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Over the last few decades, flood hazards have had a greater impact on society, meaning that communities increasingly need to work together to enhance their resilience. Literature suggests that preparedness to flooding events is generally low as most individuals do not take protective actions. Therefore, there is a need to stimulate individuals' actions that increase their own and their communities' resilience to flooding. Various factors must be addressed to encourage individuals to take action, such as providing information to improve risk perception, understanding cognitive processes that interpret environmental stimuli against the mental model, and considering social and cultural influences. This paper argues that Social Responsibility (SR), defined as an individual willingness to take up actions that benefit society, is part of a pre-existing mental model that can explain intentions to take preparedness actions that improve community resilience. Due to differing socio-cultural contexts, the SR perceptions of communities in different parts of the world may differ. In order to investigate this phenomenon, data of SR perceptions obtained from 180 completed questionnaires were collected from flooded and non-flooded communities in Semarang, Indonesia, and then compared against those obtained from 313 questionnaires based on a survey of communities in Birmingham and London in the UK. The results suggest that Indonesian communities demonstrate a higher level of SR scores than UK communities. A comparison of SR scores between flooded and non-flooded communities in the UK shows a higher level of SR in flooded communities. In contrast, the comparison between corresponding Indonesian communities indicates an almost similar level of SR. A comparison of SR scores between Indonesian and UK flooded communities shows a higher level of SR in Indonesian communities across several measures. Further comparison of SR scores between Indonesia and UK non-flooded communities demonstrates higher SR in Indonesian communities in all but one measure. This suggests that experience of flooding has a much stronger influence on raising SR perceptions in UK communities. Socio-cultural background may explain these differences in SR perceptions, particularly, in relation to collectivism orientation and the close-knit nature of Indonesian communities. Although higher SR perceptions do not necessarily mean higher levels of preparedness actions, this finding illuminates the important influence of socio-cultural context on community resilience enhancing efforts that rely on collective actions by individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A participatory approach for developing future scenarios through cognitive maps as a visual representation of mental models is presented. Applying long-term future visioning techniques in a workshop setting has traditionally been a significant challenge for construction industry practitioners with a predominantly short-term, project-based approach to day-to-day operational responsibilities. Six future scenario cognitive maps are presented to illustrate the process. The maps were digitised from A1-sized papers usingDecision Explorer™ software. Several key characteristics of the resulting cognitive maps and lessons learnt for the organisation of industry-based workshops are discussed. The main benefits are derived from the interaction between participants during the mapping process whereby future issues and their interconnectivities are discussed. Limitations of the findings and further work are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the development of artificial neural network models for predicting client satisfaction levels arising from the performance of contractors, based on data from a UK-wide questionnaire survey of clients. Important independent variables identified by the models indicate that tong-term relationships may encourage higher satisfaction levels. Moreover, the performance of contractors was found to only partly contribute to determining levels of client satisfaction. Attributes of the assessor (i.e. client) were also found to be of importance, confirming that subjectivity is to some extent prevalent in performance assessment. The models demonstrate accurate and consistent predictive performance for "unseen" independent data. It is recommended that the models be used as a platform to develop an expert system aimed at advising project coalition (PC) participants on how to improve performance and enhance satisfaction levels. The use of this tool will ultimately help to create a performance-enhancing environment, leading to harmonious working relationships between PC participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]