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SUMMARY• Guaranteed maximum price (GMP) and target cost contracting (TCC) with a painshare/gain-share arrangement have been adopted to integrate the construction delivery process and motivate service providers to seek continuous improvements in project outcomes. However, there is still a lack of research evidence to evaluate the levels of success and lessons learned from these innovative procurement strategies.• Based on the analysis of a series of in-depth interviews on the perceptions of various relevant experienced industrial practitioners, this paper aims to explore the key attributes of GMP/TCC including the underlying motives, perceived benefits, potential difficulties, critical success factors, key risk factors involved and optimal project conditions for adopting GMP/TCC.• The research findings are useful in assisting key project stakeholders in minimising the detriments brought about by potential difficulties in and maximising the benefits derived from implementing GMP/TCC concepts. The study is also significant in contributing to new knowledge and practical information of GMP/TCC applications and implementation, in both a national and international context.

Hong Kong's construction industry has shown significant improvement in safety performance since the turn of the century. The number of industrial accidents in the construction industry has decreased from 11,925 in 2000 to 3,833 in 2004, which is an encouraging drop of almost 68%. However, the category "fall of person from height" has always represented a large proportion of the industrial accidents, particularly fatal accidents. In 2004, fall of person from height represented just over 47% of the total number of fatal accidents in the construction industry. The statistics show that although the overall number of accidents has dropped immensely, the same does not apply for fall from height accidents. According to statistics provided by the Labor Dept. of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, there were a total of 22 fatal industrial accidents associated with fall of persons from height in repair, maintenance, alteration, and addition works during 2000-2004. When analyzing these case studies, 12 common factors were identified for analyzing these case studies and strategies were suggested to prevent recurrence of similar accidents in each case. The top five strategies were: ͑1͒ provide and maintain a safe system of work; ͑2͒ provide a suitable working platform; ͑3͒ ͑tier͒ provide safety information/training/instruction/supervision; ͑4͒ ͑tier͒ provide suitable fall arresting system/anchorage; and ͑5͒ maintain safe workplace.

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The paper aims to develop a project success index (PSI) to benchmark the performance of design-build projects from a number of key performance indicators (KPIs). Design/methodology/approach -This research collected 92 responses from Design and Build (D&B) project participants of the Hong Kong construction industry via ordinary postal mail. In addition, a project success equation is formulated from the principal components analysis. Findings -D&B project participants suggests that time, cost, quality and functionality should be the principal success criteria for D&B projects. A single index can also be computed from the project success equation to apply different weightings to the respective KPI with different significance. Practical implications -The concept of success remains vague among project participants, which makes it difficult to assess whether the performance of a project is a success or failure. The development of PSI can quantify the success concept in a scientific manner. Originality/value -PSI indicates the success level of a construction project for benchmarking purposes. It also enables project stakeholders to measure the success of a D&B project and to compare the relative success level among different D&B projects in a scientific manner.