Addressing the Value Management Approach in Public Construction Works: Barriers, Critical Success Factors, and Potential Risks

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The topic is interesting and appropriate for the journal, however, it would be interesting to elaborate a little more on the results section.

line 53:  misspelling "prposal evelopment" "mplementation"

Lines 79-153: It is a deep and exhaustive analysis of the state of the art, although somewhat difficult to understand due to a lack of structure. I recommend organizing it by topic, by country/continent or by chronological order. Perhaps separate it into paragraphs with a first sentence that contextualizes these investigations (around the topic of, in certain continent, in the decade of...). 

Lines 204-210: it would be advisable to include a brief description of the topics that were addressed in the questionnaires.

Lines 217-218: “During this phase, statistical methods such as descriptive analyses, reliability test, normality test, Welch's t-test, independent one-way analysis of variance (One Way ANOVA Test), and Cross Tabulation were applied”. I think this should be explained a little more, mainly why those analyses were chosen and not other methods. 

Lines 346-347: This is interesting, perhaps it should be briefly explained when and how VM has been introduced in the Turkish legislation in the introduction of the article.

Tables: The analysis of the data in results could be elaborated a little more.

Author Response

Comment: line 53:  misspelling "prposal evelopment" "mplementation"

Response: Corrected

Comment: Lines 79-153: It is a deep and exhaustive analysis of the state of the art, although somewhat difficult to understand due to a lack of structure. I recommend organizing it by topic, by country/continent or by chronological order. Perhaps separate it into paragraphs with a first sentence that contextualizes these investigations (around the topic of, in certain continent, in the decade of...). 

Response: The mentioned part was rearranged.

Lines 204-210: it would be advisable to include a brief description of the topics that were addressed in the questionnaires.

Response: Added

Comment: Lines 217-218: “During this phase, statistical methods such as descriptive analyses, reliability test, normality test, Welch's t-test, independent one-way analysis of variance (One Way ANOVA Test), and Cross Tabulation were applied”. I think this should be explained a little more, mainly why those analyses were chosen and not other methods. 

Response: Added

Comment: Lines 346-347: This is interesting, perhaps it should be briefly explained when and how VM has been introduced in the Turkish legislation in the introduction of the article. 

Tables: The analysis of the data in results could be elaborated a little more.

Response: Added. See Line 79-99

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper addresses the Value Management (VM) approach in public works, with reference to a case study of the Turkish construction sector. The dataset considered comprises responses from 337 actors in various roles within the Turkish construction sector. The study highlights potential risks associated with the adoption of VM in public works, based on the data sample collected. The aim and structure of the paper are clear. 

The following are some comments to improve the work: 

The introduction is well-structured and provides a useful framework for the evolution of VM approaches in the 20th century. This work might also be worth considering: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-349-13350-5 

In the Materials and Methods section, the literature review should be expanded to include the main findings. What topics/factors were extracted from the literature review and discussed by the Focus Groups to define the questionnaire? In this reviewer opinion, the factors extracted from the literature review should be clearly explained and integrated into the workflow presented in Figure 1, perhaps through a further clustering of the topics presented in the questionnaire. Furthermore, the selection criteria for the 14 participants in the Focus Groups should be clarified, as well as how the focus group contributed to the organization of the questions subsequently submitted to the 337 participants. In this regard, an additional table (similar to Table 1) providing background information on the 14 focus group participants could be beneficial. Figure 1: Some parts of the figure are cut off; please modify it. 

In the Results section, to enhance readability of the collected data, the inclusion of some graphical analysis to summarize the data in Table 2, Table 3, Table 4, Table 5, Table 6 would be beneficial. Table 7 could also be improved by including a graphical comparative visualization of the percentage values. 

The Discussion section should be developed further by including a comparison with experiences or datasets collected in other countries, drawing upon the literature review and highlighting both different and similar trends. See, for example: https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/doi/10.1108/9781802624076

 

Author Response

 

Commet: The introduction is well-structured and provides a useful framework for the evolution of VM approaches in the 20th century. This work might also be worth considering: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-349-13350-5 

Response: The recommended book has been cited.

Comments: In the Materials and Methods section, the literature review should be expanded to include the main findings. What topics/factors were extracted from the literature review and discussed by the Focus Groups to define the questionnaire? In this reviewer opinion, the factors extracted from the literature review should be clearly explained and integrated into the workflow presented in Figure 1, perhaps through a further clustering of the topics presented in the questionnaire. Furthermore, the selection criteria for the 14 participants in the Focus Groups should be clarified, as well as how the focus group contributed to the organization of the questions subsequently submitted to the 337 participants. In this regard, an additional table (similar to Table 1) providing background information on the 14 focus group participants could be beneficial. Figure 1: Some parts of the figure are cut off; please modify it. 

Response: The background information about Focus Group participants was added and Table 2 (now it is Table-3 was modified as it indicates the factor sources whether they are derived from literature of FG. Other errors were figured out.

Comment: In the Results section, to enhance readability of the collected data, the inclusion of some graphical analysis to summarize the data in Table 2, Table 3, Table 4, Table 5, Table 6 would be beneficial. Table 7 could also be improved by including a graphical comparative visualization of the percentage values. 

Response: Several figures were added to improve the visualisation.

The Discussion section should be developed further by including a comparison with experiences or datasets collected in other countries, drawing upon the literature review and highlighting both different and similar trends. See, for example: https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/doi/10.1108/9781802624076

Response: Recommended  book has been cited

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The presented study is devoted to the current topic of implementing cost management in the construction sector, especially in the context of public works. Separately, I would like to note the depth of elaboration of existing studies in the area under consideration, which is reflected in the introduction of the article A quantitative survey of 337 participants from various roles in the construction sector ensures the representativeness of the sample and the reliability of the results obtained. In addition, the practical significance of the conclusions proposed by the authors seems important.

At the same time, in order to improve the quality of the publication under consideration, it is advisable to make the following changes:

1. The source of literature under number 14 is omitted. After 13, 15 are mentioned at once in the text
2.  In Figure 1, some words are not displayed in full.
3.  Table 1. If you add up the %, it does not always add up to 100%, check. According to the last point in Table 1, it turns out that one respondent refers to 1 project, is this really so? Another question arises regarding the budget, there are positions of employees that do not imply access to the project budget, then how accurately did they estimate the project budget?
4.  Expand the description of why the factors that were considered were chosen for the survey.
5. The column headings are missing in Table 7
6. Overall, the study is a valuable contribution to the study of the application of cost management in the construction sector. Recommended for publication after revision

Author Response

Comments:

1. The source of literature under number 14 is omitted. After 13, 15 are mentioned at once in the text (added)
2.  In Figure 1, some words are not displayed in full. (corrected)
3.  Table 1. If you add up the %, it does not always add up to 100%, check. (checked)  According to the last point in Table 1, it turns out that one respondent refers to 1 project, is this really so? Another question arises regarding the budget, there are positions of employees that do not imply access to the project budget, then how accurately did they estimate the project budget?Response: The point has not been fully understood. None means the participant has no information about the budget. This part has no influence on overall results.
4.  Expand the description of why the factors that were considered were chosen for the survey. (added)
5. The column headings are missing in Table 7 (corrected)
6. Overall, the study is a valuable contribution to the study of the application of cost management in the construction sector. Recommended for publication after revision

 

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors addressed this reviewer's comments.

The visualization of the analyses is now fine. The size of the text in Figures 2, 3, 4, and 5 should be larger, otherwise they are very difficult to read.

References 43 and 44 are incorrect and should include the full title and authors of the cited books.