Development Potential of Chinese Construction Industry in the New Century based on Regional Difference and Spatial Convergence Analysis

Bingsheng Liu,Xiaohong Chen,Xueqing Wang,Yuan Chen 대한토목학회 2014 KSCE JOURNAL OF CIVIL ENGINEERING Vol.18 No.1

The development of Chinese construction industry is strongly influenced by geographic locations. And it shows an obvious ladderlike distribution showing a decreasing trend from the east to the middle and the west. The persistent occurrence and excessive expansion of such differences not only affects the overall efficiency of the construction industry’s development, but also reflects an inefficient allocation of resources. Based on this, we attempt to combine multiple attribute model with time series and convergence models, make the regional difference and spatial convergence analysis of the development potential of Chinese construction industry and describe the differences of the development potential for the construction industry existing in the three examined regions of China. So decision makers can be provided with an accurate and reliable basis. The research indicates that in the new century, all the regions in China show an enormous potential for the growth of a highly developed construction industry. The west has the greatest development potential, with the middle following behind closely; Compared with this, the east is the weakest. It also finds that there is an absolute convergence in the development potential of the Chinese construction industry. Furthermore, it formulates the club convergence for the east, the middle and the west. The effective combination of multiple attribute model with time series, absolute convergence and club convergence models can avoid the shortcoming of the subjective weighting method and realize the innovation of the research methods for the development potential of construction industry.

A Special Partial Least Squares (PLS) Path Decision Modeling for Bid Evaluation of Large Construction Projects

Bingsheng Liu,Tengfei Huo,Pin-Chao Liao,Jingfeng Yuan,Jiong Sun,Xuan Hu 대한토목학회 2017 KSCE JOURNAL OF CIVIL ENGINEERING Vol.21 No.3

Large construction projects involve massive capital investments, lengthy execution period, and enormous management uncertainties. Therefore, the task of selecting a capable contractor for smooth project delivery is challenging. Although previous studies have attempted to improve the methods of bidding evaluation, limitations still exist. First, the evaluation results might be biased due to the heterogeneity in a small group of experts with different professional experience and capabilities. Second, multi-correlation can reduce the validity of the weightings of the indexes and evaluation results. Third, the subjectivity of the weightings can be a crucial hurdle to the selection of a suitable contractor for a specific project. To overcome these shortcomings, this study introduces Partial Least Squares (PLS) path modeling and develops a Sequence-Multi-Criteria System which can aggregate the evaluation results from different professional practitioners without the use of pre-defined weighting schemes, thus providing a reliable reference for bid evaluation. We incorporated this approach into an evaluation procedure stipulated in the procurement documents of the World Bank and specifically aimed at selecting suitable contractors for large construction projects. A case study was conducted via comparisons across various scenarios, and the validity of this approach was subsequently proved.

Different Interaction Mechanisms of Market Structure in the Construction Industry TFP from the Spatial Perspective: A Case Study in China

Bingsheng Liu,Yuan Chen,Ran Wang,Yinghua Shen,Qiping Shen 대한토목학회 2016 KSCE JOURNAL OF CIVIL ENGINEERING Vol.20 No.1

Total Factor Productivity (TFP) is a measure of long-term economic growth and a comprehensive industry-level productivity measure. China’s construction industry exhibits a ladder-like distribution among the central, western and eastern regions and has low productivity. Using methods consisting of the DEA-Malmquist index, measurement for the market structure, and panel data model in accordance with the Structure-Conduct-Performance (SCP) paradigm, this study systematically analyzed the different interaction mechanisms of scale structure, ownership structure, industrial structure, and specialization structure of China’s construction industry among the western, central and eastern regions over the past six years. It finds that the traditional SCP paradigm of the industrial economy is also applicable to the construction industry. The enterprise scale has a positive impact on the construction industry TFP of the entire country and the western region, while the proportion of state-owned enterprises has a negative influence on the construction industry TFP of the entire country and particularly the western area. Meanwhile, industrial structure has a positive effect on the construction industry TFP of the eastern area and a negative effect on that of the central area. Additionally, the proportion of general contractors on construction enterprises has a positive impact on the regional construction industry TFP. The research method presented in this study can be applied to other countries as well as to other industries, analyzing the interaction mechanisms of market structure in productivity from the spatial perspective. Therefore this study provides a systematic research methodology for the measurement of regional industry productivity and the identification of impact factors.

Research into the Dynamic Development Trend of the Competitiveness of China’s Regional Construction Industry

Bingsheng Liu,Xueqing Wang,Chunlai Chen,Zhijie Ma 대한토목학회 2014 KSCE JOURNAL OF CIVIL ENGINEERING Vol.18 No.1

The Communist Party of China proposed the concept of “speeding up the industrial transformation and changing economic development mode” in its 17th Congress. Against this background, it is of more practical significance to analyze problems existing in the development of China’s regional construction industry and to make specific development strategies. Traditional researches into the industrial competitiveness mainly focus on the static analysis of several regions during the same period. However, the formation of industrial competitiveness is essentially a dynamic process. To evaluate the industrial competitiveness objectively and comprehensively,we comb relevant literatures about the competitiveness of the construction industry, and construct an evaluation indicator system of the competitiveness of China’s regional construction industry. Subsequently, we use PLS path model to evaluate the competitiveness of China’s construction industry from 2005 to 2008. Later we depict the dynamic development process of the competitiveness of construction industry, analyze advantages and disadvantages, and provide some suggestions. It can be concluded that 8 provinces have significantly improved their competitiveness, the competitiveness of 11 provinces have declined, and the remaining 10provinces have remained constant. This research has achieved a theoretical and method innovation in the evaluation of industrial competitiveness from the time dimension.

The Energy Efficiency of China’s Regional Construction Industry Based on the Three-stage DEA Model and the DEA-DA Model

Yuan Chen,Bingsheng Liu,Yinghua Shen,Xueqing Wang 대한토목학회 2016 KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering Vol.20 No.1

China’s construction industry has constantly been confronted with the problems, such as high resource consumption, serious pollution and low energy efficiency. Thus, improving the energy efficiency of the construction industry and reducing its energy consumption can not only promote the sustainable development of the socio-economy and eco-economy, but also enhance the overall development level of the construction industry. In the context, the objectives are to put forward a set of systematic methodologies for measuring the energy efficiency of the regional construction industry and analyzing its change trends. First, the energy efficiency index system of the construction industry and its influencing factors are constructed through the literature review. Second, two research methods (the three-stage Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model and the Data Envelopment Analysis-Discriminant Analysis (DEA-DA) model) are applied to analyze the energy efficiency in 30 provinces of China and the change trends from 2003 to 2011. The results indicate that after eliminating the influence of the environment factors and random errors, the energy efficiency values of the construction industry in most of the provinces were improved. The mean of China’s energy efficiency of the construction industry in each year was approximately 0.92. Except Shandong with the lowest values, the mean of the other provinces was over 0.8, which reflected that the energy management and utilization levels in the construction industry were relative mature. However, the energy efficiency in most of provinces fluctuated constantly during these nine years, with the peak in 2004 and a downward trend in the overall efficiency after 2004. From the regional aspect, the energy efficiency of the construction industry in the eastern, central and western regions decreased successively; as the development level of the local economy had less significant effects on the energy efficiency, the gaps among the three regions were not obvious.

Work Paradigm as a Moderator Between Cognitive Factors and Behaviors – A Comparison of Mechanical and Rebar Workers

Pin-Chao Liao,Bingsheng Liu,Yanqing Wang,Xiaoyun Wang,Tsenguun Ganbat 대한토목학회 2017 KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering Vol.21 No.7

Since human behavior has been argued as one of the most critical leading indicators of accidents, effective intervention in workers’ behavior may foster improved safety performance. Given that human behavior is directed by cognition, researchers have proposed various cognitive models of human behavior in order to provide a clearer understanding of how to allocate management resources. However, the influence of human cognition on behavior remains an overarching concept, rather than providing an understanding of the heterogeneity among various trades. Therefore, cognition research provides no guidance regarding how to strategically allocate management resources such as training. This study employed structural equation modeling to identify the cognitive structures of two trades (reinforcing steel bar and elevator workers). We find that the cognitive structures of workers in these sample trades are significantly different, indicating that management strategies should vary accordingly. Training of mechanical workers should focus on crew leads, who can further influence self-efficacy, risk comparisons, and workers’ perception of external conditions. For rebar crews, safety training should focus on self-supporting defense capability and elucidating dangerous behaviors. External conditions have a significant role in ensuring worker safety; safe facilities engender safe behaviors. This study lays a foundation of strategic resource allocation for behavioral management on construction jobsites.

Selection of the Approach for Producing a Weighting Scheme for the CSR Evaluation Framework

Pin-Chao Liao,Jiawei Xue,Bingsheng Liu,Dongping Fang 대한토목학회 2015 KSCE JOURNAL OF CIVIL ENGINEERING Vol.19 No.6

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) performance is key to project success in the construction industry. Although evaluation tools for CSR have been developed in previous studies, their weighting schemes are easily distorted by inputs from experts with different backgrounds, reducing the reliability of the benchmarking results. This study aims to identify the most suitable approach for a process-based evaluation framework of CSR management (CSR-EF) with a structurally, theoretically valid weighting scheme. The authors compared three approaches for weighting development and chose one that minimizes the heterogeneity of inputs from experts with various backgrounds (e.g., culture, profession, and education levels). The sensitivity of the weighting scheme and the metric priority, along withthe robustness of the scheme, were examined. Contractors’ CSR management was evaluated using the proposed CSR-EF and the results were cross-examined by practitioners from various backgrounds. Results indicated that the Analytic Network Process was the ideal method for developing the CSR-EF weighting scheme. The results providein sights for the development of weighting schemes for multi-criteria decision making. The proposed Equivalent Absolute Deviation (EAD) approach can also be used to examine the robustness of the weighting approach.

Effects of building information modeling prior knowledge on applying virtual reality in construction education: lessons from a comparison study

Chen Xingbin,Li Sining,Li Gengying,Xue Bin Zheng,Liu Bingsheng,Fang Yuan,서준오,김인한,Kim Jung In 한국CDE학회 2023 Journal of computational design and engineering Vol.10 No.5

Applying building information modeling (BIM) and virtual reality (VR) in construction education is an effective way to achieve better study motivation, learnability, creativity, and observation of the real world. However, whether different levels of BIM prior knowledge affect students’ VR experimental learning, if at all, has not been examined. Therefore, this study employs a teaching intervention experiment to access the VR learning process based on the BIM prior knowledge. A total of 47 students, from the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, participated in the experiment. They were grouped according to whether they had taken the prior BIM tutorial section, with 23 participants in the group having completed the tutorial and 24 participants in the group that had not. Experiment materials were created and rendered via Autodesk Revit and Iris VR; the materials supported three tasks related to the underground design review scenarios and three other tasks about site planning review scenarios. After the experiment, a comparison study was done to discuss their differences based on VR task performances and satisfaction. The results revealed that the BIM prior knowledge mediated both the two-dimensional and three-dimensional navigations when students performed the tasks. Moreover, the relationship differences within the satisfactions showed that BIM prior knowledge effectively affected the learning outcomes. In conclusion, the comparison study implies that students’ BIM prior knowledge is efficacious in the students’ VR task performance and their VR satisfaction from cognitive and memory perspectives.