Understanding Labor Behavioral Diversties And Their Impacts On International Construction Projects,Using Computer Simulation Approach

In international construction projects,it is common that labors from different countries and cultural backgrounds are employeed,who differentiate in many ways scuh as skills,working attitudes,habits,etc.These diversities could lead to different behaviors when the labors are under same situations or face same stimulus,which if not managed properly,may result in serious project delays.Thus,managing onsite labors has long been a challenge in the field of in international project management.Despite many researches have studied the characteristics of labors in international projects,most of them only explore general rules and are based on qualitative analysis and traditional statistical methods.As result,these researches usually fail to address the dynamics of labor behaviors,behavioral diversites and interactions,such as interactions among labors,between labors and engineers and between individuals and environments.Furthermore,specific projects situations are hardly adequately considered as well.In consequence,current studies may more or less suffer impracticty.Thus,based on existing theories and findings,this study integrate two computer simulation techniques,Agent Based Modeling(ABM)and System Dynamics(SD)into in international projects.The major goal of this study is to develop an integrated simulation model which is able to monitor,model and forecast labor behaviors and their associate influences on project progress.The model its ability to comprehensively accommodates individual properties,behavioral patterns,behavioral diversities,decision making of engineers,different forms of interactions and change of internal and external environments.This study is on the basis of extensive literature review and involve various theories,including behavioral sciences,incentive motivation,organization commitment,culture dimensions and background knowledge of ABM and SD.According to these knowledge,the distinct behaviors patterns of onsite individuals and the related affecting factors in international projects are identified while the mechanism from factors to human behaviors are analyzed.Then,a theoretical model is built to represents the relationship between behavioral diversities and project progress.The applicability of using ABM-SD simulation approach to study labor behavioral diversities is discussed.It turns out that ABM-SD match the theoretical model well,based on which corresponding conceptual simulation models are developed.Finally,the simulation model was applied in a real case to test its functions.Series of methods,such as questionnaire survey,database searching,field measuring and semi-structured interview,are adopted to gather both qualitative and quantitative data.Meanwhile,the identified affecting factors of behaviors are modified to comply the specific conditions of the project.Then,the proposed ABM-SD simulation model is built with AnyLogic 8.10 software.In this model,SD consists of three modules to simulate changes of the environments,compute the progress of construction trades and to address the interface between SD and ABM,respectively.ABM on the other hand,includes four sub-models to represent different labor groups and another sub-model to represent actions and decisions of engineers.In the field tests,the validity of the model is verified since the outputs match the realities of the case project.It is found that there are various behavioral diversities among labors,which cause large uncertainties in terms of productivity,error rates and mobility and can be effectively captured by the simulation model.The model could interpret and explain the project deviation in quantitative and visualized manner from multiple prospectives,such as overtime working,existence of guidance and supervision,to name a few.Besides,the model also tested effects of implementing 10 labor arrangement plans,which is a demonstration of the functions on assisting project plan selection and support decision making.There are three main findings: 1)in international projects,distinctive behavioral diversities indeed exist among labors;2)behavioral diversities are not only subject to numerous factors but also to interactions among individuals and between individuals and environments,therefore are highly dynamic and uncertain;3)taking use of ABM-SD integrated simulation approach,the labor behaviors and behavioral diversities and their impacts on project can be effectively modeled,which could improve the level of onsite management in international projects.