- Compulsory Course(4 Credits)
- An Introduction of Chinese History and Culture
- Basic Chinese
- Specialized Course(16 Credits)
- Global Construction Engineering and Management Practices
- Frontier in International Construction
- Corporate and Project Finance
- Real Estate Market
- Legal and Contractual Issues
- Project Delivery
- Professionalism,Ethics,Leadership&Anti-Corrption
- International Business Management in Construction
- Research method and thesis writing Course(6 Credits)
- Analytical theories,techniques and tools
- Research Methodology in Construction Management
- Literature Review and Proposal
module details
Module Code | 0910222 |
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Module Title | Leadership and Transparency on Projects |
Module provider | Professor George Ofori/ Associate Professor Deng Xiaomei/ Adjunct Professor Dr. George Wang |
Module Co-ordinator | Associate Professor Deng Xiaomei |
Level | master |
Numbers of Credits | 2 |
module availability
Fall Semester |
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Assessment pattern
Assessment Type 1 | ||
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Unit of Assessment | Assigned term paper | |
Weighting% | 20% | |
Assessment Type 2 | ||
Unit of Assessment | Group project | |
Weighting% | 20% | |
Assessment Type 2 | ||
Unit of Assessment | Presentation on assigned topic | |
Weighting% | 10% | |
Assessment Type 2 | ||
Unit of Assessment | Examination | |
Weighting% | 50% |
Module overview
prerequisites/co-requisites
N/A
Module Aims
Owing to the large number of practitioners from different companies, and professional backgrounds who are involved in each international construction project, issues relating to the human resource, and how to get the best out of each participant are of great importance.
In this course, aspects of the effective management of the human resources relating to international construction projects are covered. Stress is put on issues which have emerged both in practice and in the literature, as being among the critical success factors of large projects. The need for every member of the design and construction team of the project to have the highest possible level of professionalism has been emphasised. Leadership is another factor which is considered essential owing to the increasing size and complexity of projects and greater diversity of the participants in the project. Building, developing and effectively managing the project team is another success factor often referred to. Finally, ethics, transparency and guarding against corrupt behaviour have also come to the fore owing to the realisation of the adverse effects of inappropriate practices, and laws and administrative mechanisms have been adopted in many countries to counter and punish malpractice.
Learning outcomes
Upon completion of this course, the students should be:
1)aware of the nature and merits of professionalism on international construction projects, so they can consciously seek to develop appropriate levels of professionalism as a personal attribute
2)familiar with how corruption manifests itself on international construction projects, while learning effective ways of preventing and addressing corruption when it occurs3)knowledgeable on the key concepts of leadership and how they can develop their own leadership skills
4)able to form, effectively lead, and assess and improve the performance of, multi-cultural teams on international projects.
Module content
一)Module Outline … nature of module, teaching and learning, assessment approach, schedule of sessions and relationships among topics
a)The construction industry
b)Construction project
c)Project participants and stakeholders
a)What is the nature of professionalism?
1)theoretical conceptualizations2)historical development
3)concept of “the true professional”
b)How does a field progress from its inception towards becoming an established profession?
c)Who (and what) determines that an area has attained the status of a profession? (… the situation in different countries, and elements of good practice)
d)How relevant is professionalism to construction projects? What are the features of a construction project which make professionalism necessary?
e)How can the professionalism of a person, and level of professionalism within an industry be enhanced?
1)obsolescence and the construction professional2)statutory requirements(?)
3)professional institutions
4)role of education and research
5)actions by corporations
f)Concept of industry maturity; the paradox of rationalization of approaches and procedures versus professionalism; regulation versus professionalism
g)Necessary action to enhance professionalism, focusing on the project level, and what the Project Manager should do.
a)What is the nature of leadership? What are the concepts of leadership?
b)What is the difference between leadership and management?
c)How important is leadership in the construction industry (at levels of industry, company, project)? … Why is leadership needed? Focus will be put on international construction projects?
d)What is project leadership, and what are the characteristics of a good project leader?
e)Can leadership be developed? What does leadership development involve? What should be done develop leadership for international construction projects?
f)Leadership and ethics: Authentic Leadership
a)What is culture?
b)What are the main frameworks and conceptualizations of culture?
c)What are the types of culture relevant to a construction project (such as national, company, profession, project)
d)What are the implications of culture for the management of international construction projects?
e)Some manifestations of culture on projects…
1)communication2)conflict and its resolution
f)What is cosmopolitanism and how relevant is it to IPM?
g)Culture and ethics: an inter-relationship(?)
a)What is the nature of a team?
b)What are the dynamics of teams on projects?
c)What are the success and failure factors of teams?
d)What are the human, cultural, legal and political environments of construction projects and how do they influence project management?
1)the interrelationships among them2)their impact on project performance
3)how they can be harnessed to realise improved project outcomes.
e)How are effective teams for international construction projects formed and managed?
f)How can one build an ethical project team?
1)perspectives of the subcontractor, general contractor and field crew2)perspective of engineers, architects and sub-consultant
3)perspective of project owner
4)perspective of construction manager
g)Ethics in the Market Place
a)meaning of ethics and professional ethics
b)relationship between ethics and project performance
c)“enforcing ethics”
d)enhancing level of ethics in construction … is there a case for a uniform code of ethics for the construction industry?
a)What is the nature of corruption?
b)What are the causes of corruption?
c)What are the effects of corruption, in general, and on a construction project?
d)What is the international situation with regard to corruption? (such as Corruption Perception Index; Bribe Payers Index)
e)In what ways does corruption manifest itself in construction?
a)What actions are being taken by governments? (laws, such as Sarbanes-Oxley; codes of behaviour for public officers such as UK government’s Seven Principles; statutory agencies such as South Africa’s Public Protector and Singapore’s Corrupt Practices Investigations Bureau; also, Competition Commissions and UK Office of Fair Trading)
b)What actions are being taken by non-governmental organizations?
1)At the international levelUnited Nations compact
codes of business federations, consider general ones first, then FIDIC (in broad terms)
Construction Sector Transparency Initiative
national chapters of Transparency International
alliances, and individual anti-corruption groups
professional institutions’ codes of ethics
c)What are corporations doing?
1)statements of corporate values and strategies (eg. Skanska’s Five Zeros2)corporate codes of conduct.
a)What is corruption?
1)corruption, bribery, fraud, exerting pressure, interference2)rent-seeking
b)Why corruption?
1)a corruption analysis model under corruption economics2)the Fraud Triangle – another analysis framework
3)combined analysis framework, using transaction theory to interpret the corruption processes
c)Why is construction so vulnerable to corruption? … related to special nature of construction
1)big investment: attractive to corruption2)unique products: non-comparable
3)too many participants and complicated processes: easy to hide malpractice
4)one of the most regulated areas: many opportunities for rent-seeking
d)How does corruption happen along with the construction project processes?
1)planning, concept and decision-making phases, maintenance phase2)design, tendering, construction, acceptance
e)Corruption versus Professionalism and Ethics -- a case study
1)contractual analysis2)cause and effect/fishbone diagram analysis
3)human factor analysis
4)what made the bridge collapse: corruption or professionalism and ethics?
a)Rating the Project Integrity Management Maturity
1)integrating anti-corruption into project managementthe resistance attitude: a big challenge for anti-corruption
make integrity management a pillar of project management
fundamental anticorruption strategies
integrate anti-corruption initiatives into project management
trigger a chain reaction of anti-corruption
rationale
framework
the index
assessment methods
assessment results
feedback from assessor
4)integrity guarantee and surety bonds as anti-corruption tools
concepts
b)guarantee and suretyship
1)theoretical basis
c)Prospect Theory
1)integrity guarantee as anti-corruption toolhow does integrity guarantee changes the corruption decision model?
how does integrity guarantee improve the effect of IP?
integrity guarantee in PIMMI
2)high-penalty performance bond as anti-corruption tool
necessity of open bidding procedure for public works
role of surety, and three different models of construction bonding system
different effects on corruption
the reason for setting up mandatory bonding system in public works
3)using the guarantee tools together.
a)business ethics in construction companies
b)compliance management in construction companies
c)decision tree
d)examples of corruption in infrastructure
e)ethics codes of some construction companies
f)joint venture ethics
g)ethical benefit
1)8b. Responsible Conduct of Research and Other Field Studies (for Consultancy) … George Wang
h)professional self-regulation; government regulation
i)institutional policies
j)federal research misconduct definition and policies
k)ethical issue in research
l)conflict of interest
m)data ownership and sharing
n)supervision and review
o)authorship and publication of report.
methods of teaching learing
The approach which is adopted on the course should enable participants to appreciate both the theory and practice of some of the key contemporary issues relating to the human resource in the management of international construction projects. It includes:
Module hours
32 hours