Emrah Acar

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at Istanbul Technical University

The paper highlights key points and problem areas associated with integrating management perspective into the architectural design education. Architects with appropriate training can easily broaden their traditional roles to enhance the capacity of the society to respond to disasters through efficient, sustainable, socially and culturally responsib...

Continuing professional development (CPD) can be more successful if professional learning is matched with current knowledge, goals and career stages of architects. This is because a distinct set of motivations, drivers and barriers come into play in each career stage. CPD for architects in Turkey is not structured to address the diverse needs of pr...

Risk decisions in small companies are not only based on the rational evaluations of the likelihood and magnitude of risks, but also rely on the personal traits of the owners, who are the dominant or single decision makers in their organizations. The major hypothesis of this paper is that risk management decisions in a small organization cannot be s...

İstanbul’un tarihsel ve coğrafi konumu ile ekonomik potansiyeline bağlı olarak konut pazarının uluslararası cazibe merkesi haline gelmesi ve neoliberal ekonomi politikalarıyla beslenen kentsel dönüşüm faaliyetlerinin yarattığı tartışmalar arasında, gayrimenkul geliştiricisi yüklenici inşaat firmalarının pazarda üstünlük sağlamak ve pay kapmak için...

Displacement of masses after disasters causes large scale sheltering/housing problems. The accommodation solutions for disaster victims can take various forms such as rapidly-deployable solutions (e.g. tents) or temporary housing in appropriate places (e.g. post-disaster camps or multi-storey interim houses). Among the available solution patterns,...

"As the boundaries of knowledge continually expand, so too must our approaches to learning. To address this evolution, "The Learning Station Design Guide" offers a comprehensive framework for transforming education across all age groups and levels. Drawing upon years of rigorous research conducted at ITU's Center for Excellence in Education, this b...

Architectural restoration projects have many peculiarities that differentiate them from other construction projects. Despite the universal guidelines, standards and bylaws, a specialized approach on the management of architectural restoration projects is yet a knowledge gap. Inadequate use of project management knowledge in the field results in tim...

Building restoration is a complex process with a high level of uncertainty. It differs from many construction projects in terms of the need for research-based practices to define scope, planning, scheduling, design, supervision, decision-making, material use, construction methods, and also the legal environment. Restoration professionals can signif...

Change management is a strategic act that supports organizations in achieving their goals in the global marketplace. Construction firms as project-based entities need to manage change in different settings for survival and competitiveness. Managing change efficiently has become a central concern for construction firms in terms of sustaining and imp...

A contractor firm, which strategically positioned itself in the housing market as a "sales firm, independent of its industry" introduced a patented product innovation, the Foldhome, to the Turkish housing market in 2010. The idea behind Foldhome was adding a set of social facility areas (or, 'Folds') to core accommodation units which include a bedr...

Conversion of knowledge and experience gained in projects into organizational assets is amongst the typical challenges of job production. Lessons Learned (LL) is a management tool which managers can effectively use to distill experiences from past projects and turn each into a valuable learning experience to achieve higher performance in future pro...

Corporate university (CU) is an umbrella term for educational entities that are 'strategic tools to assist organizations in achieving their mission by various learning activities that support individual and organizational learning, knowledge and wisdom.' CUs help organizations to turn organizational learning into action, manage change through targe...

Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry significantly contributes to environmental degradation through material and energy flows and a huge amount of waste generation as a result of the demolition and refurbishment of buildings. Evidence from environmental psychology literature suggests that being informed about environmental prob...

Digital technologies are radically affecting the ways people work, learn and participate in the information society. The digital economy modifies the labor market, creates new jobs and working conditions, and shifts the skills requirements from routine cognitive and manual tasks towards non-routine tasks such as expert thinking, complex communicati...

Enhancing workplace happiness can be a means to attain the desired organizational outcomes, since happier employees tend to have a higher job performance, a better communication with colleagues, and they are less likely to quit job. As a fundamental component of workplace happiness, job satisfaction is the most commonly investigated construct in di...

Successful management of post-disaster reconstruction projects (PDRPs) can ensure the efficient use of resources and lead to improved outcomes. The literature on PDRP management is yet in its embryonic stage and systematic research efforts are necessary to address the topic. Paper compares the challenges faced in conventional projects to those in P...

Product differentiation is amongst the essentials of meeting customer needs and gaining competitive advantage over the rivals in highly dynamic markets, while efficient management of the resources in accordance with corporate strategies is key to successful outcomes. This paper focuses on the innovative business and design initiative of a Turkish c...

A significant portion of the scholarly contributions to the sustainable architecture debate falls into the 'eco-technic' stream of thought with its considerable emphasis on efficiency and high-technology as the solutions of environmental problems. This perspective, however, can be criticized for ignoring the interaction of a large set of contextual...

Konut Alım Rehberi'ni Yapı-Endüstri Merkezi'nin talebiyle ve Finansbank'ın sponsorluğunda hazırlamıştık. Geriye dönüp baktığımızda çeşitli projeler arasında katkıda bulunanlarına en çok keyif verenlerden biri oldu; zira, hedef kitlesi -diğer pek çok çalışmadan farklı olarak- sokaktaki insandı. O zaman burada ne işi var diye sorabilirsiniz...Konut A...

Natural and human-made disasters increasingly cause loss of lives and property especially in the economically less developed world. Successful delivery of post-disaster reconstruction (PDR) projects is critically important to restore basic services and return to normalcy after disasters. Management of PDR projects can be quite sophisticated with th...

Displacement of masses after disasters causes large scale sheltering/housing problems. The accommodation solutions for disaster victims can take various forms such as rapidly-deployable solutions (e.g. tents) or temporary housing in appropriate places (e.g. post-disaster camps or multi-storey interim houses). Among the available solution patterns,...

Yükseköğretim kurumlarında akademik ve idari süreçlerin iyileştirilmesini hedefleyen akademik değerlendirme ve kalite geliştirme (ADEK), iç kontrol, akreditasyon ve toplam kalite yönetimi gibi yaklaşımların kaynak-etkin, katılımcı ve eşgüdüm içinde yürütülmesini sağlayacak stratejik bir yönetim yaklaşımı benimsenmelidir. Bilgi ve iletişim teknoloji...

Bilgi ve iletişim teknolojilerindeki gelişmeler yükseköğretim kurumlarındaki akademik ve idari süreçlerin sistematik ve stratejik yaklaşımlarla yeniden yapılandırılmasını gerektirmektir. Bu bağlamda, çağdaş yönetim yaklaşımlarını yükseköğretim sistemine uygulama çabaları göze çarpmaktadır. Toplam Kalite Yönetimi (TKY) uygulamaları, Maliye Bakanlığı...

From a constructivist point of view, individuals construct knowledge through social negotiation and collaborative sense making. Digital social networking platforms and the social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others are new and efficient environments for informal learning and professional development, where professionals exchange id...

The construction industry is characterized as a complex product system industry. Complex product system projects require the temporary coalitions of organizations, efforts of which are coordinated by a specific type of organization called the ‘system integrator’. Although the traditional construction innovation literature assumes that the system in...

Organizational culture and leadership are purported to be deeply integrated and intertwined within an organization. Although there is a substantial amount of research demonstrating the importance of the interplay of culture and leadership, there exist few empirical examinations of the nature of this link. To examine this link, based on Cameron and...

Bireysel ve kurumsal girişimcilik, günümüz ekonomilerinin itici gücünü oluşturmaktadır. Firmaların büyüklüğü arttıkça ve örgütsel yapıları karmaşıklaştıkça, girişimcilik bireysel bir çaba olmaktan çıkıp kurumsal bir özellik haline gelmektedir. Firmaların kurumsal girişimcilik becerilerini artırmaları, hızla değişen pazarlarda karşılarına çıkan fırs...

This paper describes an ongoing EU project concerned with developing an instructional design framework for virtual classes (VC) that is based on the theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI) (1983). The psychological theory of Multiple Intelligences (Gardner 1983) has received much credence within instructional design since its inception and has been i...

Proposal: Architectural design companies increasingly recognize that time spent on management is not at the expense of their production and there are always better ways to organize business. Although architects have long placed a traditional emphasis on quality, quality management is still a new concept for the majority of architectural design comp...

More than 800,000 accidents and 1200 fatalities occur within the European construction industry each year. There is a compelling need to address health and safety training with innovative methods including e-learning tools, which offer several advantages in terms of the effectiveness of instructional activities. This paper reports on the progress o...

In the 2006 construction and housing in Ireland report from the central statistics office revealed that 280,000 people worked in the construction sector. This represents 13% of total employment and is the highest in the European Union. The same report identifies the construction sector as containing the highest rate of fatalities accounting for one...

Purpose The main stimulus of this study is to examine the cultural profile of construction organizations within the context of Turkish construction industry. Design/methodology/approach This study is a part of a cross‐cultural research, initiated by CIB W112 (Working Commission W112 of the International Council for Research and Innovation in Build...

The construction industry is a challenging mix of traditional hazards, on standard repetitive construction projects coupled with complex one off landmark projects. There is a compelling moral and business case for training and learning resources addressing health and safety training in the construction industry. A network of educational institution...

With the worldwide globalization trends, the study of organisations and their organisational cultures has gained more importance. However, there remains a limited empirical understanding of organizational culture in the context of the construction industry. As part of an international research project, this study examines the cultural profile of co...

Competitiveness is an evolving concept which gains new meanings in line with the dynamism of economic life. The number of research studies that focus on competitiveness in the Project and Construction Management (PCM) field is increasing steadily. However, only few studies have attempted to analyze the competitive behavior of small and medium-sized...

This paper presents part of a major research into cultural differences in construction industry. The main purpose of the paper is to investigate similarities and differences in work-goal orientation of managers involved with the construction industry. The sample for the study consists of 576 participants from the contracting firms. The Turkish vers...

Scholars usually agree that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) active in construction are not very innovative when compared with large-size construction enterprises. This is particularly evident in the case of adoption and diffusion of innovation associated with information and communication technologies (ICTs). Although ICTs are powerful in...