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This study aims to evaluate the perception of the local experts and end users on the drivers, barriers and strategies to the use of alternative building technologies (ABTs), with a focus on sandbag building technologies (SBTs) in the provision of sustainable housing in South Africa towards improving the public's understanding of SBTs.

This research adopted a qualitative approach that used focus group meetings as the primary data collection method for this study. This study's focus group participants comprised ABT experts and end users of ABT houses in South Africa who were selected using a convenient sampling technique. The data were recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed using NVivo 11 software.

This study found that the perceived drivers to using ABTs such as SBT comprise sustainability, affordability, job creation potentials, fire-resistant and earthquake resistance. This study revealed strategies for the SBTs, including awareness, building sandbag prototypes across cities and training.

This study's findings have practical implications for the practice and praxis of ABT implementation and uptake in South Africa. This study provides a framework for broadening the worldwide understanding of use and uptake of SBTs to provide sustainable and affordable housing.

This study adds significantly to the limited body of knowledge on ABTs, focusing on sandbag houses. Consequently, the findings provide policymakers with information on the expert and end-user perspectives on the barriers and strategies to using ABTs.

Anecdotal evidence indicates that there is a backlog in the pre-tertiary school infrastructure in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. The purpose of this paper is to assess the adoption of alternative building technologies (ABT) for pre-tertiary educational infrastructure delivery with a view to providing empirical evidence that could guide policy responses towards its wider adoption.

The study adopted a mixed methodology approach. This comprises a triangulation of a questionnaire survey and interviews. In total, 100 participants were randomly selected from 182 built environment professionals namely quantity surveyors, architects and engineers (electrical, mechanical, civil and structural) from the Department of Roads and Public Works (DRPW), who are currently involved in the Eastern Cape School Building Program (ECSBP). The questionnaire survey was supplemented by semi-structured interviews conducted with four top government officials (three from the Department of Education (DoE) and one from DRPW) who were also part of the questionnaire survey. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics and phenomenological interpretation respectively.

The key findings showed that the level of adoption of ABT for pre-tertiary school infrastructure in the Eastern Cape province is primarily influenced and explained by perceptions that ABT offers inferior quality products compared to the conventional method, and limited awareness of its benefits.

The study provides useful insights into the implications of the limited awareness of ABT as a an alternative technology for educational infrastructure delivery and policy responses towards its wider adoption and environmental sustainability.

Empirical evidence from this study indicates that the main motivation for the adoption of ABT is the limited government’s budget to cope with school infrastructural backlog, while environmental sustainability benefit is only secondary. Nonetheless, the realization that the backlogs in the provision of school infrastructure has resulted from sole reliance on the use of the conventional method is an indication of the potential that the adoption of ABT holds for minimizing of the backlog.

Though alternative building technologies (ABTs) have been encouraged to address accessible and affordable issues in low-cost housing (LCH) provision, their adoption is still overwhelmed with encumbrances. The encumbrances that hinder ABT adoption require an in-depth study, especially in developing countries like Nigeria. However, studies regarding ABT and its role in improving Nigeria's LCH to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 are scarce. This research investigates encumbrances to ABT adoption in Nigeria's LCH provision and suggests feasible measures to prevent or reduce the encumbrances, thereby improving achieving SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities).

This research utilised qualitative research and adopted a face-to-face interview as the primary data collection. The interviewees comprised ABT practitioners and end users in Nigeria who were chosen by a convenient sampling technique. The study's data were analysed manually through a thematic approach.

This study shows that stakeholders should embrace ABT in LCH provision to improve achieving SDG 11 in Nigeria. Also, it clustered the perceived 20 encumbrances to ABT adoption in LCH provision into government/policymaker, housing developers/building contractors, ABT users and ABT manufacturers-related issues in Nigeria's context. This study suggested mechanisms to mitigate encumbrances to ABT adoption in LCH provision, thereby improving achieving SDG 11.

This research adds to the limited literature by analysing ABT adoption encumbrances in Nigeria's LCH provision, which could assist policy formulation for the uptake of ABT in LCH provision and improve achieving Goal 11.

Sandbag building technologies (SBTs) have been offered as a cost-effective and sustainable alternative building technology (ABT) capable of accelerating house construction in South Africa, but its acceptance remains low. However, knowledge about how to effectively improve SBT social acceptance is limited. This study aims to develop and prioritise SBT social acceptability strategies towards providing a comprehensive framework for the successful deployment and widespread adoption of sandbag technology.

This study used a quantitative research strategy that included a literature review and a structured questionnaire survey of 228 ABT professionals and stakeholders in the South African housing industry. The study statistically analysed 13 strategies for the social acceptance of SBT.

The analysis showed that the top three strategies include the availability of sandbag demonstration projects in all provinces, the approval of a sandbag building code and the availability of standard design methods for earthbags. A factor analysis clustered the 13 strategies into Stakeholders integration and policy formation, Effective education and knowledge sharing and Grassroots advocacy and incentives.

The current study’s findings provide a broad framework for the effective implementation and wide acceptance of sandbag technology in housing projects. It offered certain best practices that policymakers and practitioners might use to promote ABT and SBT societal acceptability.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the study represents the first and only attempt to investigate the viewpoints of experts and housing market stakeholders in South Africa regarding sandbag technology social acceptance strategies and contributes to the social acceptance body of knowledge in ABT and SBT.

As the impacts of climate change become more evident, the need to adopt new ways of constructing buildings becomes more urgent. The Earth has experienced hotter climates globally for the last 70 years (NASA, 2019), and this has resulted in unprecedented levels of bushfire in Australia, flooding in the UK and drought in Africa in early 2020 (World Resources Institute, 2019). The predictions are for increased temperatures globally and increasing carbon emissions from fossil fuel consumption. There is a critical need to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels as a building energy source (WCED, 1987). Existing renewables focus on solar, wind and wave power, where technological improvements have increased efficiencies (Hinnells, 2008). Uptake of the technologies is variable depending on location and willingness to adopt renewables. As well as further uptake of existing renewable energy sources, we need to look wider and across traditional discipline groups, at new technologies such as biotechnologies. One potential energy source is biofuels. Biofuels are produced from biomass, which is algae. In 2016, the BIQ, a four-storey apartment building, was constructed in Hamburg, Germany. The BIQ features glazed façade panels filled with algae to produce biomass and solar thermal energy. Could algae building technology (ABT), in the form of façade panels, offer a new renewable energy source?

What are the technical issues associated with Algae building technology? This qualitative research sought to identify what technical issues likely to arise in terms of algae building construction, operation and maintenance. Semi-structured interviews with 24 experienced built environment professionals in Australia were undertaken in 2016 to assess the most likely issues that could arise with this new innovative technology.

As a result, a greater understanding of the range of technical issues related to design, construction, maintenance and operation were identified, as well as the perceived importance of those issues. It was possible to identify the top ten technical issues built environment professionals are concerned about with regard to ABT. The results can inform future designers of ABT.

This research was restricted to the views of 24 experienced built environment practitioners in Sydney, Australia. None of whom had direct experience of Algae Building Technology. Though knowledgeable, a greater number of interviews may have identified other technical issues.

No guidelines exist for Algae Building Technology, and this research identifies a comprehensive range of technical issues that need to be considered for the technology to function at optimum levels. As such, this is a starting point for built environment professionals who may be asked to provide professional advice and guidance.

To date, no evaluation of Australian based built environment professionals has been conducted into the technical issues associated with Algae Building Technology.

Cryptoassets have recently attracted the attention of national and international financial regulators. Since the mid-2010s blockchains have increasingly been adapted to automate and replace many aspects of financial intermediation, and by 2015 Ethereum had created the smart contract language that underpins the digitization of real assets as asset-backed tokens (ABTs). Those were initially issued by FinTech companies, but more recently banks active on international capital and financial markets, and even central banks, for example, the Bank of Thailand, have developed their own digital platforms and blockchains. A wide variety of real and financial assets underpins ABTs, viz., real-estate, art, corporate and sovereign bonds, and equity. Consequently, owing to the significant market capitalization of cryptocurrencies, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) published two consultative papers delineating its approach on cryptoasset regulation. In this study, the authors analyze the mechanics of ABTs and their potential risks, relying on case studies of recent issuance of tokens in equity, real-estate, and debt markets, to highlight their main characteristics. The authors also investigate the consequences of the increasingly oligopolistic structure of blockchain mining pools and Bitcoin exchanges for the integrity and security of unregulated distributed ledgers. Finally, the authors analyze the BCBS’ regulatory proposals, and discuss the reaction of international financial institutions and cryptocurrency interest groups. The main findings are, firstly, that most ABTs are akin to asset-backed securities. Secondly, nearly all ABTs are “off-chain/on-chain,” that is, the underlying is a traditional asset that exists off-chain and is subsequently digitized. The main exception is the World Bank’s bond-i that is genuinely native to the blockchain created by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, and has no existence outside it. Thirdly, all ABTs are issued on permissioned blockchains, where anti-money laundering/anti-terrorist funding and know-your-customer regulations are enforced. From a prudential regulatory perspective, ABTs do not appear to pose serious systemic risks to international financial markets. This may account for the often negative reactions of banks, banking associations, and cryptocurrency interest groups to the BCBS’ 2021 proposals for risk-weighted capital provisions for cryptoassets, which are viewed as excessive. Finally, we found that issuance of ABTS and other smart contracts on permissionless blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum could potentially generate financial instability. A precedent involving Ethereum and The DAO in 2016 shows that (i) there is a significant accountability gap in permissionless blockchains, and (ii) the core developers of blockchains and smart contract technology, and Bitcoin mining pools, exercise an unexpectedly high- and completely unregulated-amount of power in what is supposedly a decentralized network.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of enterprise social media (ESM) use on two trust dimensions – affect-based trust (ABT) and cognition-based trust (CBT) – as mediators in the relationship between ESM use and knowledge sharing. In the first stage of the proposed model, the authors also consider transparent communication (TC) and personal blogging with colleagues (PBC) during work and non-work hours as moderators that reshape trust levels and subsequently promote knowledge sharing within the organisation.

The authors collected the data in three waves from employees in China, the world’s largest market for social media. Five companies, including three information technology companies and two software companies, were targeted for data collection. Initially, a total of 403 ESM users were recruited, but the final sample in the final round was reduced to N = 292. The authors used Mplus (v8.5) to calculate direct path coefficients and indirect moderated-mediation effects.

The use of ESM promotes ABT and CBT, thereby improving knowledge sharing. ABT and CBT both fully mediate the effect of ESM use on knowledge sharing. However, the research reveals paradoxical findings regarding moderation. For example, on the one hand, TC negatively moderates the association between ESM use and ABT, thereby reducing knowledge sharing in the workplace. On the other hand, TC strengthens the relationship between the use of ESM and CBT, thereby increasing knowledge sharing. These contradictory findings indicate that TC functions as a double-edged sword; thus, the effective use of ESM in the workplace requires managers’ intervention. Finally, the analysis reveals that the moderating role of PBC strengthens the association between ESM use and both ABT and CBT, thereby increasing knowledge sharing.

While stakeholders have expressed concern regarding the adverse impacts of workplace ESM adoption on employee performance, the authors provide a broad, novel perspective on the potential of ESM use to enhance knowledge sharing via trust (i.e. ABT and CBT). To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to offer a comparative view of trust dimensions, such as ABT and CBT, and to discuss how, why and when TC and PBC interactions moderate the relationship of ESM to ABT and CBT and thereby lead to knowledge sharing. These interesting findings guide further research into the role of ESM in the workplace, especially research based on rational choice theory and communication visibility theory, by illuminating the ways in which employees can use ESM to reshape social communication in the workplace and thereby enhance knowledge sharing.

This study aims to investigate the degree to which trust influences job satisfaction and job performance by building on research in the organizational sciences about the relationships between interpersonal trust relationships, cognitive empowerment, job performance and job satisfaction. This study's primary research question is: What factors contribute to job satisfaction and job performance?

Data are collected through a field survey. The data set has 738 responses from employees who work in the financial sector in Turkey. Structural equation modelling was used to validate the hypotheses.

This study's main findings are that when considering job satisfaction and job performance, cognition-based trust (CBT) has a strong influence on both constructs, whereas affect-based faith has a medium effect on job satisfaction and no significant effect on job performance.

In an organization where trust is established, knowledge exchange will be facilitated and knowledge management will be done correctly. Therefore, trust is a critical factor for knowledge management. On the other hand, knowledge is an important key factor for job performance. Trust has two parts: affect-based trust and CBT. Psychological empowerment has four variables: impact, competence, meaningfulness and self-determination. This study aims to investigate the relationships between psychological empowerment, trust, job satisfaction and job performance.

This chapter seeks to enhance organizational theory's current typology of organizational architectures to explain a flourishing modern architecture that has developed utilizing the inexpensive communication paths created by technology such as the Internet and wireless networks. As communication and coordination costs have dropped, new organizing methods have grown that are difficult to understand using the traditional organizational architectures. In this chapter, we introduce a new community architecture, the “C-form,” which is categorized by (1) fluid, informal peripheral boundaries of membership; (2) significant incorporation of voluntary labor; (3) information-based product output; and (4) significantly open sharing of knowledge. Although the domain of open source software (OSS) is frequently cited as an example of such communities, we argue that the form expands well beyond the domain of software to a wide variety of information-based products. Drawing on a culture frame, we develop an initial set of principles of C-forms and finally explore the implications of the C-form for the modern organizational world.

The megadimensional nature of the complex social systems of the twentieth century, and the increasing levels of interrelatedness, present the individual with a bewildering array of information sources and services.