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Religiousness is evident in every aspect of life, and its impact on construction project performance is undeniable. However, little has been done to fully understand the influences one's religiosity has on performance factors. This paper aims to explore the influence of religious elements on performance factors in the Ghanaian construction industry (GCI).

Using a desk survey and closed-ended questionnaire, data were obtained from the three religious' bodies (Christianity, Islamic and Traditionalist) in Ghana. The analysis of the collected data was done using mean score ranking and regression analysis.

It was revealed that most of the religious bodies were aware of the presence of the seven factors identified for measuring construction project performance. The findings suggested that there was a significant and positive relationship between the religious elements (of all the three religions) and cost as well as schedule performance. Islam recorded the highest relationship in influencing public construction project performance relative to cost performances. Specifically, 1% increase in Islamic elements accounted for an 82.7% increase in cost performance. Traditionalists and the Christian religion had minimal significance in influencing cost performance. Furthermore, a 1% progress in Islamic elements accounted for a 45.8% increase in the schedule performance of construction projects and among construction professionals.

This study has provided better understanding of the religious views on project performance. This research has also provided pragmatic directions to project stakeholders to encourage religious groups to take critical look at the other performance factors that were seen not to be significant.

This paper represents a novel attempt to measure the influence of religious elements on project performance factors in the construction industry. A key contribution to the body of knowledge is that the study has proven that religious element has tendencies to influence cost performance and schedule performance in the construction industry.

The purpose of this paper is to ascertain the interaction effects among organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), work overload (WO) and employees’ performance in the Ghanaian construction industry, thus identifying the thin boundary between advocating OCB and avoiding WO in attempt to increase higher employee performance.

Using a quantitative research method, three hypotheses were tested. The views of 86 project teams were elicited using a structured questionnaire, and linear regression was utilized to validate the hypotheses.

The study proved that OCBs positively affect employee performance in the construction industry. The results implied that increased work load on employees do not increase their productivity levels, but adversely increase the unconsiderable effects of employees’ work lives. In addition, WO played the role of homologizing moderation in the relationship between OCB and employee performance.

The findings suggest that there is a considerable effect of WO on overall employee performance in the construction industry; thus, there is a need for stakeholders to address this issue for performance improvement.

The application and investigation of these issues have dominated the banking industry but lacked in the construction industry. The current study therefore provides useful insight into the interaction effects among organizational citizenship behavior, WO and employees’ performance in the Ghanaian construction industry.

The purpose of this study was to identify key areas for benchmarking (BM) towards the improvement of small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) construction firms in developing countries.

The study employed the use of the quantitative research method in the collection and analysis of primary data collected from field surveys using a piloted close-ended questionnaire created following a review of available literature on BM. Based on 63 solicited views of professionals with SMEs (quantity surveyors, project managers and architects) data collected were statistically analysed using a one-sample t-test.

The findings of the study indicate that the key areas for BM towards the improvement of SME construction firms in developing countries in order of relevance are “Financial Performance”, “Competitiveness”, “Customer Satisfaction”, “Technology Advancement”, “Communication Skills”, “Collaboration”, “Employee Satisfaction” and “Product orientation”.

The study has given more insight into the areas that need more attention for SMEs BM to achieve improvement. It can therefore be suggested firms that adapted identified areas will derive the benefits of BM. It is further opined that more BM education should be provided to various SMEs construction firms to facilitate an effective and efficient BM regime aiming at performance enhancement in project delivery.

This forging research attempts to identify the key areas for BM towards the improvement of SMEs construction firms in developing countries. Although there have been several efforts to create BM tools for the construction industry.

Of late, cities across the globe are taking pragmatic steps towards addressing environmental, social and economic problems in the debate on sustainable development. Even so, little attention has been paid to studies focused on developing countries. The aim of this study is to examine the barriers to green cities development in developing countries.

A comprehensive literature review was conducted to examine the barriers to green cities development. In terms of methodological choice, a quantitative research strategy was used to collect data from professionals who have lines of influence on the greening of our cities and sustainable urban development.

The barriers to green city development identified were lack of awareness of the benefits of a green city, environmental degradation, insufficient policy implementation efforts, excessive generation of solid waste and poor wastewater collection and treatment. It was indicative from the study findings that taking the right sustainable steps in urban development and a paradigm shift towards the pillars of sustainability, Ghanaian cities, especially Kumasi, have a great proclivity of regaining its longstanding status being “Garden City”.

The outcome of this study provides stakeholders in city development an insight into the barriers that inhibit the development of green cities. In practice, this study contributively proposes that the concept of green cities should be incorporated in the education and training of stakeholders to improve the level of awareness.

This paper presents the foremost comprehensive study appraising green city development in Ghana.

In Ghana, graduates often have limited entrepreneurial skills and rarely undertake entrepreneur initiatives as they are persistently in search of non-existing jobs in the formal sector. On this basis, this study was conducted to identify underlying strategies for improving entrepreneurial skill requirement of technical and vocational students in developing countries using Ghana as a case study.

The study approach was largely mixed, as the study aimed at testing existing theories on the entrepreneurial development of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) graduates and tutors using a quantitative approach. The findings of the study were further validated qualitatively by interviewing TVET experts and tutors. The analysis of the quantitative data gathered was done using relative importance index (RII) and factor analysis (FA). The thematic analysis was employed in analyzing the qualitative data gathered.

The study revealed that four key strategies needed in improving the entrepreneurial skills and entrepreneurial education among TVE students in Ghana: comprised learner/student centred education; problem-based learning (PBL); classrooms that encourage development of intellectual aptitudes and activity-based learning (ABL). However, the leading reasons for non-usage of the underlying strategies were the lack of capacity of the tutors in the adoption of the strategies, lack of availability of human resources at TVET and the poor perception of TVET tutors and students. Some challenges included faced in adopting the strategies encompassed inadequate training resources, tutors’ training not tailored to the emerging technological advancement, insufficient resources and infrastructure, lack of industrial collaboration and readiness of the job market to absolve graduate from TVET.

The results of the study showed the mode of instruction delivery of entrepreneurial education should be improved by adopting the key strategies identified in this study in comparison to the conventional mode of education. The findings of this study would stir the policy debate on entrepreneurial education in Ghana. Similarly, further studies could develop relevant hypothesis for testing the identified strategies and its impact on entrepreneurial skill development in Ghana.

Various studies on entrepreneurial education has been developed all over the world. This study focused on how the skills of TVE students can be improved. The study further identified reasons for non-usage of these strategies in improving the entrepreneurial skills and entrepreneurial education by TVET tutors and other challenges faced by tutors who adopted the underlying strategies. A study of this nature in Ghana is novel and cogent findings were elicited from this study that could form the basis for policymaking and curriculum development in developing countries.

This research aims to evaluate the status of project management best practices in the road infrastructure sector of Ghana through the inquiry of project managers’ competency.

Based on a thorough literature review on competency and project management best practices, a criterion for measuring best practices based on the competencies was identified. Using closed-ended questionnaires as a survey instrument, data was collected and analyzed using a one-sample t-test, Kendall’s concordance coefficient and simple regression.

The key finding reveals that in achieving project management best practices for the Ghanaian road infrastructure projects, project managers should straighten and strengthen their capability in terms of skills, personal characteristics and knowledge as ranked. An appropriate blend of these characteristics would be a necessary requirement for project managers. Through this, project managers and project-based road infrastructure organizations will be able to win the confidence of their stakeholders and attain improvements in cost-effectiveness, quality and time management.

This study provides project managers in the road infrastructure sector with relevant information on which criteria and variables are critical and are frequently required to manage such projects. This will be helpful for training programs and professional development of project managers in the road infrastructure sector.

The study provides a new direction and focuses for project managers in the road infrastructure industry toward best project management practices in developing countries. It also complements existing studies in this area which deepen the understanding of the subject area.

There is a pressing need to increase investments in sustainable infrastructure to promote low carbon economic growth and ensure environmental sustainability. Consequently, this study examines the socio-political factors underlying the adoption of green bond financing of infrastructure projects.

Primary data was gathered from experts with advanced experience in, or knowledge of green bonds in the Kumasi Metropolis. To identify respondents with pertinent knowledge that is relevant to the study, purposive and snowball sampling techniques were used. One-sample t-test and relative importance index were used in this study's statistical analysis.

‘Training and experience with sustainable finance’ was seen as the most important social factor underlying the adoption of green bond financing of infrastructure projects by the respondents and ‘Governmental tax-based incentives’ was rated as the leading political factor.

This pioneering research attempts to ascertain the socio-political factors affecting the adoption of green bond financing of infrastructure projects. Emergent results of analysis and concomitant discussions add knowledge to fill a void in literature on the social and political factors affecting the adoption of green bond financing of infrastructure projects in developing countries.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the challenges of pricing quantity surveying (QS) professional services to enhance the understanding of practitioners in developing strategies for the determination of fees for their services.

The paper adopts the quantitative approach by administering 150 survey questionnaires QS professionals out of which 79 questionnaires were retrieved for analysis using the mean, standard deviation, standard error and the Chi-Square test.

The study identified the challenges that continue to hamper the successful pricing of QS services as the inability to respond to changing contractual arrangements; lack of appropriate response to emerging services; slow response to changes in information and communication technology.

This paper focused on QS professionals. Hence, a future study to encompass other professionals in the built environment will be novel.

The findings of this paper have the potential to motivate QS firms to develop solutions that address the challenges identified to improve the efficiency of their service delivery to clients. The paper also has the practical importance of opening up new frontiers of research that focus on pricing of professional services in the built environment in general.

The paper contributes to the awareness and understanding of QS professionals about the challenges that continue to hamper effective pricing of their services.

Supply chain (SC) disruption, whether demand sided or supply sided, is conversely perceived to affect organisational performance of construction firms. This paper, therefore, aims to examine the linkage of supply chain disruptions with organisational performance of construction firms through the moderating role of innovation.

Using a quantitative research, approach the views of 84 construction professionals were elicited using a structured questionnaire. Ordinary least squares were utilised to validate the hypotheses set.

The study proved that there is a negative relationship between demand-related disruption and business performance as well as project performance. Also, it was clear from the study that supply-related disruptions had a significant impact on both project performance and business performance. Although SC innovation was seen to impact business performance, it had no relationship with project performance. Generally, innovation was seen to have a moderating effect of demand and supply disruption of project performance, but it played no moderating role in business performance.

The findings suggest that business firms must be innovative with the supply chain, as it moderated project success. The supply chain of a construction firm plays a very critical role on projects; hence, this study recommends that a supply chain manager ought to be innovative in their operations due to the moderating role SC innovation has on project performance and largely business performance.

Various studies on supply chain has been done on different sectors in the economy; however, little can be said about the construction industry on how supply chain disruptions affects business and project performance and how innovation moderates such effects.

This paper aims to examine the factors that drive the career progression of construction project managers (CPM) in the Ghanaian construction industry.

Based on the quantitative approach, the views of 80 CPMs working with D1 building construction firms were elicited using a structured questionnaire. Data was analysed using one-sample t-test, which was used to examine the relative significance of the variables. The mean scores, standard deviations and significance values (p-values) of each variable were used to examine the outcome of the survey.

The findings suggest that “existence of organizational support systems”, “ability to create identity”, “having an influential mentor and coach”, “accepting complicated and high visibility assignments” and “ability to gain managerial or leadership experience” are the key factors that drive the career progression of CPMs in Ghana.

Findings from this study is limited to CPMs, specifically within the Ghanaian construction industry. This implies that with the fragmented nature of the construction industry, adopting these findings in construction settings within other countries may not yield the desired results, especially, if those countries do not share similar characteristics and context with Ghana.

Practically, this study highlights for the benefits of project managers (PM) (especially those in the construction industry) the key factors that drive their career progressions. Identification of these drivers offers the professionals with those factors to be prioritized when seeking to progress their careers in the construction industry.

Empirical research on the factors that drive the career progression of CPMs has not been fully examined in previous studies, though such studies in other sectors aside construction are prevalent. Hence, the identification of the drivers for career progression of construction PMs advances literature in the area and offers the professionals with those factors to be prioritized when seeking to progress their careers.