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CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
5th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
CONTEMPORARY ACHIEVEMENTS IN CIVIL ENGINEERING 2017 , 2017.y., pp. 179-187


PROFESSION AND BUSINESS IN CONSTRUCTION PRACTICE – QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION, PART 1/31
 
DOI: 10.14415/konferencijaGFS2017.018
UDC: 69:17
CC-BY-SA 4.0 license
Author : Petković, Mirko D.
 
 Summary:
 "Business has ruined the construction industry and destroyed the profession". Does it happen only in civil engineering or also in other areas? Does it happen with profession or its ethics only? How did it happen and is that the case only in the societies that undergo transition? Could this happen without conscious abuse of the profession and the absence of professional moral? What was the role of higher education in all of this?With which assets, with what kind of background and with which flows did business buy and neutralized profession in the construction industry? What is actually management and"money making", something that business boasts about the most today but the industry timidly contests? Are the businessmen and managers actually middlemen and resellers who with the help of bankers dictate the terms of construction? Why is it that money origin and cash flow are crucial features defining each major construction project today, while specialized disputes and expert opinions often appear to be its secondary characteristics?Is it essentially the problem referring to a lack of moral and public ethical standards,characteristic for the time of crisis, or is it the consequence of business and its trait to use people of low moral standards in order to gain profit? Why are the top experts in developed countries in most cases also successful businessman? Why can this not be applied to experts in undeveloped countries? Should the state stimulate that kind of relationship or should it be their regulator? Why is the profession permanent and stable,bounded by tradition and sustainable projects, and business is fast, unstable, irrespective in case of the tradition but only to the business opportunities? Through the numerous examples of modern construction practice with many comments about the place and role of the profession in business and their mutual relationship, this research paper which is simultaneously a feasibility study, presents a modest contribution to this very significant,and at the same time a little-known and rarely mentioned subject within construction circles. With that in mind, some consciously left out data is less this paper's deficiency,and more lack of achieved level of professional experience, although it should not be forgotten that "understanding a question is half an answer" (Socrates).
 
 Keywords:
 Construction practice, business and profession, management, trade, ethics