PhD Dissertation Final Oral Defense

Title of dissertation: A Decision Support Tool for Enhancing Social Sustainability within the UAE Construction Sector

Name of Candidate: Sara Saboor
Name of Supervisor: Dr. Vian Ahmed
Program: PhD in Engineering - Engineering Systems Management

Abstract
One of the most significant sectors of the country that acts as its economic backbone is its construction sector. Due to its diverse and dynamic environment, the sector aids in creating jobs across different sectors such as transportation, real estate, manufacturing, trade, warehousing, wholesale and leasing services. The sector alone employs about one-quarter of the world’s workforce. However, despite the importance of the sector, grave issues of mental health and social sustainability were reported over the years. Besides, though the literature reports on several studies and reliable scales that have been proposed over the years that have linked the concept of employee mental health and wellbeing with job satisfaction, productivity, absenteeism, and low turnover rates,  they tend to work in isolation and focus on only certain aspects of mental health. Little or no research has been conducted to support the organization in decision making and monitor the organization in working on enhancing the social sustainability and mental health of employees in the construction sector, thus indicating a research gap. Therefore, this study adopts a mixed-method approach by adopting semi-structured interviews, surveys, and case study to identify and validate the list of underpinning criteria that define employees' social sustainability. The Exploratory Structural Equation modeling aids the study to determine the significant criteria that have impact on the social sustainability and employee mental health and wellbeing. Moreover, the decision criteria identified from the literature and alternatives criteria identified from literature and ESEM were integrated in developing the decision Support Tool based on Hybrid AHP and Fuzzy MOORA method. The DST identifies training and development, work environment, equity factor, contract type, organizational support, work life balance and work control as the optimal way of investing to ensure the social sustainability of its employee. Finally, the study proposed a conceptual framework for monitoring of social sustainability as a complement approach to address the non-dynamic nature of DST based on Blockchain and IOT Social Sustainability Management. Finally, to validate the DST and BOTSSM framework, the study conducted a focus group with experts from the construction sector and Wake Cap technologies as experts in IOT and Blockchain.