A probabilistic framework is developed to analyse a risk management approach adopted by an insurance firm. The analysis shows that when the insurance firm classifies a client as 'superior' and 'most acceptable', the probability of the insurer having to pay out on those claims is negligible. Even...

Treatment of correlation between variables is necessary for deriving any theoretical distribution of the project cost of buildings. This paper highlights some often ignored theoretical requirements necessary for a rigorous treatment of correlations. The condition for a positive definite...

As construction activity has a significant impact on the environment it is vital to consider how to improve the environmental performance of organizations in the construction industry. The ISO 14000 series of standards on environmental management provides construction enterprises with the tool...

Recent studies have shown that culture has an effect on the choice of foreign investment venture structure. Cultural distance has been identified as a primary determinant in the selection of shared control over wholly foreign owned investment. The data from these studies indicate, however, that...

Purpose – With increased architectural, design and functional requirements and complexities, maintaining a modern building can easily become a costly affair. There is much evidence in the literature review as well as from the factual data, showing the significant increase of the maintenance...

Purpose – The factors contributing to maintenance cost include the life‐long environmental factors that the building is exposed to during its useful life as well as parameters relating to the design, construction and maintenance processes. The performance of risk associated with these...

Purpose – Artificial neural network (ANN) has been used for risk analysis in various applications such as engineering, financial and facilities management. However, use of a single network has become less accurate when the problem is complex with a large number of variables to be considered....