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Though the Public Procurement Act of Ghana makes room for specific socio-economic policies (environmental, social, economic and other policies which are intended to promote social and economic impact), there is no explicit definition and provision for social value as an evaluation criterion, culminating in the absence of a definition in the Act. This paper elicits the conception and understanding of social value from stakeholders in the Ghanaian construction industry.

The study adopted a qualitative method that relied on a semi-structured interview of 30 participants purposively drawn from Western, Western North and Central regions of Ghana. An inductive thematic analysis approach, which involved identifying repetitions, exploring similarities and differences, noting linguistic connectors, and a framework were employed to analyse the data.

The study established no single definition or explanation for social value in the construction industry in Ghana. However, it was revealed from the study that the concept of social value could be defined from the functional perspective of the definer, particularly from the perspective of a Procurement Officer, Works Engineer, and a Quantity Surveyor. A new insight from the study that differs from the body of literature is that participants equated benefits derived from physically constructed projects as social value.

The study has implication for public administration and practice regarding the decision-making process in the construction industry in Ghana. It provides a vital awakening on social value as a criterion in evaluating construction works procurement in Ghana. The ability of participants to equate the benefits derived from executed construction projects as social value creates a new perspective on understanding the meaning of social value in the procurement of works construction.

The study contributes to the state-of-the-art and ongoing discourse on the concept of social value globally. The findings create an important catalyst for social value research in the Ghanaian construction industry.

The construction business is widely recognised for its inherent complexity and dynamic nature, which stems from the nature of the job involved. The industry is often regarded as one of the most challenging industries globally in terms of implementing environmental, health and safety (EHS) practices. However, in the absence of EHS, the construction industry cannot be considered sustainable. Therefore, this study aims to identify the trends, knowledge gaps and implications of EHS research to enhance construction activities and knowledge.

The study adopted a science mapping approach involving bibliometric and scientometric analysis of 407 construction EHS publications from the Scopus database with the VOSviewer software. The study is based on journal articles from the Scopus database without restriction to any time range.

The main focus of construction EHS research identified in the study includes sustainability-related studies, risk-related, environmental issues, EHS management, integrated management systems studies, health and safety related and EHS in the construction process. Some emerging areas also identified include productivity, design, culture, social sustainability and machine learning. The most influential and productive publication sources, countries/regions and EHS publications with the highest impact were also determined.

Documents published in the Scopus database were considered for analysis because of the wider coverage of the database. Journal articles written in English language represent the inclusion criteria, whereas other documents were excluded from the analysis. The study also limited the search to articles with the engineering subject area.

The research findings will enlighten stakeholders and practitioners on the focal knowledge areas in the EHS research domain, which are vital for enhancing EHS in the industry.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this review-based study is the first attempt to internationally conduct a science mapping on extant literature in the EHS research domain through bibliometric and scientometric assessments.

In developing countries, delays in highway infrastructure projects caused by financial distress-related factors threaten the construction industry’s capacity to contribute optimally to economic development. Against this backdrop, this paper aims to determine factors contributing to financial distress and develops a conceptual framework to illustrate the relationship between financial distress and project delay.

A questionnaire survey collected data on factors that contributed to financial distress and delays in highway infrastructure delivery. In total, 78 responses were obtained, and factor analysis revealed that factors associated with payment, project financing, cash flow, economic issues, project planning and cost control influenced project delays.

The research identifies the importance of efficient public and private policies to engender financial sustainability among construction firms in developing countries.

This work presents the first research of its kind and strives to engender wider academic debate and renewed economic development in some of the world’s most impoverished nations.

This paper aims to identify the key barriers to the adoption of green certification of buildings in Ghana.

The study adopts face-to-face and telephonic interviews with ten built environment professionals, using a semi-structured interview guide. Qualitative responses to the interview were thematically analysed using NVivo 11 Pro analysis application software.

The findings suggest that “lack of information on existing green buildings”, “lack of incentives”, “conservative nature of Ghanaians”, “lack of active government participation”, “inadequate human resource”, “lack of awareness of the benefits”, “cost and financing” and “lack of legal backing” are the eight key barriers that hinder the adoption of green certification of buildings.

The research is limited to built environment professionals registered with their appropriate professional bodies. The findings cannot be generalized and extended to other developing countries that do not share similar characteristics and context with Ghana.

Practically, this study highlights, for the benefit of the construction industry and the government, the critical barriers to the adoption of green certification of buildings in Ghana. Identification of these barriers provides a pathway for the provision of pragmatic solutions towards the adoption of green buildings in Ghana.

Findings of the research make significant contribution to the debate on the barriers to the adoption of green certification of buildings. Four out of the eight barriers (inadequate awareness of the benefits of green certification of buildings, inadequate human resource, conservative nature of Ghanaian and lack of information on existing green buildings) identified are unique in the context of other related studies and advanced knowledge on the subject matter.

Project management tools and techniques have been widely adopted in the construction industry; however, its combination with Six Sigma and application in construction procurement has not been widely researched. This paper explores the use of Six Sigma Project Procurement (SSPP) and its potential applications in public sector construction procurement.

The role of Six Sigma and project management in construction is critically evaluated using three case studies to demonstrate their application in public procurement.

The use of SSPP by public sector organisations creates efficient and effective construction procurement processes by addressing delays. The proposed timelines for competitive tendering in the Ghanaian Public Procurement Manual are not realistic.

This paper contributes to and broadens the limited body of evidence and knowledge of applying SSPP to public procurement processes and identifies areas for further research.

Project management will continue to expand in the global construction industry. However, what will eventually determine if SSPP is embraced by public sector construction depends on the leadership and success of its execution. The application of SSPP to public construction procurement will address delays and lead to significant time reduction of the process. This will eliminate the major issue (delay) accounting for deficiencies in the process.

The paper yields immense value to construction project management researchers and practitioners, especially in the public sector. It recommends the inclusion of Six Sigma to promote focus on actual instead of perceived problems and advocates for decisions-making based on facts which will ensure continuous improvement.

Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of projects is a very important aspect of project execution and management. This is because proper M&E practices have a significant effect on the successful delivery of projects. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of project M&E practices on construction project success criteria.

Structured questionnaires were used to solicit the views of project professionals in the Ghanaian construction industry. The questions were developed through critical review of literature and complemented with a pilot interview on the subject. This paper utilized a partial least square–structural equation modeling (PLS–SEM) to establish the impact of project M&E practices (constructs) on project success based on the hypothesis.

Results showed that M&E practices had a positive statistical significant relationship with construction project success criteria. In addition, health and safety performance and project scope showed a strong significant relation with M&E practice, implying that, in developing countries, these two main constructs should be given critical attention in achieving project success.

The findings of this study may be useful to organizations in determining M&E techniques that are relevant and contribute highly to project success. This may go a long way to increase productivity and accelerate the rate of successful project delivery.

The application of rigorous analysis, PLS–SEM, gives a more reliable information on M&E practices that can ensure successful delivery of construction projects.

This research investigates the implementation of Six Sigma in competitive tendering processes to address persistent delays by identifying the potential benefits and challenges of implementing Six Sigma in construction competitive tendering processes. The results seek to encourage practitioners to implement Six Sigma in addressing competitive tendering process delays.

Literature was reviewed to identify the benefits and challenges of Six Sigma implementation in construction processes and categorized under broad headings. Three case studies were used to authenticate the literature findings by applying Define-Measure-Analyse-Improve-Control to their construction competitive tendering processes. Furthermore, quality tools and techniques together with documentary analysis, content analysis and determination of frequencies of quantitised qualitative data were employed to identify potential benefits and challenges.

The most common Six Sigma benefits achievable in construction competitive tendering are Time Related benefits. Other benefits likely to emanate as ripple effects are Customer Focus Related, Quality Related, Process Improvement Related, Human Resource Related, Finance Related and Decision Related. However, implementation challenges should be expected.

Six Sigma implementation in construction competitive tendering promotes time efficiency. It is expected that this will encourage quantity surveyors, procurement practitioners and their institutions to implement Six Sigma in addressing persistent delays in their competitive tendering processes.

This paper demonstrates the use of merged approach under mixed method to identify the benefits and challenges of Six Sigma implementation in construction competitive tendering process within the Ghanaian context.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the development of a set of critical success factors (CSFs) for Ghanaian contractors. The factors collectively define a set of best practices which Ghanaian contractors should focus on improving if they are to attain internationally competitive performance.

A systematic review of previous research, literature on existing programmes, models and frameworks commonly used for improving performance was undertaken to identify the most important success factors. The identified factors were scored and ranked with 16 of the most frequently occurring success factors selected. A questionnaire-based survey of Ghanaian contractors explored their perceptions of the most important success factors. Using factor analysis, the most important success factors were extracted.

Eight CSFs were identified for Ghanaian contractors. These were: quality and zero defects culture, organisational design, work culture and work environment, client satisfaction, strategy, leadership, measurement, analysis of information and knowledge management and implementation of lean principles.

The CSFs developed provides a ready set of criteria which can be used by contractors with little or no experience of benchmarking to compare their performance in best practices or to implement improvement programmes.

The first formal set of CSFs for Ghanaian contractors is presented. Not much research work has been done on organisational CSFs that are focused by this research.

This study aims to assess the awareness and knowledge level of procurement officers (POs) in Ghanaian tertiary educational institutions regarding sustainability in general and specifically on environmental sustainability in the Public Procurement Act 2003 (Act 663) as amended.

Through purposive sampling technique and face-to-face interviews using semi-structured open-ended questions, qualitative data was collected from 19 POs who are well vested in the procurement profession and willingly agreed to partake in the research. The qualitative data were analyzed using content analysis technique to help organize and elicit meaning from the data collected and to draw realistic conclusions from it.

The results showed that most POs were aware of the Public Procurement Act 2003 (Act 663) as amended, primarily through seminars and workshops organized by the Public Procurement Authority. The interviewees demonstrated a good understanding of sustainable procurement, considering its social, environmental and economic aspects. However, one respondent primarily associated sustainability with only environmental issues. The POs were, however, of the view that the Amended Act 914 (2016) does not give detailed highlights on environmental sustainability, making implementation very difficult, especially regarding the procurement of goods. Overall, the findings indicate a positive level of environmental sustainability awareness and knowledge among the interviewed POs regarding the Public Procurement Act 2003 (Act 663) as amended.

The findings from the study could be used by policymakers to strategize educational campaigns by using the POs’ knowledge and awareness to the implementers of Act 663 (2003) as amended to effectively ensure environmental sustainability in procurement practices. The findings from the study have also contributed to the literature on procurement policy by drawing the attention of policy formulators to give equal attention to all the sustainability pillars, i.e. social, economic and environmental. This would consequently help the implementers to contribute to achieving sustainable development.

This study is one of the few empirical qualitative types of research seeking the views of POs in tertiary educational institutions in Ghana on sustainability and environmental sustainability as enshrined in the Public Procurement Act 2003 (Act 663) as amended. The findings give positive feedback to policymakers on the knowledge and awareness level of the POs on environmental sustainability and highlight the importance of awareness programmes and educational initiatives by the Public Procurement Authority and other stakeholders to ensure compliance with the Act.