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The purpose of this study is to identify the key barriers to the adoption of blockchain technology (BCT) in the construction industry. This investigation seeks to understand the challenges that hinder the implementation of blockchain in this sector.

The study begins with a comprehensive review of relevant literature to identify the main barriers to blockchain adoption in construction. It then uses an integrated approach using total interpretive structural modeling (TISM) and Matrice d'Impacts Croisés Multiplication Appliquée à un Classement to investigate the interrelationships among these barriers. In addition, the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method is used to establish cause-and-effect relationships between the identified barriers.

The study’s integrated TISM and DEMATEL methodology reveals several crucial barriers to blockchain adoption in the construction industry, including regulatory uncertainty, data privacy and security concerns, limited knowledge and expertise and dependence on blockchain operators. It also identifies scalability issues, uncertain benefits and lack of collaboration as dependent barriers, influenced by other identified barriers.

This study contributes original value by applying an integrated methodological approach to understand the complex interrelationships and dependencies among barriers to blockchain adoption in the construction industry. The findings provide decision-makers with insights to prioritize and effectively manage the key driving barriers, enhancing the understanding and strategic planning for blockchain implementation in this sector.

Seaports are vital in facilitating sustainable development, and environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors significantly impact an organization’s performance. Therefore, this study aims to identify and evaluate barriers and strategies of green investments to promote ESG practices within the seaport sector.

To fulfill this aim, a systematic literature review, interpretive structural modeling and the matrix of cross-impact multiplications were applied to classification analysis.

12 barriers were prioritized and categorized by experts in a focus group to optimize efforts and define the materiality of these barriers in implementing ESG strategies within seaport companies.

The implications of this study provide an alternative approach for ESG management in the context of seaports that can be applied in different regions by experts' opinion assessment.

No prior studies assessed the barriers and strategies for green investments in ESG from the port sector perspective.

The study aims to identify Green Lean Six Sigma (GLSS) barriers in the context of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and prioritize them for executing the GLSS approach.

A systematic literature review (SLR) was used to identify a total of 14 barriers, which were then verified for greater relevance by the professional judgments of industrial personnel. Moreover, many removal measures strategies are also recommended in this study. Furthermore, this work also utilizes Gray Relational Analysis (GRA) to prioritize the identified GLSS barriers.

The study reveals that training and education, continuous assessment of SDG, organizational culture, resources and skills to facilitate implementation, and assessment of satisfaction and welfare of the employee are the most significant barriers to implementing this approach.

The present study provides an impetus for practitioners and managers to embrace the GLSS strategy through a wide-ranging understanding and exploring these barriers. In this case, the outcomes of this research, and in particular the GRA technique presented by this work, can be used by managers and professionals to rank the GLSS barriers and take appropriate action to eliminate them.

The ranking of GLSS barriers gives top officials of HEIs a very clear view to effectively and efficiently implementing GLSS initiatives. The outcomes also show training and education, sustainable development goals and organizational culture as critical barriers. The findings of this study provide an impetus for managers, policymakers and consultants to embrace the GLSS strategy through a wide-ranging understanding and exploring these barriers.

The GLSS barriers in HEIs may significantly affect the society. HEIs can lessen their environmental effect by using GLSS practices, which can support sustainability initiatives and foster social responsibility. Taking steps to reduce environmental effect can benefit society as a whole. GLSS techniques in HEIs can also result in increased operational effectiveness and cost savings, which can free up resources to be employed in other areas, like boosting student services and improving educational programs. However, failing to implement GLSS procedures in HEIs could have societal repercussions as well. As a result, it is critical for HEIs to identify and remove GLSS barriers in order to advance sustainability, social responsibility and operational effectiveness.

GLSS is a comprehensive methodology that facilitates the optimum utilization of resources, reduces waste and provides the pathway for sustainable development so, the novelty of this study stands in the inclusion of its barriers and HEIs to prioritize them for effective implementation.

Asset maintenance in manufacturing industries is a critical issue as organizations are highly sensitive towards maximizing asset uptime. In the advent of Industry 4.0, maintenance is increasingly becoming technology driven and is being termed as Maintenance 4.0. Several barriers impede the implementation of Maintenance 4.0. This article aims at - exploring the barriers to implementation of Maintenance 4.0 in manufacturing industries, categorizing them, analysing them to prioritize and suggesting the digital technologies to overcome them.

Twenty barriers to the implementation of Maintenance 4.0 were identified through literature survey and discussion with the industry experts. The identified barriers were divided into five categories based on their source of occurrence and prioritized using fuzzy-technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS), sensitivity analysis was carried out to check the robustness of the solution.

“Data security issues” has been ranked as the most influencing barrier towards the implementation of Maintenance 4.0, whereas “lack of skilled engineers and data scientists” is the least influencing barrier that impacts the implementation of Maintenance 4.0 in the manufacwturing industries.

The outcomes of this research will help manufacturing industries, maintenance engineers/managers, policymakers, and industry professionals for detailed understanding of barriers and identify easy pickings while implementing Maintenance 4.0.

Manufacturing industries are witnessing a paradigm shift due to digitization and maintenance 4.0 forms the cornerstone. Little research has been carried in Maintenance 4.0 and its implementation; this article will help in bridging the gap. The prioritization of the barriers and digital course of actions to overcome those is a unique contribution of this article.

Facilities management (FM) organizations are pivotal in enhancing the resilience of buildings against climate change impacts. While existing research delves into the adoption of digital technologies by FM organizations, there exists a gap regarding the specific utilization of artificial intelligence (AI) to address climate challenges. This study aims to investigate the drivers and barriers influencing the adoption and utilization of AI by South African FM organizations in mitigating climate change challenges.

This study focuses on South Africa, a developing nation grappling with climate change’s ramifications on its infrastructure. Through a combination of systematic literature review and an online questionnaire survey, data was collected from representatives of 85 professionally registered FM organizations in South Africa. Analysis methods employed include content analysis, Relative Importance Index (RII), and Total Interpretative Structural Modeling (TISM).

The findings reveal that regulatory compliance and a responsible supply chain serve as critical drivers for AI adoption among South African FM organizations. Conversely, policy constraints and South Africa’s energy crisis emerge as major barriers to AI adoption in combating climate change challenges within the FM sector.

This study contributes to existing knowledge by bridging the gap in understanding how AI technologies are utilized by FM organizations to address climate challenges, particularly in the context of a developing nation like South Africa. The research findings aim to inform policymakers on fostering a conducive environment for FM organizations to harness AI in fostering climate resilience in built assets.

The scarcity of literature related to the PPP (public-private partnership) barriers in construction projects within war areas, and hence the dearth of information to deliver viable and effective strategies to those barriers, are the primary causes for the failures of PPP schemes in such areas, particularly in Palestine. Financial and non-financial investments are more problematic in war zones than non-war nations and may escalate barrier for projects' success. The investigation purposes to discover proper answers to the barriers of PPP infrastructure schemes and highlight the execution of barrier reactions.

Specialists were asked to deliver approaches to alleviate 21 barriers and recommend the period needed for applying them. Later, the relevance of alleviation events was examined through prioritization according to the results attained from three elements, i.e. the impact of every barrier and the strategy's viability and efficacy.

While the most unfavorable barrier was finalized to be the unfeasibility of delivering physical security, the most valid answer was associated with the lack of government cohesiveness and responsibility to perform its duties. The discovered barriers are typical within warring nations, but the paper concentrated on Palestine.

This study is an initial effort to examine PPP barriers in Palestinian infrastructure projects. The presented strategies can be applied as a novel set for barrier reaction improvement in occupied nations such as Palestine. Moreover, the results can develop the usage of PPP and enhance the barrier sharing in this scheme.

The construction industry has arrived at a crossroads of rapid technological progress. While it is foreseen that the advent of new construction technologies will disrupt the construction industry’s future, such disruptions often create the ideal environment for innovation. As poor payment practices continue to plague the construction industry, the advent of smart contracts has created an opportunity to rectify the inherent flaws in the mitigation of payment problems in traditional construction contracts. Given the intrinsic resistance of construction firms to such revolutionary changes, this study aims to understand the various factors influencing the adoption of smart contracts in the Singapore construction industry.

A mixed method was adopted involving quantifying respondents’ perceptions of the factors influencing smart contract adoption, and validation from a group of interviewees on the matter. Out of 461 registered quantity surveyor members contacted via the Singapore institute of surveyors and valuers website, 55 respondents took part in the survey. This is followed by semi-structured interviews to validate the survey results.

The findings indicate that construction firms have neither a significant knowledge of nor willingness to adopt smart contracts. A total of 29 institutional factors were also identified that significantly influence the adoption of smart contracts. The quantitative findings were further reinforced by qualitative interviews with five industry experts.

With recognition of and the successful formulation of the significant institutional drivers and barriers, the key findings of this study will be integral in driving the commercial adoption of smart contracts within the construction industry.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors influencing the development of social media marketing strategy in an international context. We specifically look at the potential drivers and barriers throughout the social media marketing strategy development process and how cultural differences shape social media marketing strategy decision-making among firms in international markets.

The study is conducted with an inductive research approach involving in-depth interviews with 32 firms from Finland, China and Brazil. Using inductive data analysis, we identify both internal and external factors that drive and hinder the development of firms’ social media marketing strategies. Moreover, we explore the essential elements in social media marketing strategy development based on the key practices observed among these firms, which enables us to conduct a comparative analysis of how cultural values influence the development of social media marketing strategies.

Our findings underscore the importance of both internal (i.e. resources and capabilities) and external (i.e. market-level and country-level) factors that influence the development of social media marketing strategy. Our analysis also unveiled four key practices throughout the social media marketing strategy development process: social selling, content marketing, risk management and relationship management. Additionally, we identified three distinct mindsets regarding firms’ social media selling objectives across companies in the three countries.

The comparative approach provides novel insight into firms' international social media marketing strategy. Our proposed conceptual model shows the development process of social media marketing strategy in the international context. The research propositions highlight the role of cultural values and open up new avenues for future research.

The COVID-19 outbreak disrupted the business environment and severely affected the morale and performance of the employees. Further, the Indian automobile industry witnessed major setbacks and drastically impacted sector in COVID-19. Talent agility is an emerging concept in the field of HRM that will foster innovations and productivity in the automobile industry. Thus, this study aims to explore the barriers to building in-house agile talents in the Indian automobile industry in the new normal.

The barriers of talent agility were identified through a literature review and validated through experts’ opinions. This study used a hybrid approach, which combines Interpretive Structural Modelling-Polarity (ISM-P) and decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) to develop a hierarchical structural model of the barriers, followed by classification into cause and effect groups.

The result of the multi-method approach identified that shortage of skills and competencies, lack of IT infrastructure, lack of ambidextrous leaders, lack of smart HRM technologies and practices, lack of attractive reward system/career management, poor advanced T&D, poor industry, institute interface and financial constraints are the critical barriers.

It can provide a strategic roadmap for automobile manufacturers to promote talent agility in the current wave of digitalization (Industry 4.0). This study can help the managers to address and overcome the barrier and hurdles in building talent agility.

This study is unique in that it addresses the contemporary issues related to talent agility in the context of the Indian automobile industry in the current rapidly changing environment. This study developed a holistic integrated ISM(P)-DEMATEL hierarchical framework on the barriers of talent agility indicating inner dependency weights, i.e., the strength of interrelationship between the barriers.

The adoption of social procurement, the emerging practice of using a firm's spending power to generate social value, requires buying firms to navigate conflicts of institutional logics. Adopting an institutional work perspective, this study aims to investigate how buying firms change their existing procurement institutions to adopt and advance social procurement.

The authors conducted an in-depth case study of a social procurement initiative in the UK. This case study comprised of 16 buying firms that were actively participating in the social procurement initiative at the time of data collection (2020–2021). The data were largely captured through a set of 41 semi-structured interviews.

Four types of institutional work were observed: reducing institutional conflicts, crossing institutional boundaries, legitimising institutional change and spreading the new institutional logic. These different types of institutional work appeared in a sequential way.

This study contributes to various strands of literature investigating the role of procurement in generating value and benefits within societies, adopting an institutional lens to investigate the buying firms' purposeful actions to change procurement institutions. Secondly, this study complements the existing literature investigating the conflicts of institutional logics by illustrating the ways firms address such institutional conflicts when adopting and advancing social procurement. Finally, this work contributes to the recently emerging research on institutional work that examines the creation and establishment of new institutions by considering the existing procurement institutions in the examination of institutional work.