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Professional Ethics in Sustainable Construction

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Urban and Rural Development".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2021) | Viewed by 10675

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Ming Shan

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Guest Editor

School of Civil Engineering, Central South University, 68 South Shaoshan Road, Changsha 410075, China
Interests: construction professional ethics; sustainable construction management; project assessment
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Xianbo Zhao

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Central Queensland University, 400 Kent st., Sydney NSW 2000, Australia
Interests: sustainable construction; project organization management; smart construction
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Zhao Zhai

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Changsha University of Science and Technology, 960 South Wanjiali Road, Changsha 410114, China
Interests: project governance; construction management

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In the context of sustainable construction, emphasis is often placed on advanced technologies, green materials, innovative construction methods, and the substantial benefits arising from them. Attention, however, should also be given to the professionals that practice sustainable construction. This Special Issue concentrates on the ethics of professionals working on sustainable construction projects. As opposed to those working in traditional construction, professionals in sustainable construction must give more consideration to the environmental performance of projects. This also adds an additional ethical requirement to the role of professionals and makes it more challenging for them to achieve a balance between self-interest and the interests of the employer, the profession, and the public. This Special Issue welcomes any type of article that addresses professional ethics in sustainable construction. Please feel free to submit your papers exploring different concepts, research, and practices to this Special Issue. We look forward to your contributions!

Dr. Ming Shan
Dr. Xianbo Zhao
Dr. Zhao Zhai
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

professional ethics
sustainable construction

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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21 pages, 4890 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Understanding the Impact of Social Capital on the Innovation Performance of Construction Enterprises: Based on the Mediating Effect of Knowledge Transfer

by Qing’e Wang, Luwei Zhao, Alice Chang-Richards, Yuanyuan Zhang and Hujun Li

Sustainability 2021, 13(9), 5099; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13095099 - 01 May 2021

Cited by 18 | Viewed by 2738

Abstract

In knowledge economy era, enterprise needs to innovate to maintain its advantages and competitiveness. Construction enterprises, being pillars of China’s economy and confronting the challenge brought by the strategy of “going out”, the call for their technology or management innovation was broadly pronounced across practical and academic fields. Social capital (SC), as a resource in a social network, is the basis for creating sustainable competitiveness and advantage for enterprises. The innovative achievements and innovation performance (IP) of enterprises are largely determined by their SC. To achieve competitiveness in the market, enterprises must carry out knowledge transfer (KT) with the other members of their networks. However, few scholars have examined weather SC has any effect on IP in construction enterprises. Using a KT perspective, this paper explored how SC affects the IP of construction enterprises. Based on the literature review and analysis, a conceptual model was constructed and validated using structural equation modeling (SEM). Through empirical analysis, the following conclusions were drawn: (1) SC has a positive impact on the IP of construction enterprises. Among them, the structural dimension (SD) and cognitive dimension (CD) have a significant positive impact on the IP of construction enterprises, while the relational dimension (RD) does not. (2) The SD, CD, and RD of construction enterprises’ SC have a positive influence on KT. (3) There are mediating effects of KT between SC and IP of construction firms, and they are partial. KT plays a partial mediating effect between SD, CD, and IP of construction firms. The research results can not only improve an understanding of effects of SC on IP of construction enterprises, but also validate the importance of KT in stimulating IP. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Professional Ethics in Sustainable Construction)

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17 pages, 1029 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Comprehensive Assessment Approach for Water-Soil Environmental Risk during Railway Construction in Ecological Fragile Region Based on AHP and MEA

by Huihua Chen, Hujun Li, Yige Wang and Baoquan Cheng

Sustainability 2020, 12(19), 7910; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12197910 - 24 Sep 2020

Cited by 28 | Viewed by 2691

Abstract

With China’s government facilitating railway projects, more railway lines inevitably pass through ecological fragile regions (EFRs). Railway construction activities in EFRs might cause detrimental impacts on the local water-soil environment (WSE), which is the basis of the local ecological system that if destroyed can induce secondary disasters. Studies on the WSE risk (WSER) during railway construction in EFRs are limited. As such, this study aims to offer preliminary insight into the WSER assessment of railway construction in EFRs. WSERs were identified firstly based on the literature review and field surveys, and thus a risk index framework for WSER assessment including 5 categories of WSERs and 16 second-order risks was established. Then a comprehensive quantitative assessment method was developed by integrating analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and matter-element analysis (MEA) to assess the overall WSERs of railway construction in EFRs. A case (i.e., the Mingan subproject of Hefei-Fuzhou railway) was selected to demonstrate and validate the developed approach. Results show that the proposed assessment approach can be applied to evaluate the WSERs during railway construction. In addition, the case study demonstrates that the risk of construction methods should be the key focus. Findings from this study enrich the knowledge body of sustainable railways and guide the project managers to conduct practical WSER assessment of railway construction. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Professional Ethics in Sustainable Construction)

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Review

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21 pages, 4646 KiB

Open AccessReview

Corruption in Construction Projects: Bibliometric Analysis of Global Research

by Zhao Zhai, Ming Shan, Amos Darko and Albert P. C. Chan

Sustainability 2021, 13(8), 4400; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13084400 - 15 Apr 2021

Cited by 14 | Viewed by 3702

Abstract

Corruption has been identified as a major problem in construction projects. It can jeopardize the success of these projects. Consequently, corruption has garnered significant attention in the construction industry over the past two decades, and several studies on corruption in construction projects (CICP) have been conducted. Previous efforts to analyze and review this body of knowledge have been manual, qualitative and subjective, thus prone to bias and limited in the number of reviewed studies. There remains a lack of inclusive, quantitative, objective and computational analysis of global CICP research to inform future research, policy and practice. This study aims to address this lack by providing the first inclusive bibliometric study exploring the state-of-the-art of global CICP research. To this end, a quantitative and objective technique aided by CiteSpace was used to systematically and computationally analyze a large corpus of 542 studies retrieved from the Web of Science and published from 2000 to 2020. The findings revealed major and influential CICP research journals, persons, institutions, countries, references and areas of focus, as well as revealing how these interact with each other in research networks. This study contributes to the in-depth understanding of global research on CICP. By highlighting the principal research areas, gaps, emerging trends and directions, as well as patterns in CICP research, the findings could help researchers, practitioners and policy makers position their future CICP research and/or mitigation strategies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Professional Ethics in Sustainable Construction)

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