Construction industry is highly risk prone, with complex and dynamic project environments creating an atmosphere of high uncertainty and risk. The industry is vulnerable to various technical, sociopolitical and business risks. The track record to cope with these risks has not been very good in construction industry. As a result, the people working in the industry bear various failures, such as, failure of abiding by quality and operational requirements, cost overruns and uncertain delays in project completion. In light of this, it can be said that an effective systems of risk assessment and management for construction industry remains a challenging task for the industry practitioners. The aim of the this research is to identify and evaluate current risks and uncertainties in the construction industry through extensive literature survey and aims to make a basis for future studies for development of a risk management framework to be adopted by prospective investors, developers and contractors in Pakistan.

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Healthcare services are becoming vital and growing immensely with the passage of time, and so is the use of information technology in every aspect of life. Information and communication technologies are essential parts of any health care or life critical solution available in this era -the era of information technology. Quality is one of the major issues that are currently being faced. For healthcare and life critical solutions, quality can not be compromised. The use of information technology in healthcare potentially improves quality. This paper discusses the parameters of quality in healthcare, and how information technology ensures quality based on these parameters in some major domains of healthcare; Healthcare Information Management, Emergency

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to identify the prevalent condition of productivity in the automotive manufacturing industry of Pakistan and to indicate the possible areas for enhancing productivity.Design/methodology/approachSecondary data for the last ten years were gathered. Total productivity and all partial productivities were computed using methodology proposed by Sumanth, and total factor productivity (TFP) was computed using Cobb‐Douglas production function. Regression analysis and Pearson correlations were run to determine labor elasticity and capital elasticity.FindingsResults indicated very low levels of labor productivity and capital productivity, resulting in huge losses and stagnant growth of these firms. Increasing returns to scales (IRTS) with high values of labor elasticity and low and even negative value of capital elasticity were computed. Low values of TFP showed minimal utilization of technology in these firms.Research limitations/implicationsOne of the limitations of this research is that only two automotive manufacturing companies of Pakistan i.e. Honda Atlas and Indus Motors were targeted, which limits the generalizability of findings.Practical implicationsFindings of this research revealed that effective utilization of technology can enhance the productivity of Pakistani manufacturing firms significantly. IRTS with high values of labor elasticity and low value of capital elasticity depict the areas of productivity enhancement.Originality/valueIn Pakistan not enough effort has been put into measuring the productivity of manufacturing industry. The contribution of this paper is that it indicates the productivity blemishes in this industry and also the areas of focus for productivity enhancement.