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Insufficient productivity development in the global and Finnish infrastructure sectors indicates that there are challenges in genuinely achieving the goals of resource efficiency and digitalization. This study adapts the approach of capability maturity model integration (CMMI) for examining the capabilities for productivity development that reveal the enablers of improving productivity in the infrastructure sector.

Civil engineering in Finland was selected as the study area, and a qualitative research approach was adopted. A novel maturity model was constructed deductively through a three-step analytical process. Previous research literature was adapted to form a framework with maturity levels and key process areas (KPAs). KPA attributes and their maturity criteria were formed through a thematic analysis of interview data from 12 semi-structured group interviews. Finally, validation and refinement of the model were performed with an expert panel.

This paper provides a novel maturity model for examining and enhancing the infrastructure sector’s maturity in productivity development. The model brings into discussion the current business logics, relevance of lifecycle-thinking, binding targets and outcomes of limited activities in the surrounding infrastructure system.

This paper provides a new approach for pursuing productivity development in the infrastructure sector by constructing a maturity model that adapts the concepts of CMMI and change management. The model and findings benefit all actors in the sector and provide an understanding of the required elements and means to achieve a more sustainable built environment and effective operations.

The mobile shadow information technology (IT) phenomenon is both completely misunderstood and negatively explored by those participating inside the organizational ecosystem. It represents all internet-based software, any other solutions for communications or employees’ sharing without any formal authorization or approval from the IT department. Such behavior can lead to a security breach of the organization’s data privacy, as these risks could disseminate it without the organization fully knowing. Recent research identifies that shadow IT is rarely covered from the knowledge sharing and knowledge protection (KP) perspective. This paper aims to provide an insight on how mobile shadow IT as a phenomenon could impact KP of an organization as a whole.

This is an exploratory study based on a qualitative approach. The authors conducted interviews with 11 IT users to answer the main research question. The interview guidelines were divided into three parts: types of mobile shadow IT and occurrence; KP nature in the workplace; and mobile shadow IT impact on KP.

The research findings identified that most interviewees use mobile shadow IT without any notice or permission from their IT departments. This sharing also negatively impacts the KP in the organization. The most common mobile shadow IT applications are the clouded type like Dropbox, Google Drive and WhatsApp. Interviewees are using mobile shadow IT mainly because organizations do not provide suitable tools to communicate efficiently. The authors concluded that mobile shadow IT harms KP with no security and privacy on what is being shared because this process is unmonitored by the organization.

For adequate knowledge and data protection, IT departments need to take more actions and efforts. This study can help IT decision-makers cope with the technology changes while understanding mobile shadow IT impacts. This study also offers insight regarding types of applications that can be used as an alternative tool for employees rather than using unauthorized applications. This research shows that medium-sized organizations are free to use these applications, which can cause damage to organizations.

This research is arguably among the first to explore the interviewees’ perspectives on how mobile shadow IT impacts KP. This paper also provides theoretical and practical insights by identifying the three primary constructs and how mobile shadow IT usage can affect KP.

The purposes of this qualitative study were to determine the contribution of 4-H experiences to leadership life skill development of college-level 4-H alumni and to determine the effect of those skills on collegiate alumni’s desire to continue involvement in 4-H. The research methods included semi-structured interviews. Major findings of the study noted that the interviewees’ 4-H experiences positively contributed to leadership life skill development, closely following the pattern of the four essential elements which serve as the foundation of 4-H programming. Also identified was a strong desire of college-level 4-H alumni to continue their participation with 4-H. Recommendations include specifically targeting this generation of alumni for greater utilization because of their strong desire to stay connected.

Entrepreneurial Ecosystems (EES) is among the fastest growing entrepreneurship research topics. With even greater vigour, the non-scientific world of economic development agencies, administrations and policymakers has adopted the construct and applies it widely “in the field”, often lacking a solid empirical foundation and pursuing sub-optimal approaches. Improving policy instruments for EES development requires a data driven approach to first understand an EES of a specific region before making any attempts to change it. The paper showcases an empirical approach to create empirically rooted EES policy implications, contributing to closing the gap for insight in regional EES data of sub-national regions.

Exploring a mixed method design, utilising quantitative Global Entrepreneurship Monitor data and combining it with EES stakeholder interviews, focusing on dysfunctions, redundancies, power asymmetries and cut off elements as well as in-layer division and public organisation behaviour.

One finding is, that regional economic development agencies (EDA), as a main public instrument to foster regional entrepreneurial activity, seem to bring the potential of a negative impact on Entrepreneurial Ecosystems bottom-up development and the ability to become self-sustained if they assume the role of competitors towards private organisations and businesses.

As other work on EES, the approach used in this paper only sub-optimally covers temporal system dynamics.

This paper contributes to future EES support policies being rooted in an empirical foundation.

This paper not only progresses the empirical basis for research on regional EES but also lays the foundation for specific policy implications for a sub-national level entrepreneurial ecosystem.

IN problems involving mechanics and engineering, determination of moment of inertia, product of inertia and second moment of area is a common procedure. But, frequently, it is by no means an easy one. For example, when considering the moment of inertia of the triangle or figures built up from the triangle, the mathematics involving calculus and several inertia theorems, can be difficult in manipulation.

The successful implementation of hospital projects (HPs) tends to confront sundry challenges in the planning and construction (P&C) phases due to their complexity and particularity. Employing key performance indicators (KPIs) facilitates the monitoring of HPs to advance their successful delivery. This study aims to comprehensively investigate the KPIs for hospital planning and construction (HPC).

The KPIs for HPC were identified through a systematic review. Then a comprehensive assessment of these KPIs was performed utilizing a meta-analysis method. In this process, basic statistical analysis, subgroup analysis, sensitive analysis and publication bias analysis were performed.

Results indicate that all 27 KPIs identified from the literature are significant for executing HPs in P&C phases. Also, some unconventional performance indicators are crucial for implementing HPs, such as “Project monitoring effectiveness” and “Industry innovation and synergy,” as their high significance is reflected in this study. Despite the fact that the findings of meta-analysis are more trustworthy than those of individual studies, a high heterogeneity still exists in the findings. It highlights the inherent uncertainty in the construction industry. Hence, this study applied subgroup analysis to explore the underlying factors causing the high level of heterogeneity and used sensitive analysis to assess the robustness of the findings.

There is no consensus among the prior studies on KPIs for HPC specifically and their degree of significance. Additionally, few reviews in this field have focused on the reliability of the results. This study comprehensively assesses the KPIs for HPC and explores the variability and robustness of the results, which provides a multi-dimensional perspective for practitioners and the research community to investigate the performance of HPs during the P&C stages.

This chapter focusses on the identification of sustainability factors. Out of the 77 variables used in the questionnaire for collection of the information, on sustainability of financial innovation in e-payment system (EPS), the important factors are identified and derived using exploratory factor analysis (EFA). This chapter further presents validation of the identified factors through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Based on the identified factors, a model for EPS is proposed. The chapter also presents a scale developed based on identified factors.

The decision to become international is a highlighted organisational decision that affects all dimensions at all firm levels. Human resources are also among the parts of the organisation affected by this decision. Paying attention to employees can speed up and facilitate this process. Organisational integrity is one of the most significant issues that must be considered. In this regard, identifying, investigating and planning to deal with the destructive effects that may influence the employees of small and medium-sized enterprise (SMEs) in internationalisation, are among the subjects that have so far received less attention and should be studied more. The present study explores the destructive influences of internationalisation on the employees of SMEs by a hybrid multi-layer decision-making model-psychological solution. First, by reviewing the literature, the destructive impacts of internationalisation on employees are extracted. In the next stage, these factors are screened according to the condition of the SMEs in an emerging economy by interval-valued intuitionistic hesitant fuzzy Delphi (IVIHF-Delphi). The impact of these factors on each other is then evaluated applying interval-valued intuitionistic hesitant fuzzy DEMATEL-based ANP (IVIHF-DANP). Consequently, the highlighted destructive impacts are determined and the psychological solutions to face them are provided.

Underlying much recent development in data science and artificial intelligence (AI) is a dependence on the labour of precarious crowdworkers via platforms such as Amazon Mechanical Turk. These platforms have been widely critiqued for their exploitative labour relations, and over recent years, there have been various efforts by academic researchers to develop interventions aimed at improving labour conditions. The aim of this paper is to explore US-based crowdworkers’ views on two proposed interventions: a browser plugin that detects automated quality control “Gold Question” (GQ) checks and a proposal for a crowdworker co-operative.

The authors interviewed 20 US-based crowdworkers and undertook a thematic analysis of collected data.

The findings indicate that US-based crowdworkers tend to have negative and mixed feelings about the GQ detector, but were more enthusiastic about the crowdworker co-operative.

Drawing on theories of precarious labour, this study suggests an explanation for the findings based on US-based workers’ objective and subjective experiences of precarity. The authors argue that for US-based crowdworkers “constructive” interventions such as a crowdworker co-operative have more potential to improve labour conditions.