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Despite the critical role of the policy environment in facilitating the advancement of building information modeling (BIM) as a systemic innovation to reshape traditional facility design, construction and operation processes, scant scholarly attention has been paid to systematically investigating how and why complex BIM policies are concretely and gradually implemented in different regional contexts from a dynamic policy diffusion perspective. This study aims to empirically investigate how different types of BIM policy instruments are dynamically implemented in heterogeneous regions over time and how the diffusion of BIM policies across different regions is comprehensively impacted by both internal efficiency needs and external legitimacy pressures.

This study employed a positivist research paradigm in which BIM policy data from 182 prefecture-level and above cities in China during 2011–2022 were analyzed with quantitative approaches for theory verification. Based on the content analysis of the evolutionary characteristics of the adopted BIM policy instruments in heterogeneous regions over time, the event history analysis (EHA) method was then used to further examine the mechanisms underlying the diffusion of BIM policies across different regions.

The content analysis results show that while environmental instruments (such as technological integration and goal planning) are the primary policy instruments currently adopted in China, recent years have also witnessed increasing adoptions of supply-side instruments (such as fiscal support and information support) and demand-side instruments (such as demonstration projects and tax incentives). After controlling for the impacts of regional fiscal and technical resources, the EHA results illustrate that BIM policy adoption positively relates to regional construction industry scale but negatively relates to regional industry productivity and that compared with public pressures from industry participants, vertical pressures from the central government and horizontal pressures from neighboring regions are more substantial drivers for policy adoption.

As an exploratory effort of using a dynamic policy diffusion perspective to systematically investigate how BIM policies are adopted in heterogeneous regional contexts to facilitate BIM advancement, this study not only characterizes the complexity and dynamics of BIM policies but also provides deepened understandings of the mechanisms underlying policy adoption in the conservative construction industry. The findings hold implications for how multifarious policy instruments can be more effectively and dynamically adopted to facilitate the advancement of BIM and related technologies as innovative solutions in the construction domain.

This paper examines the ways in which Chinese university middle managers evaluate subordinate performance in response to the Chinese Double First-Class University Plan, a national project that ranks the performance of universities. In exploring compromise arrangements, the hybridised valuing activity of middle managers is found to be shaped by emergent and extant macro-foundations.

The qualitative data from 49 semi-structured interviews at five Chinese public universities were conducted. Drawing on macro-foundational studies and the sociology of worth (SW) theory, the analysis helps to identify socially shared patterns of actions and outcomes.

The findings elucidate the interplay between diverse economic, social, political and institutional values and the compromise-making by middle managers. The authors find that contextual factors restrict Chinese academic middle managers' autonomy, preventing workable compromise. Through the selective adoption of international and local management practices, compromise has evolved into a private differential treaty at the operational level.

A nuanced explanation reveals how the macro-foundations of Chinese society influence middle managers who engage with accounting when facilitating compromise. This study helps outsiders better understand the complex convergence and divergence of performance evaluative practices in Chinese universities against the backdrop of global market-based forces and the moral dimensions of organisational life. The findings have wider implications for the Chinese government in navigating institutional steps and developing supportive policies to enable middle managers to advance productive but also sustainable compromise.

This paper aims to investigate how emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs) are integrating and expanding into other emerging market host countries, focusing on Chinese mining companies in Peru.

Adopting a qualitative approach, an in-depth analysis of two Chinese state-owned enterprises’ strategies was conducted, building on stakeholder theory and the business ecosystem perspective.

This study reveals a reliance on high-level political lobbying rather than localized engagement strategies. However, findings point to increasing grassroots resistance among local stakeholders, undermining EMNEs’ bargaining power.

This paper argues for a paradigm shift toward inclusive, cooperative “translocal governance” approaches as empowered communities gain voice. Key contributions include advancing theoretical understanding of changing stakeholder relationships and power configurations in emerging countries, underscoring the rising significance of microlevel sociocultural embeddedness for MNE success and highlighting practical imperatives for EMNEs to embark on rapid localization strategies in Latin America. By elucidating multilayered integration realities in Peru, this interdisciplinary study yields contextualized insights and enriches perspective on the conditions and pathways for EMNEs to build sustainability in Global South emerging market environments.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate public disclosures and accountability for government decision-making in the case of a major prison project delivered through a Public–Private Partnership (PPP) in the State of Victoria (Australia).

The study explores a unique case to provide insights into public disclosures for PPPs in a jurisdiction that is a recognised leader in PPP policy and practice. The analysis is theoretically framed by an understanding of neoliberalism and New Public Management, and draws on data from case-specific reporting, media reporting and public policy, to examine interconnections between accounting, public discourse and accountability.

The analysis shows how publicly available information relating to key government decisions routinely lacked supporting evidence or explanation, even though areas of subjectivity were recognised in public policy. Accounting was deployed numerically and discursively to present potentially contestable decisions as being based on common-sense “facts”. The implied “truth” status of government reporting is problematised by media disclosure of key issues absent from government disclosures.

Under neoliberalism, accountingisation can help depoliticise the public sphere and limit discourse by constructing ostensible “facts” in an inherently contestable arena. By contrast, democratic accountability requires public disclosures that infuse a critical dialogical public sphere.

The paper shows how neoliberalism can be embedded in public policies and institutional practices, and buttressed by the use of accounting. The analysis illuminates the persistence and “failing forward” character of neoliberalism, whereby crises are addressed through further neoliberalisation.

Mediation is defined as a process, whether referred and agreed to by the expression mediation, pre-litigation mediation, online mediation, community mediation, conciliation or any other expression of such similar import, whereby party or parties, request an independent third person referred to as mediator or mediation service provider to assist them in their attempt to reach a peaceful settlement of a dispute. The peaceful settlement of any dispute to be initiated, processed, guided and moderated in the process of successful mediation before parties, needs mediator to have four major new skills such as witness-awareness, stillness-concentration, empathy-motivation and a pragmatic-sensibility for fulfilling the aims and outcomes of mediation. These four skills are deeply inward and psychological, which can be accessed and empowered by an exercise of deepening experience called spiritual in content and application. However, a crucial interchange of meaning and value that very often come into this situation between spirituality and psychology is an important one to be mentioned here. The two seemingly distant disciplines of experience, one of psychology and another of spirituality lies in the orientation that an individual and a collective give to life and world as a whole. When life and world are accepted in totality, spirituality can be life-affirmative and world-embracing giving us a direction to the individual psychological states of though-emotion-sensation-behaviour complex to embrace and enhance values of inclusion, harmony and development at the collective and universal level. These psychological states, both individual and collective, gradually open the vision and mission of values to live within and outside, to be and to become, and finally manifest a future world of stability, order, richness and growing perfection by solving challenges that come to our existence. It makes life both spiritual and earthly. This chapter demonstrates that this kind of spiritual meaning, value and experience entering into and operating through psychological capacities give mediator four major new skills for easing the process and purpose of mediation exercise. One, an objective awareness to witness the proceedings of the mediation calmly within the conscious cognition and without having any bias and fixed beliefs towards any issues of the parties. Two, a stillness with sensory concentration to avoid unnecessary reactions or agitations that human nature is prone to in taking sides on issues or become lop-sided in approach and consequently affecting mediation's outcome of peaceful settlement. Three, an empathy that animates and motivates parties to look for win-win situation for both as against the adversarial method currently present in the legal system where one party loses and another party gains grounds, which results in bitterness in parties' relationships, rights and obligations. Four, a pragmatic sensibility or practical responsibility by which costs or damages or injuries of all kinds such as social, economic, profit-loss ratio, psychological or organizational stress etc., can be pre-calculated, meaningfully distributed and harmonized between parties by the mediator. With millions of pending legal cases in the existing system of the courts of law that are supposedly designed to provide access to justice and, unfortunately have become fragile as a result of severe shortage of resources of all kinds to deal with sheer quantity and intricate complexity of issues in the disputes, applied spirituality in mediation can pave way for easy, flexible, quick, cost-effective and satisfactory justice to both sides of the parties when these four major new skills are developed through application of spiritual experience and experiments in the whole process of mediation. The author explains in this article the method of acquiring these four major new skills in experiential form in any mediation scenario and the rationale for infusing applied spirituality in mediation. Author also discusses the Indian situation of mediation in the light of new developments sought for enhancing the alternative dispute resolution. At the end, this chapter demonstrates the bigger picture that represent the need of spirituality using these four major new skills while mediating challenges of sustainable development. It will be shown in the end how spirituality, sustainability and mediation for settlements of disputes of sustainable development have something common, core and collective. This is the premise based on which the relationship between applied spirituality and mediation in overcoming the challenges of sustainability are expressed with the help of intuitive, inspirational, integrative and intelligent actions for a sustaining our future age, new humanity and harmonious space.

This article analyzes the relationships between different conceptions of time, socioeconomic development and cultural values.

We focus on three major aspects of time, namely, 1) duration, 2) orientation and 3) tempo. Furthermore, we draw on modernization theory to distinguish between agrarian/traditional and industrial/modern societies and their respective cultural values.

Analyses indicate that agrarian/traditional societies with cultural values such as collectivism, survival, religiosity and hierarchical structures are marked by subjective/cyclical/inaccurate, past-oriented and slow-paced conceptions of time. In contrast, industrial/modern societies with cultural values such as individualism, self-expression, secularism and egalitarianism are marked by objective/linear/accurate, future-oriented and accelerated conceptions of time.

This paper introduces an original conceptualization of the three dimensions of time – duration, orientation and tempo – previously overlooked in the literature. Additionally, it provides an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of the relationships between time, culture and socioeconomic development.

This paper seeks to illustrate how interventionist education reforms shape dis/trust-building processes and their impact on teacher professionalism in vocational education and training (VET) across national contexts. Using trust as the object of analysis, we discuss the affective mechanisms of becoming a professional in a standards-based neoliberal environment.

Through an analysis of VET teacher narratives in England and Austria, the paper draws attention to the ways in which policy instrumentalism has created a culture of distrust in VET. Drawing upon foundational work on system trust developed by Niklas Luhmann, we illustrate how conditions for trust sit at symbolic thresholds, which set the conditions for professional recognition within VET.

Our analysis revealed that attempts to standardise VET strategy are fuelled by the need for existential security and predictability, leading to tensions in the cultivation of system trust. Conditions for professional recognition across both contexts were based on practices of documentation and subordination, narrowly defining modes of legitimate self-expression in organisations. This constitutes a crisis of trust in VET teacher professionalism, which undermines pedagogical autonomy and integrity.

We seek to highlight the impact that reduced trust in the governance of VET can have on issues associated with teacher motivation, well-being and retention. The consideration of trust is therefore essential both for policy design and implementation in VET organisations.

The application of trust theory offers a distinctive lens through which to understand the impact of accountability, performativity and governance processes upon teacher subjectivity within VET across national contexts.

This viewpoint adds context and variety to the “decolonizing international business” debate by engaging in a discussion of the decolonial thinking approach and proposing a broader framework for analysing the link between international business (IB) activities on the one hand and colonisation and decolonisation on the other. The purpose of this paper is to inspire a more intensive engagement of IB scholarship with issues related to colonisation and decolonisation.

This paper involves taking a reflexive review on recent calls to decolonise IB, contextualising and extending the decolonisation debate in the academic field of IB.

This paper argues that the current discussion of decolonisation should be extended beyond the decolonial thinking approach and its focus on knowledge and the cultural dimension towards a broader framework that covers both colonisation and decolonisation as well as the respective economic, political, social and cultural dimensions. It introduces the varieties of colonisation and decolonisation approach, which considers the complexities of the phenomenon and covers the economic, social, political and cultural dimensions.

Through its focus on foreign market expansion, international trade, global value chains and formal and informal institutions in the business environment, the academic field of IB provides several starting points for research on the link between IB activities and colonisation and decolonisation. The decolonisation debate can be used to inspire future research in IB, for example, with respect to the role of multinational corporations in colonisation and neo-colonisation processes and the implications of the emerging multipolar world order for IB.

IB scholars will be better informed when engaging in discussions on decolonisation and the decolonise IB project. This paper suggests considering both colonisation and decolonisation processes as well as the respective economic, political, social and cultural dimensions in research and teaching. The varieties of colonisation and decolonisation approach provides a comprehensive and flexible alternative framework to analyse issues related to colonisation and decolonisation.

A balanced view of the implications of colonisation and decolonisation with respect to economic, political, social and cultural dimensions may suitably be incorporated in the field of IB and contribute to tackling grand societal challenges. This applies likewise to past, current and future processes of colonisation and decolonisation.

This paper contextualises and adds a new perspective and variety to the current debate on decolonising IB. This is valuable for engaging in discussions on decolonisation and future conceptual and empirical research on the topic.