The use of secondary data for research can offer benefits, particularly when limited resources ar... more The use of secondary data for research can offer benefits, particularly when limited resources are available for conducting research using primary methods. Researchers and students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, including their academic instructors, are increasingly recognising the immense opportunities in applying secondary research methods in built environment research. Advances in technology have also led to vast amounts of existing datasets that can be utilized for secondary research. This textbook provides a systematic guide on how to apply secondary research methods in the built environment, including their various underpinning methodologies. It provides guidance on the secondary research process, benefits, and drawbacks of applying secondary research methods, how to source for secondary data, ethical considerations, and the various secondary research methods that can be applied in built environment research. The book incorporates chapters dealing with qualitative secondary analysis, systematic literature reviews, legal research, bibliometric and scientometric analysis, literature-based discovery, and meta-analysis. Secondary Research Methods in the Built Environment is an ideal research book for undergraduate and postgraduate students in construction management, construction project management, quantity surveying, construction law and dispute resolution, real estate and property management, building services engineering, architecture, and civil engineering.
International Journal of Real Estate Studies, 2021
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities in Ghana are spearheaded by large-scale multi-na... more Corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities in Ghana are spearheaded by large-scale multi-national companies and have gained momentum in recent years possibly due to the discovery of oil. The goal of this study is to learn more about how energy companies in Ghana view and practise CSR. A mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods was adopted for this study. Structured questionnaires and interview guides were used to collect data from selected energy companies and inhabitants. Descriptive statistics, t-tests and content analysis were the analytical tools adopted. The findings suggest that CSR was seen as a voluntary activity in the Ghanaian energy supply industry, with enterprises being obliged to work within societal norms rather than regulatory standards in the country. In the lens of the level of CSR practiced by the energy supply company, the findings indicate that the companies do practice CSR but based on their own planned policy objectives with most of the interventi...
Identifying and sourcing data for secondary research
Secondary Research Methods in the Built Environment, 2021
Opportunities for utilising pre-existing data to conduct secondary research in the built environm... more Opportunities for utilising pre-existing data to conduct secondary research in the built environment continue to increase and so do the sources of secondary data. In this chapter, the distinction between secondary data and primary data has been discussed, whilst acknowledging that this distinction can be blurred and confusing sometimes. The sources of secondary data that are applicable to various built environment disciplines also have been identified and discussed. These include academic databases, government databases, inter-governmental databases, organisational databases, data from social media, and legal databases. The opportunities for utilising data from these various sources are interrogated before reflecting on some of the considerations that need to be exercised to ensure that the pre-existing data meets the quality requirements for use in secondary research.
These proceedings bring together a selection of papers from the 2012 Salford Postgraduate Annual ... more These proceedings bring together a selection of papers from the 2012 Salford Postgraduate Annual Research Conference (SPARC). They reflect the breadth and diversity of research interests showcased at the conference, at which over 130 researchers from Salford, the North West and other UK universities presented their work. 21 papers are collated here from the humanities, arts, social sciences, health, engineering, environment and life sciences, built environment and business.
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the key practitioners’ level of involvement in th... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the key practitioners’ level of involvement in the delivery of sustainable regeneration projects in the UK. Practitioners’ level of involvement is a major factor that has and continues to determine the delivery of sustainability outcomes of regeneration projects. Design/methodology/approach The paper adopted a qualitative study that obtained data from 21 key practitioners through semi-structured interviews in exploring practitioners’ level of involvement in the delivery of sustainable regeneration projects in the UK. The semi-structured interviews are conducted with seven practitioners, each from the three construction organisations selected through a purposive sampling approach for the study. Findings The findings identify varied levels of involvement of the key practitioners at the three delivery stages – early, construction and post-construction of the projects. The findings further reveal that clients’ representatives, commercial m...
In recent years, sustainable regeneration has been recognised as being of major economic and soci... more In recent years, sustainable regeneration has been recognised as being of major economic and social concern in the world. In the UK for instance, government has initiated a number of policies and evaluation methods to deal with some of the environmental problems associated with regeneration projects. However, the post construction evaluation of these projects has often resulted in them being seen as not achieving their set objectives. Attempts aimed at evaluating the impact of sustainability by built environment practitioners have primarily been limited to their assessment of the projects’ potential environmental impacts, with the associated socio-economic impacts being neglected. There has not been any well-defined built environment research that has been able to deal holistically with the broader issues of sustainability in terms of benefits/impacts of the regeneration projects to the communities concerned. The findings of an exploratory study that adopted a semi-structured interv...
The UK government took the lead to implement most of the sustainable development and regeneration... more The UK government took the lead to implement most of the sustainable development and regeneration principles and many of the Agenda 21 action plan, both in theoretical and practical terms (DEFRA, 2011). However, there is evidence to suggest that the delivery of sustainability projects, such as regeneration projects, is still faced with numerous problems, and in most cases, unsustainable (Winston, 2009). Many concerns have been raised about the real composition (theoretical and practical) of sustainability projects (Zheng et al., 2014; Carter and Fortune, 2007). Some schools of thought have sought to question whether in fact, much of what has been termed as sustainable regeneration should rather be labelled as renewal or redevelopment, due to the limited consideration given to the projects' related socioeconomic sustainability factors (Carpenter, 2011). The emphasis of sustainability evaluation along purely environmental lines is a common theme and is readily seen within the sustainable regeneration literature (Reyes et al., 2014; Carter and Fortune, 2007). According to Varsei et al., (2014) and Edum-Fotwe and Price (2009), the delivery of social and economic sustainability factors of sustainability projects presents the aspects of sustainable development/regeneration that are most difficult to achieve. The flexibility and lack of conceptual clarity of the composition of sustainability have enabled practitioners to emphasise the sustainability dimension that fits within their own agenda (Brandon and Lombardi 2011; Evans and Jones, 2008), resulting in other equally important dimensions such as economic and social concerns being pushed into the background. Smith (2006) is of the view that regeneration programmes should not only address environmental features, but also consider the broader issues of social and economic features. It is argued that any regeneration project that fails to evaluate each of the well-established sustainability pillars is not likely to achieve its sustainable development and regeneration objectives (Winston 2009; CLG, 2008). There is an emerging recognition that improving the socioeconomic structures in a community is more likely to deliver sustainability outcomes of regeneration projects (Adamson, 2010; SDC, 2003). The built environment influences social welfare and human well-being, urban activities, the economy and the general environment in numerous ways. According to Sev (2009), the correlation between sustainable development and regeneration and the built environment has become evident, since construction is of high socioeconomic
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study the interdependent boundary-spanning activities tha... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study the interdependent boundary-spanning activities that characterise the level of permeability of knowledge, information flow and learning among construction supply chains involved in the delivery of building information modelling (BIM)-compliant construction projects. Construction projects are mobilised through a number of interdependent processes and multi-functional activities by different practitioners with myriad specialised skills. Many of the difficulties that manifest in construction projects can be attributed to the fragmented work activities and inter-disciplinary nature of project teams. This is nevertheless becoming ever more pertinent with the rise of technology deployment in construction organisations. Design/methodology/approach The study combined experts’ sampling interviews and a case study research method to help offer better insights into the kind of emerging multilevel boundary practices as influenced by the rapidly evol...
The requirement to deliver successful sustainable regeneration projects places enormous responsib... more The requirement to deliver successful sustainable regeneration projects places enormous responsibility on the construction industry practitioners. While the concept of sustainable regeneration has being a big issue in the UK, and also being in operation within the construction industry over the years, it can be said that its achievement has been hampered and determined by numerous factors. One such factor which has affected and continues to affect and determine the sustainability outcome of regeneration projects, are the key practitioners who are tasked with the responsibility of delivering such regeneration projects. The findings of a study that obtained 193 responses through a questionnaire survey to explore the key practitioners' levels of involvement in the delivery of sustainable regeneration projects in the UK is presented in this paper. The findings identified varied levels of practitioners' involvement in the three main stages of the project delivery/development; early, construction and post construction. The findings revealed that clients' representatives, commercial managers and architects were the most frequently involved practitioners during the early stages of the projects. The findings also indicated that practitioners who have sustainability assigned to their roles and their responsibilities, such as the regeneration managers, sustainability managers, training/corporate social responsibility managers were the least frequently involved in all the three delivery stages of the projects.
In recent years, sustainable regeneration has been recognised as being of major economic and soci... more In recent years, sustainable regeneration has been recognised as being of major economic and social concern in the world. In the UK for instance, government has initiated a number of policies and evaluation methods to deal with some of the environmental problems associated with regeneration projects. However, the post construction evaluation of these projects has often resulted in them being seen as not achieving their set objectives. Attempts aimed at evaluating the implementation of sustainability by built environment professionals have primarily been limited to their DVVHVVPHQWRIWKHSURMHFWV∂�SRWHQWLDOHQYLURQPHQWDOLPSDFWVZLW KWKHDVVRFLDWHGVRFLR - economic aspects being neglected. While there have been a number of studies on sustainability and its evaluation in relation to regeneration projects in the UK, there has not been any well-defined built environment research that has been able to deal holistically with the broader issues of sustainability in terms of benefits/impacts of th...
Recent decades have witnessed the evolution of building assessment methods for appraising the sus... more Recent decades have witnessed the evolution of building assessment methods for appraising the sustainability performance of building projects. In the UK for instance, the Government has initiated a number of assessment/evaluation methods to deal with some of the environmental problems associated with regeneration programmes. But attempts aimed at implementing sustainability assessment primarily have been limited to the environmental impact of buildings, with the socio-economic aspects often neglected. The findings of an exploratory case study on a housing regeneration project, which adopted a combination of literature review and focus-group interview approach with eight key stakeholders for data collection in the UK, are presented in this paper. The emergent framework developed and presented in hierarchical order in this paper incorporates project level and wider community socio-economic sustainability indicators.
An identification of strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) factors remains imper... more An identification of strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) factors remains imperative for enabling a successful Smart Campus transition. The absence of a structured approach for analyzing the relationships between these SWOT factors and the influence thereof on Smart Campus transitions negate effective implementation. This study leverages a systems thinking approach to bridge this gap. Data were collected through a stakeholder workshop within a University of Technology case study and analyzed using qualitative content analysis (QCA). This resulted in the establishment of SWOT factors affecting Smart Campus transitions. Systems thinking was utilized to analyze the relationships between these SWOT factors resulting in a causal loop diagram (CLD) highlighting extant interrelationships. A panel of experts drawn from the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and South Africa validated the relationships between the SWOT factors as elucidated in the CLD. Subsequently, a Smart Campu...
A bibliometric analysis of recycled concrete research (1978–2019)
Built Environment Project and Asset Management
PurposeThe use of recycled concrete (RC) can reduce the greenhouse emissions associated with the ... more PurposeThe use of recycled concrete (RC) can reduce the greenhouse emissions associated with the production of cement, which is one of the primary materials used for the execution of construction projects. This research aims to review the state of knowledge in the field of RC research. An understanding of the state of the art in the RC domain justifies future research in this field.Design/methodology/approachA systematic and comprehensive search of RC-related literature was conducted using the Scopus database. In this research, the bibliometrix R-package was used for the analysis of bibliometric information of the selected papers. The software was used to create a map, which highlights the trends and gaps in the RC knowledge domain.FindingsThe results reveal the research themes, clusters, collaboration networks and advancement of knowledge in the field of RC research. The study integrates the literature focussed on RC research and provides a platform for progression of knowledge in ...
In the United Kingdom (UK), over the past three decades efforts have been made to ensure adequate... more In the United Kingdom (UK), over the past three decades efforts have been made to ensure adequate promotion of sustainability objectives through various policy initiatives. However, despite the effort and the existence of these policy initiatives, sustainability projects in particular, regeneration projects are yet to deliver their intended sustainability objectives. While there is a rise in demand for higher sustainability benefits by stakeholders such as clients, communities and policy makers, the delivery of sustainability benefits from sustainability regeneration projects are yet to meet the expectations of these stakeholders. This article provides an overview of sustainability benefits within the context of the sustainable regeneration projects in the UK from a study that examines the roles and sustainability drivers of construction practitioners towards the promotion of sustainability on their regeneration projects. To do so, a qualitative research approach is adopted using a...
The use of secondary data for research can offer benefits, particularly when limited resources ar... more The use of secondary data for research can offer benefits, particularly when limited resources are available for conducting research using primary methods. Researchers and students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, including their academic instructors, are increasingly recognising the immense opportunities in applying secondary research methods in built environment research. Advances in technology have also led to vast amounts of existing datasets that can be utilized for secondary research. This textbook provides a systematic guide on how to apply secondary research methods in the built environment, including their various underpinning methodologies. It provides guidance on the secondary research process, benefits, and drawbacks of applying secondary research methods, how to source for secondary data, ethical considerations, and the various secondary research methods that can be applied in built environment research. The book incorporates chapters dealing with qualitative secondary analysis, systematic literature reviews, legal research, bibliometric and scientometric analysis, literature-based discovery, and meta-analysis. Secondary Research Methods in the Built Environment is an ideal research book for undergraduate and postgraduate students in construction management, construction project management, quantity surveying, construction law and dispute resolution, real estate and property management, building services engineering, architecture, and civil engineering.
International Journal of Real Estate Studies, 2021
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities in Ghana are spearheaded by large-scale multi-na... more Corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities in Ghana are spearheaded by large-scale multi-national companies and have gained momentum in recent years possibly due to the discovery of oil. The goal of this study is to learn more about how energy companies in Ghana view and practise CSR. A mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods was adopted for this study. Structured questionnaires and interview guides were used to collect data from selected energy companies and inhabitants. Descriptive statistics, t-tests and content analysis were the analytical tools adopted. The findings suggest that CSR was seen as a voluntary activity in the Ghanaian energy supply industry, with enterprises being obliged to work within societal norms rather than regulatory standards in the country. In the lens of the level of CSR practiced by the energy supply company, the findings indicate that the companies do practice CSR but based on their own planned policy objectives with most of the interventi...
Identifying and sourcing data for secondary research
Secondary Research Methods in the Built Environment, 2021
Opportunities for utilising pre-existing data to conduct secondary research in the built environm... more Opportunities for utilising pre-existing data to conduct secondary research in the built environment continue to increase and so do the sources of secondary data. In this chapter, the distinction between secondary data and primary data has been discussed, whilst acknowledging that this distinction can be blurred and confusing sometimes. The sources of secondary data that are applicable to various built environment disciplines also have been identified and discussed. These include academic databases, government databases, inter-governmental databases, organisational databases, data from social media, and legal databases. The opportunities for utilising data from these various sources are interrogated before reflecting on some of the considerations that need to be exercised to ensure that the pre-existing data meets the quality requirements for use in secondary research.
These proceedings bring together a selection of papers from the 2012 Salford Postgraduate Annual ... more These proceedings bring together a selection of papers from the 2012 Salford Postgraduate Annual Research Conference (SPARC). They reflect the breadth and diversity of research interests showcased at the conference, at which over 130 researchers from Salford, the North West and other UK universities presented their work. 21 papers are collated here from the humanities, arts, social sciences, health, engineering, environment and life sciences, built environment and business.
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the key practitioners’ level of involvement in th... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the key practitioners’ level of involvement in the delivery of sustainable regeneration projects in the UK. Practitioners’ level of involvement is a major factor that has and continues to determine the delivery of sustainability outcomes of regeneration projects. Design/methodology/approach The paper adopted a qualitative study that obtained data from 21 key practitioners through semi-structured interviews in exploring practitioners’ level of involvement in the delivery of sustainable regeneration projects in the UK. The semi-structured interviews are conducted with seven practitioners, each from the three construction organisations selected through a purposive sampling approach for the study. Findings The findings identify varied levels of involvement of the key practitioners at the three delivery stages – early, construction and post-construction of the projects. The findings further reveal that clients’ representatives, commercial m...
In recent years, sustainable regeneration has been recognised as being of major economic and soci... more In recent years, sustainable regeneration has been recognised as being of major economic and social concern in the world. In the UK for instance, government has initiated a number of policies and evaluation methods to deal with some of the environmental problems associated with regeneration projects. However, the post construction evaluation of these projects has often resulted in them being seen as not achieving their set objectives. Attempts aimed at evaluating the impact of sustainability by built environment practitioners have primarily been limited to their assessment of the projects’ potential environmental impacts, with the associated socio-economic impacts being neglected. There has not been any well-defined built environment research that has been able to deal holistically with the broader issues of sustainability in terms of benefits/impacts of the regeneration projects to the communities concerned. The findings of an exploratory study that adopted a semi-structured interv...
The UK government took the lead to implement most of the sustainable development and regeneration... more The UK government took the lead to implement most of the sustainable development and regeneration principles and many of the Agenda 21 action plan, both in theoretical and practical terms (DEFRA, 2011). However, there is evidence to suggest that the delivery of sustainability projects, such as regeneration projects, is still faced with numerous problems, and in most cases, unsustainable (Winston, 2009). Many concerns have been raised about the real composition (theoretical and practical) of sustainability projects (Zheng et al., 2014; Carter and Fortune, 2007). Some schools of thought have sought to question whether in fact, much of what has been termed as sustainable regeneration should rather be labelled as renewal or redevelopment, due to the limited consideration given to the projects' related socioeconomic sustainability factors (Carpenter, 2011). The emphasis of sustainability evaluation along purely environmental lines is a common theme and is readily seen within the sustainable regeneration literature (Reyes et al., 2014; Carter and Fortune, 2007). According to Varsei et al., (2014) and Edum-Fotwe and Price (2009), the delivery of social and economic sustainability factors of sustainability projects presents the aspects of sustainable development/regeneration that are most difficult to achieve. The flexibility and lack of conceptual clarity of the composition of sustainability have enabled practitioners to emphasise the sustainability dimension that fits within their own agenda (Brandon and Lombardi 2011; Evans and Jones, 2008), resulting in other equally important dimensions such as economic and social concerns being pushed into the background. Smith (2006) is of the view that regeneration programmes should not only address environmental features, but also consider the broader issues of social and economic features. It is argued that any regeneration project that fails to evaluate each of the well-established sustainability pillars is not likely to achieve its sustainable development and regeneration objectives (Winston 2009; CLG, 2008). There is an emerging recognition that improving the socioeconomic structures in a community is more likely to deliver sustainability outcomes of regeneration projects (Adamson, 2010; SDC, 2003). The built environment influences social welfare and human well-being, urban activities, the economy and the general environment in numerous ways. According to Sev (2009), the correlation between sustainable development and regeneration and the built environment has become evident, since construction is of high socioeconomic
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study the interdependent boundary-spanning activities tha... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study the interdependent boundary-spanning activities that characterise the level of permeability of knowledge, information flow and learning among construction supply chains involved in the delivery of building information modelling (BIM)-compliant construction projects. Construction projects are mobilised through a number of interdependent processes and multi-functional activities by different practitioners with myriad specialised skills. Many of the difficulties that manifest in construction projects can be attributed to the fragmented work activities and inter-disciplinary nature of project teams. This is nevertheless becoming ever more pertinent with the rise of technology deployment in construction organisations. Design/methodology/approach The study combined experts’ sampling interviews and a case study research method to help offer better insights into the kind of emerging multilevel boundary practices as influenced by the rapidly evol...
The requirement to deliver successful sustainable regeneration projects places enormous responsib... more The requirement to deliver successful sustainable regeneration projects places enormous responsibility on the construction industry practitioners. While the concept of sustainable regeneration has being a big issue in the UK, and also being in operation within the construction industry over the years, it can be said that its achievement has been hampered and determined by numerous factors. One such factor which has affected and continues to affect and determine the sustainability outcome of regeneration projects, are the key practitioners who are tasked with the responsibility of delivering such regeneration projects. The findings of a study that obtained 193 responses through a questionnaire survey to explore the key practitioners' levels of involvement in the delivery of sustainable regeneration projects in the UK is presented in this paper. The findings identified varied levels of practitioners' involvement in the three main stages of the project delivery/development; early, construction and post construction. The findings revealed that clients' representatives, commercial managers and architects were the most frequently involved practitioners during the early stages of the projects. The findings also indicated that practitioners who have sustainability assigned to their roles and their responsibilities, such as the regeneration managers, sustainability managers, training/corporate social responsibility managers were the least frequently involved in all the three delivery stages of the projects.
In recent years, sustainable regeneration has been recognised as being of major economic and soci... more In recent years, sustainable regeneration has been recognised as being of major economic and social concern in the world. In the UK for instance, government has initiated a number of policies and evaluation methods to deal with some of the environmental problems associated with regeneration projects. However, the post construction evaluation of these projects has often resulted in them being seen as not achieving their set objectives. Attempts aimed at evaluating the implementation of sustainability by built environment professionals have primarily been limited to their DVVHVVPHQWRIWKHSURMHFWV∂�SRWHQWLDOHQYLURQPHQWDOLPSDFWVZLW KWKHDVVRFLDWHGVRFLR - economic aspects being neglected. While there have been a number of studies on sustainability and its evaluation in relation to regeneration projects in the UK, there has not been any well-defined built environment research that has been able to deal holistically with the broader issues of sustainability in terms of benefits/impacts of th...
Recent decades have witnessed the evolution of building assessment methods for appraising the sus... more Recent decades have witnessed the evolution of building assessment methods for appraising the sustainability performance of building projects. In the UK for instance, the Government has initiated a number of assessment/evaluation methods to deal with some of the environmental problems associated with regeneration programmes. But attempts aimed at implementing sustainability assessment primarily have been limited to the environmental impact of buildings, with the socio-economic aspects often neglected. The findings of an exploratory case study on a housing regeneration project, which adopted a combination of literature review and focus-group interview approach with eight key stakeholders for data collection in the UK, are presented in this paper. The emergent framework developed and presented in hierarchical order in this paper incorporates project level and wider community socio-economic sustainability indicators.
An identification of strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) factors remains imper... more An identification of strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) factors remains imperative for enabling a successful Smart Campus transition. The absence of a structured approach for analyzing the relationships between these SWOT factors and the influence thereof on Smart Campus transitions negate effective implementation. This study leverages a systems thinking approach to bridge this gap. Data were collected through a stakeholder workshop within a University of Technology case study and analyzed using qualitative content analysis (QCA). This resulted in the establishment of SWOT factors affecting Smart Campus transitions. Systems thinking was utilized to analyze the relationships between these SWOT factors resulting in a causal loop diagram (CLD) highlighting extant interrelationships. A panel of experts drawn from the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and South Africa validated the relationships between the SWOT factors as elucidated in the CLD. Subsequently, a Smart Campu...
A bibliometric analysis of recycled concrete research (1978–2019)
Built Environment Project and Asset Management
PurposeThe use of recycled concrete (RC) can reduce the greenhouse emissions associated with the ... more PurposeThe use of recycled concrete (RC) can reduce the greenhouse emissions associated with the production of cement, which is one of the primary materials used for the execution of construction projects. This research aims to review the state of knowledge in the field of RC research. An understanding of the state of the art in the RC domain justifies future research in this field.Design/methodology/approachA systematic and comprehensive search of RC-related literature was conducted using the Scopus database. In this research, the bibliometrix R-package was used for the analysis of bibliometric information of the selected papers. The software was used to create a map, which highlights the trends and gaps in the RC knowledge domain.FindingsThe results reveal the research themes, clusters, collaboration networks and advancement of knowledge in the field of RC research. The study integrates the literature focussed on RC research and provides a platform for progression of knowledge in ...
In the United Kingdom (UK), over the past three decades efforts have been made to ensure adequate... more In the United Kingdom (UK), over the past three decades efforts have been made to ensure adequate promotion of sustainability objectives through various policy initiatives. However, despite the effort and the existence of these policy initiatives, sustainability projects in particular, regeneration projects are yet to deliver their intended sustainability objectives. While there is a rise in demand for higher sustainability benefits by stakeholders such as clients, communities and policy makers, the delivery of sustainability benefits from sustainability regeneration projects are yet to meet the expectations of these stakeholders. This article provides an overview of sustainability benefits within the context of the sustainable regeneration projects in the UK from a study that examines the roles and sustainability drivers of construction practitioners towards the promotion of sustainability on their regeneration projects. To do so, a qualitative research approach is adopted using a...
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Papers by Julius Akotia