these characteristics influenced the implementation of the above reforms.
   
4. To draw lessons from these three implementation programmes for future construction industry improvements in each jurisdiction/ context.
   
5. To develop a research agenda for contributing to the effort to realise improvements in the construction industries of the three jurisdictions in addition to other national/ regional contexts.
   
6. To present specific recommendations tailored to each jurisdiction/ context, for the development of appropriate performance metrics and targets, with particular emphasis on sustainable monitoring and continuing improvements.

The research project will be undertaken by dedicated teams at the National University of Singapore, University of Hong Kong, and University of Reading, UK. 

Recent Outputs

Professor Green has recently published a book exploring the construction improvement agenda.  Titled "Making Sense of Construction Improvement", the book sets out deliberately to challenge current directions in construction management, confronting the assumption that knowledge is uni-dimensional and accumulative. It provides an entirely new perspective on what constitutes 'best practice'

In the book Professor Green argues that any understanding of construction management depends upon a critical orientation that does not subjugate understanding to performance. This book initially sets out the justification for adopting a critical perspective with reference to the broader literature on construction management studies.

Current trends in construction management are set in the context of social, economic and political change over the past thirty years. A recurring theme throughout the book is the complex interplay between the espoused managerial rhetoric and the realities of structural change in the construction sector.

The discourse of construction management shapes, and is shaped by, the changing reality of the workplace. Linkages are also be made to the emergence of the enterprise culture and rhetoric of the global marketplace.

Following the development of a critical perspective on construction management as a whole, specific chapters are devoted to:

• business process re-engineering
• lean construction, partnering
• collaborative working
• performance measurement, and
• the assumed need for culture change.

Team details

Professor Stuart Green
Director of Innovative Construction Research Centre

Dr Chung-Chin Kao
Research Fellow