Forthcoming issue of Engineering Construction and Architectural Management : Contents list and editorial. Due November 2009 ECAM ISSUE 16.6

ECAM ISSUE 16.6

E G Ochieng and A D Price
Framework for Managing Multicultural Project Teams
Received: Aug 2008, revised July 2009, accepted Aug 2009

T Rujiraanyong
Forecasting Final Budget and Duration of Highway Contruction Projects
Received: Feb 2009, revised July 2009, accepted August 20

S Laryea and W Hughes
Commercial reviews in the tender process of contractors
Received: March 2009, revised July 2009, accepted August 2009

T M Pellicer, E Pellicer and D Eaton
A macroeconomic regression analysis of the European Construction Industry
Received: August 2008, revised June 2009, accepted July 2009

P E Eriksson, B Atkins and T Nilsson
Overcoming barriers to partnering through cooperative procurement procedures
Received: Feb 2008, revised June 2008, accepted August 2008

A Meldrum, B Hare and I Cameron
Road testing a health and safety worker engagement toolkit in the construction industry
Received: March 2007, revised June 2009, accepted July 2009

This edition of ECAM 16.6, tackles some interesting topics. The management of multicultural project themes is a very current and challenging issue. The measurement of worker engagement in Health and Safety is a practical solution that could have some significant impact. The macro economic analysis of the European Construction Industry presents an interesting framework against which to begin to make policy judgements and the paper on commercial reviews in the tender process ought to influence advice to clients. Other issues are final budget forecasting and barriers to partnering. What is greatly encouraging is the wide range of research methods including interviews for the multicultural project team investigation, modelling for the final budget forecasting, regression analysis for the macro economic analysis, case studies for the paper on commercial reviews in tendering, workshops, interviews and questionnaires for the barriers to partnering and site data collection for the worker engagement in Health and Safety.

There was a time when I was concerned that our research methodologies were becoming too narrow but that does not apply to this edition. Also the proportion of papers that could lead to practical implementation is high, the health and safety paper, the management of multicultural project teams paper and the advice to clients regarding amendments to contracts in the commercial review in tendering are probably leading in this respect followed by final budget forecasting.

It has taken 14 authors to produce these 6 papers, 8 are from the UK, 3 from Sweden, 2 from Spain, and I from Thailand.

There is one single authored paper, two papers with two authors and three papers with three authors. One of the three author papers has two countries and two institutions represented.

The papers in this edition are:


S Laryea and W Hughes
Commercial reviews in the tender process of contractors
Received: March 2009, revised July 2009, accepted August 2009

Laryea and Hughes explore commercial reviews in the tender process of contractors using four case studies as their data source. The issue they examine are amendments to standard forms of contract. The data they collected describes the extent of amendments to standard forms of contract. The evidence is that the amendments were significant and focussed mainly on the financial and contractual aspects. The interesting observation is that the contractors’ did not modify their bid price to reflect any increased risk from amendments but instead relied on qualifying their bid. The paper advances the understanding of amendments and the likely response from contractors. It sets up an expectation of a guidebook cataloguing the frequently used amendments and the bidders’ likely response. This would be very useful in informing clients on the consequences of amendments and might well expose some of the flawed advice offered by professional advisors.

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