Deploying Best Practices in Unfamiliar Countries

This research developed a process to improve the systematic deployment of best practices in unfamiliar countries in response to rapid globalization in the engineering and construction industry. The engineering and construction industry needs processes, metrics and tools to improve the deployment of best practices in unfamiliar countries to help facilitate project success, as new challenges are encountered. The research identified issues that are commonly encountered when deploying best practices in unfamiliar countries. The issues were identified using content analysis and verified by experts using the Delphi Method. The Analytic Hierarchy Process was used to establish weightings for the importance of each issue. The weightings were then used to create a scoring metric for companies to measure their readiness for projects. In order to overcome the issues identified in the research, a series of processes and mitigation strategies to overcome the issues were developed, through a series of interviews and focus groups. The International Readiness Passport (IRP) is a tool created to support the use of the metric and the mitigation strategies. This tool utilizes a self-scoring section which is applied to the metric. The tool then generates a report with the relevant mitigation strategies related to each issue, based on the score. To ensure that the IRP provides a meaningful benefit to the systematic deployment of best practices in unfamiliar countries, it was validated through a series of retrospective tests. These tests have confirmed the accuracy and relevance of the process, metric, and tool, as well as the tool\'s capabilities.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Civil Engineering

Department dc:contributor.department

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2013

Author dc:creator

• Horsey, Sara E.

Chairs dc:contributor.committeechair

• Taylor, John E.
• de la Garza, Jesus M.

Committee member dc:contributor.committeemember

• Thakur Wernz, Pooja

• Construction
• International Businesses
• Best Practices
• Civil Engineering

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:1607

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/51568