Florence Yean Yng Ling

Construction projects often operate in dynamic environments where team resilience is vital for survival. Although social ties provide the structural potential for adaptation, the specific mechanisms that translate these connections into resilient performance, particularly in today’s digitally mediated settings, remain underexplored. Adopting a sociocognitive lens, this study examines how instrumental and expressive ties differentially shape perceived project team resilience. Based on survey data collected from Chinese construction projects, the results revealed that instrumental ties exert a purely associative indirect effect on perceived project team resilience through knowledge integration, whereas expressive ties demonstrate a partial indirect association via team reflexivity. Crucially, communication visibility linearly enhances the impact of instrumental ties on knowledge integration, yet exerts an inverted U-shaped moderating effect on the link between expressive ties and team reflexivity, uncovering a critical asymmetrical boundary condition. These findings advance the literature on the relational antecedents of team resilience by disentangling its distinct sociocognitive microfoundations and revealing the complex boundary conditions imposed by the digital construction environment. Practically, this study offers actionable insights for strategically calibrating communication visibility to nurture team resilience in digitally mediated construction projects.

Prefabrication, although increasingly studied and applied in structural components, remains underdeveloped for interior building systems due to limited evidence of benefits, cost uncertainties, and diverse stakeholder preferences. However, existing studies lack an effective framework to assess the cost–benefit performance of these systems and to incorporate stakeholder considerations into system-level, component-based decision-making. To address this issue, this study proposes a framework to assess the costs and benefits of interior building component systems and to optimize their portfolio based on multistakeholder consensus. First, this study assessed the objective benefits and costs of key stakeholders, which then were transformed into subjective benefit and cost prospects using prospect theory. These values subsequently were incorporated into a multiobjective optimization model to identify Pareto-optimal portfolios of interior building component systems. Finally, Euclidean distance was employed as the primary consensus metric for Pareto solutions, and alternative distance metrics were used for robustness checking. The results show that prefabricated interior partition walls, false ceilings, radiant heating and flooring systems, and bathrooms outperform in situ methods in accessibility, adaptability, and construction duration but not across all criteria, suggesting that a hybrid combination aligns technical feasibility with performance demands under varying project conditions. The multiobjective optimization model yielded nine Pareto-optimal solutions. Among them, the configuration combining in situ interior partition walls, radiant heating and flooring with prefabricated false ceilings and bathroom units achieved the highest degree of consensus, despite imposing an additional cost of CNY 3,982.48/dwelling for residents and building-level increases of CNY 91,948.56 and 53,043.20 for the government and contractors, respectively, compared with the prevailing configuration. This outcome is driven by the greater expected benefits delivered by this configuration for all stakeholders, as well as the insufficient benefit performance of the prevailing configuration. The novelty of this study lies in the innovative integration of prospect theory into a multiobjective optimization framework for interior building component systems, enabling the modeling of stakeholders’ bounded rationality and heterogeneous preferences under uncertainty to support portfolio decision-making. The proposed framework facilitates data-driven decision-making in interior building component systems that respects stakeholder priorities, adheres to financial constraints, and fosters basic consensus among all parties.

Drawing on the conservation of resources theory and the cognitive–affective processing system framework, in this article, we investigate how relational governance boosts project team resilience through a dual–path mediation mechanism. Employing hierarchical multiple regression and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, empirical results reveal that team reflexivity and team affective identification fully mediate the relationship between relational governance and project team resilience, with a significant serial mediation effect flowing sequentially from team reflexivity to team affective identification. Furthermore, project complexity emerges as a boundary condition, enhancing the mediating role of team reflexivity while exerting no significant moderating effect on the affective identification pathway. A series of additional robustness checks was conducted for each method within the mixed-methods design, further reinforcing the overall rigor and reliability of the results. These findings advance the theoretical understanding of how resilience develops, unfolds, and is shaped in project teams, affording novel insights to the body of knowledge in engineering project management. In terms of practical application, this study highlights the need for project managers to prioritize relational governance strategies to foster project team resilience through cultivating reflective practices and shared affective bonds while calibrating these strategies according to the contextual complexities of project-based engineering environments.

Purpose: Generation Z built environment (BE) undergraduates and graduates (Zoomers) are the latest cohort entering the job market. Existing research has yet to comprehensively explore approaches for attracting and engaging Zoomer employees within the BE sector. This study aims to identify effective strategies for recruiting and retaining Zoomers in the BE sector. Design/methodology/approach: A mixed-methods research design comprising survey and interviews with Zoomers was employed. Data were collected from Zoomers via an online survey using a structured questionnaire and interviews. Findings: The first finding, job flexibility, is the most important job motivator. Zoomers seek hybrid work arrangements, and a mix of fieldwork and desk bound work. The second finding, “earned media” (and not “owned media”), is an important way to attract Zoomers. As savvy digital natives, Zoomers rely on reviews about the organization posted on independent online platforms or employees’ own social media accounts. The third finding is the diminishing role of family in Zoomers’ decision-making about their careers. Research limitations/implications: The findings are limited to Zoomers’ views about recruitment and retention within the BE sector. Practical implications: Recommendations are offered to organizations on strategic job redesign and increasing “earned media” to attract Zoomers. Originality/value: The findings contribute to understanding Zoomers’ approach to recruitment and retention based on Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory. Herzberg’s hygiene factors, which are essential benefits such as salary and career progression, remain important. The novel finding is the discovery of specific human resource (HR) practices that Zoomers consider to be hygiene factors, whereas older generations view them as “good-to-have” motivators. This underscores the intergenerational divergence in attitudes towards recruitment and retention in the BE sector.