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The shape of a product plays a crucial role in shaping consumer behavior. Despite the voluminous research on factors influencing consumers’ shape preferences, there remains a limited understanding of how the busy mindset, a mentality increasingly emphasized by marketing campaigns, works. This study aims to fill this gap by exploring the relationship between a busy mindset and the preference for angular-shaped versus circular-shaped products and brand logos.

This research consists of seven experimental studies using various shape stimuli, distinct manipulations of busy mindset, different assessments of shape preference and samples drawn from multiple countries.

The findings reveal that a busy mindset leads to a preference for angular shapes over circular ones by amplifying the need for uniqueness. In addition, these effects are attenuated when products are scarce.

This research represents one of the pioneering efforts to study the role of a busy mindset on consumers’ aesthetic preferences. Beyond yielding insights for practitioners into visual marketing, this research contributes to the theories on the busy mindset and shape preference.

This study aims to examine the influence of benefits and risks for young women travellers on their intention to visit other night tourism destinations. It also compares any path differences between evening and midnight travels.

A face-to-face survey was conducted in Macau. Multi-group analysis was used to explore the differences between evening and midnight travels.

Emotional and epistemic benefits positively affect behavioural intentions; security risk negatively affects behavioural intentions, but the risk of sexual harassment does not affect behavioural intentions. Evening travellers pay more attention to emotional benefits than midnight travellers.

This study contributes to tourism research related to women by helping to understand the perceptions of the benefits and risks of young women travellers’ night tourism, especially the gender risks. This study corrects the understanding that young women travellers do not feel that the risk of sexual harassment affects their decision to undertake night travels. It also contributes to night tourism research by distinguishing the proportion of benefits and risks in evening and midnight travels.

本研究旨在考察年轻女性旅游者在夜间旅游中的利益和风险感知对其访问其他夜间旅游目的地意向的影响, 比较女性游客上半夜出游和下半夜出游之间的感知差异。

线下问卷调查在澳门进行, 使用多组分析方法探讨女性上半夜出游与下半夜出游的感知差异。

情感和认知的益处对行为意向产生积极影响。虽然安全风险对行为意向会产生负面影响, 但性骚扰风险并不影响行为意向。上半夜旅游者比下半夜旅游者更关注旅行对情感的益处。

本研究让读者了解到年轻女性旅游者对夜间旅游的利益和风险感知因素的看法, 尤其是对性别风险感知的看法, 对女性相关的旅游研究做出了贡献。这项研究改变了以往的认知, 即年轻女性旅游者不觉得性骚扰的风险会影响她们进行夜间旅行的决定。它还通过区分上半夜出游和下半夜出游的利益和风险比较, 为夜间旅游研究做出了贡献。

Este estudio pretende examinar la influencia de los beneficios y riesgos que tiene, para las jóvenes viajeras, su intención de visitar otros destinos de turismo nocturno. Asimismo, se compara las diferencias de trayectoria entre los viajes nocturnos y los de medianoche.

Se realizó una encuesta personal en Macao. Se utilizó un análisis multigrupo para explorar las diferencias entre los viajes nocturnos y los de medianoche.

Los beneficios emocionales y epistémicos afectan positivamente las intenciones de comportamiento, el riesgo de seguridad afecta negativamente las intenciones de comportamiento, pero el riesgo de acoso sexual no influye en las intenciones de comportamiento. Los viajeros nocturnos prestan más atención a los beneficios emocionales que en los viajes a medianoche.

Este estudio contribuye a la investigación sobre el turismo relacionado con las mujeres al ayudarnos a comprender las percepciones de los beneficios y riesgos del turismo nocturno de las jóvenes viajeras, especialmente los riesgos de género. Este estudio corrige nuestra idea de que las jóvenes viajeras no creen que el riesgo de acoso sexual afecte a su decisión de emprender viajes nocturnos. También contribuye a la investigación del turismo nocturno al distinguir la proporción de beneficios y riesgos en los viajes nocturnos y de medianoche.

The purpose of this research is to advise on UK construction delay strategies. Critical delay factors were identified and their interrelationships were explored; in addition, a predictive model was established upon the factors and interrelationships to calculate delay potentials.

The critical causes were identified by a literature review, verified by an open-ended questionnaire survey and then analysed with 299 samples returned from structured questionnaire surveys. The model consisted of factors screened out by Pearson product–moment correlational coefficient, constructed by a logical reasoning process and then quantified by conducting Bayesian belief networks parameter learning.

The technical aspect of construction project management was less critical while the managerial aspect became more emphasised. Project factors and client factors present relatively weak impact on construction delay, while contractor factors, contractual arrangement factors and distinctively interaction factors present relatively strong impact.

This research does not differentiate delay types, such as excusable vs non-excusable ones and compensable vs non-compensable ones. The model nodes have been tested to be critical to construction delay, but the model structure is mostly based on previous literature and logical deduction. Further research could be done to accommodate delay types and test the relationships.

This research updates critical delay factor list for the UK construction projects, suggesting general rules for resource allocation concerning delay avoidance. Besides, this research establishes a predictive model, assisting delay avoidance strategies on a case-by-case basis.

Using a sample of 9,898 firm-year observations from 1,821 unique Chinese listed firms over the period from 2004 to 2019, this study aims to investigate whether the market rewards meeting or beating analyst earnings expectations (MBE).

The authors use an event study methodology to capture market reactions to MBE.

The authors document a stock return premium for beating analyst forecasts by a wide margin. However, there is no stock return premium for firms that meet or just beat analyst forecasts, suggesting that the market is skeptical of earnings management by these firms. This market underreaction is more pronounced for firms with weak external monitoring. Further analysis shows that meeting or just beating analyst forecasts is indicative of superior future financial performance. The authors do not find firms using earnings management to meet or just beat analyst forecasts.

The authors provide evidence of market underreaction to meeting or just beating analyst forecasts, with the market's over-skepticism of earnings management being a plausible mechanism for this phenomenon.

The findings of this study are informative to researchers, market participants and regulators concerned about the impact of analysts and earnings management and interested in detecting and constraining managers' earnings management.

The authors provide new insights into how the market reacts to MBE by showing that the market appears to focus on using meeting or just beating analyst forecasts as an indicator of earnings management, while it does not detect managed MBE. Meeting or just beating analyst forecasts is commonly used as a proxy for earnings management in the literature. However, the findings suggest that it is a noisy proxy for earnings management.

Time-cost trade-off is normal conduct in construction projects when projects are expectedly late for delivery. Existing research on time-cost trade-off strategic management mostly focused on the technical calculation towards the optimal combination of activities to be accelerated, while the managerial aspects are mostly neglected. This paper aims to understand the managerial efforts necessary to prepare construction projects ready for an upcoming trade-off implementation.

A preliminary list of critical factors was first identified from the literature and verified by a Delphi survey. Quantitative data was then collected by a questionnaire survey to first shortlist the preliminary factors and quantify the predictive model with different machine learning algorithms, i.e. k-nearest neighbours (kNN), radial basis function (RBF), multiplayer perceptron (MLP), multinomial logistic regression (MLR), naïve Bayes classifier (NBC) and Bayesian belief networks (BBNs).

The model's independent variable importance ranking revealed that the top challenges faced were the realism of contractual obligation, contractor planning and control and client management and monitoring. Among the tested machine learning algorithms, multilayer perceptron was demonstrated to be the most suitable in this case. This model accuracy reached 96.5% with the training dataset and 95.6% with an independent test dataset and could be used as the contingency approach for time-cost trade-offs.

The identified factor list contributed to the theoretical explanation of the failed implementation in general and practical managerial improvement to better avoid such failure. In addition, the established predictive model provided an ad-hoc early warning and diagnostic tool to better ensure time-cost implementation success.

This paper aims to devise a case-controlled method combined with Bradford Hill criteria for causal inference of contractual disputes in construction projects. It is a genuine attempt in a systematic method from research design to execution for causal issues where only observational data is available.

The authors located insufficient top management support as the putative pathogen of construction disputes based on a literature review, an interview and Delphi surveys. A questionnaire survey was then conducted to collect case-controlled data to ensure comparability, in which for each disputed project put in the experimental group, the authors sought for a dispute-free project of similar characteristics. The incidence rates of insufficient top management support in the experimental and control groups were then examined by Bradford Hill criteria as an alternative to the test of intervention effect.

The association of insufficient top management support and construction disputes was tested to conform with the Bradford Hill criteria with case-controlled data where applicable and logical deduction where statistical tests were not applicable. With a clear, positive, reasonable and statistically significant association, while excluding methodological biases, confounding and chance, the authors reached a causal verdict of insufficient top management support causing contractual disputes.

This paper supports the validity of applying a case-controlled method combined with Bradford Hill criteria in investigating causal issues in project management, especially the verdict of causal inference based on empirical data. In addition, the located root cause of contractual disputes could inform project management personnel with reasoned strategies for dispute avoidance.

The purpose of this paper is to present evidence to the heated debate “whether Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model should be introduced into the hospitals” and, if so, how to promote the social sustainability of such PPP projects.

This paper has established an analytical framework to analyse the social sustainability of PPP projects. Using content analysis method, a single case study was carried out on the Northern Beaches Hospital in Sydney, Australia.

The results show that there are many problems related to social sustainability in the project, due to which employees and patients were exposed to most of them. Some recommendations are provided, including to strengthen the supervision of the project, provide sufficient information, establish communication channels and stakeholder participation, improve hospital policies and procedures, and strengthen government support.

This paper can provide guidance for the stakeholders in a partnership, including the public and private sectors, to analyse the social sustainability implications, and then plan and implement hospital PPP projects to achieve social sustainability goals. Meanwhile, it can also provide important reference for the employees, patients, local community and society to assess social sustainability issues, and provide relevant inputs to inform decision-makers in the development, delivery and management of hospital projects.

The research will contribute to knowledge of social sustainability of hospital PPP projects. The proposed analytical framework can be used to analyse and assess the social sustainability of such projects from the perspective of stakeholders.

This paper aims to present a method based on dynamics to find the transient pressure at the nozzle area of a piezoelectric inkjet printer. This pressure responds to input signals of the piezoelectric driver deformation. The pressure at the nozzle is the boundary condition of the computational fluid dynamics model of the inkjet printer nozzle, and serves as the “bridge” between the piezoelectric driver actuation and the droplet generation of an inkjet printer.

The transient pressure was estimated using a fluid-solid coupling numerical model of the printerhead. In this study, a simple step-shape signal was applied. The printerhead chamber was considered to act as a linear Helmholtz resonator to determine the system transfer function between the input of driver deformation and the output of pressure. By decomposing the input signal into several simple signals, the transient pressure is the superposition of those calculated pressures.

The pressure values determined by transfer function and by superposition match the pressure values directly calculated by a fluid-solid coupling model. This demonstrates the rationality and practicability of the method.

This paper proposes a method to identify a proper boundary condition of pressure for numerical models that only include the fluid field around the nozzle. This strategy eliminates the need to calculate the complex and unstable fluid-solid coupling for every pattern of input. Additionally, the suitable boundary condition of transient pressure can be set rather than relying on the shape of the PZT driver deformation signal.

This paper aims to present an optimization method of the input driving signal of a piezoelectric inkjet printhead to improve droplet consistency and increase jetting frequency.

The optimization target is the transient pressure in the nozzle caused by the input driving signal, which directly generates the droplets. After demonstrating the linearity of the driving input and system pressure, an analytic model as a transfer function was developed, allowing calculation of the pressure vibration in the nozzle for an arbitrary input. Different patterns of input signal were parameterized and applied into the optimizing function, which represents the difference between the ideal and the actual pressure vibration. By determining the function minimum, the optimized parameters of the input signal were estimated.

Optimization results of different input patterns were compared and verified by the numerical model of the printhead, and it was revealed that the optimization method that combined the quenching pulse and an increased falling time interval was more effective than use of a single method.

After the process of optimization, a new type of input signal to the piezoelectric inkjet printhead was showed. By this method, the frequency of the printhead could be increased without losing consistency of droplets.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether and how analysts’ foreign ancestral origins would have an effect on analysts’ earning forecasts in particular and ultimately on firms’ information environment in general.

By inferring analysts’ ancestral countries based on their surnames, this study empirically examines whether analysts’ ancestral countries affect their earnings forecast errors.

Using novel data on analysts’ foreign ancestral origins from more than 110 countries, this study finds that relative to analysts with common American surnames, analysts with common foreign surnames tend to have higher earnings forecast errors. The positive relation between analyst foreign surnames and earnings forecast errors is more likely to be observed for African-American analysts and analysts whose ancestry countries are geographically apart from the USA. In contrast, this study finds that when analysts’ foreign countries of ancestry are aligned with that of the CEOs, analysts exhibit lower earnings forecast errors relative to analysts with common American surnames. More importantly, the results show that firms followed by more analysts with foreign surnames tend to exhibit higher earnings forecast errors.

Taken together, findings of this study are consistent with the conjecture that geographical, social and ethnical proximity between managers and analysts affect firms’ information environment. Therefore, this study contributes to the determinants of analysts’ earnings forecast errors and adds to the literature on firms’ information environment.