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Decentralised administrative arrangements and the active function of local government organisations are essential to tackle crisis effectively. Using Bangladesh as a case study, this paper examines the central and local government administrative arrangements during COVID-19 pandemic.

This study applies qualitative content analysis and interviews to explore the local government’s role in Bangladesh’s COVID-19 management by interviews of 18 participants including government officials, experts, non-government organisations (NGOs) representatives, and the general public. This paper also analysed academic papers, policy documents and other publicly available documents, including newspaper reports.

The Constitution of Bangladesh intensified the active participation of local government in each administrative unit through decentralised administrative management. This paper however reveals that the administrative arrangement during the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh was primarily a centrally led system. The local government was not sufficiently involved, nor had it integrated into the planning and coordination process. This indicated the absence of active decentralised administration.

This study fills the research gap of the administrative pattern and local relations in COVID-19 management by exploring the local government’s role during the catastrophic situation and highlights the importance of decentralised administrative actions in managing the crisis.

The shipbreaking sector in Bangladesh has spurred extensive academic and policy debates on relations between shipbreaking industries, environmental degradation and the health security of their workers. As shipbreaking is an economically significant industry in Bangladesh, it needs to implement both domestic and global mechanisms for environmental conservation and the protection of the labourers’ health from environmental risks. The purpose of this paper is to primarily explore the environmental and health security issues in shipbreaking activities in Bangladesh. It also identifies the challenges in implementing the rules and regulations for protecting the health of the workers at shipbreaking yards in Bangladesh and preserving the marine environment.

This is a qualitative paper based on secondary materials, including journal articles, books and national and international reports. It critically reviews the existing literature, rules, regulations and policing on shipbreaking with a particular focus on the environment and health security of the workers.

This paper finds that the implementation of the rules and regulations in shipbreaking in Bangladesh is complicated because of weak implementation mechanisms, political and economic interests of the yard owners, lack of coordination among different agencies, lack of adequate training and awareness among the workers and workers’ poor economic condition, which contribute to the degradation of marine and local environments and trigger health hazards among the workers. Therefore, degrading the environment and undermining occupational health and safety regulations have become regular; thus, accidental death and injury to the workers are common in this sector.

This paper is an important study on the issues of workers' health and safety and environmental hazards in the shipyard. It reports how the health security of the workers in shipbreaking yards in Bangladesh is vulnerable, and environmental rules are challenged. Finally, this paper frames some policy implications to safeguard the workers’ health rights and the marine environment.

This paper aims to identify the critical project management success factors and analyze those factors to achieve a sustainable construction industry in Bangladesh.

This study identified 41 major problematic factors from the related literature. In this research, a detailed questionnaire survey was conducted among the experts and stakeholders of the construction industry of Bangladesh. The survey was carried out on a Likert scale and ranked the critical factors using the relative importance index (RII). The 41 problematic factors were divided into five group factors and ranked by the RII index to prioritize the factors. Finally, stakeholders' opinions were analyzed with the critical assessed factors, which was a very effective technique to eliminate the risks and uncertain occurrences in the construction industry of Bangladesh.

The factors analysis revealed that cost overrun, traffic jam, low wedges, slow payment for completed works and financial issues of the owner were leading critical factors in construction projects. Moreover, the critical factors are divided into five-factor groups, namely, financial management, monitoring and feedback, competency management, communication and coordination management, and risk management, which exhibit 0.767, 0.720, 0.711, 0.710 and 0.658 RII values. After all, the stakeholders' opinion suggested that implementing modern tools and techniques can help to avoid the critical situation in the construction industry of Bangladesh.

The construction industry of Bangladesh is moving away from stable construction work day by day. Previously, the potential CSFs were discussed unstructured way. Hence, detecting early warning signals in a structured way has become necessary for the building firm's survival.

Though some scattered critical issues are discussed in different literature, the critical issues of the Bangladeshi construction industry were not investigated extensively. Therefore, this study finds out the potential critical issues of the construction industry of Bangladesh to accumulate such harmful construction issues in a single platform so that the construction industry can have an overview of them with the help of innovative technologies.

This study aims to investigate whether various types of risks faced by the publicly listed commercial banks of India and Bangladesh are driven by market power and provides comparative insights from both economies.

By using the adjusted Lerner index to gauge bank market power and applying the generalised methods of moments (GMM) regression approach, the research delved into the relationship between bank market power and three distinct facets of risk across a sample of 26 publicly listed commercial banks in India and 22 listed banks in Bangladesh spanning from 2011 to 2022.

The results indicate that for Bangladesh, both “competition fragility” and “competition stability” viewpoints coexist simultaneously across all risk types, supporting a nonlinear relationship between market power and risk. However, in the Indian context, a nonlinear association exists only in the case of credit risk, while the relationship with insolvency risk is linear, substantiating the “competition fragility view”. Apart from market power and bank-specific variables, GDP growth rate has emerged as a prominent driver across all risk categories in both countries.

The filtration of banks is a limitation that might have influenced the outcomes. This study recommends that the Reserve Bank of India encourages further bank consolidation. Along the same line, Bangladesh Bank should closely oversee the growing competitive landscape. Furthermore, the regulators must monitor the elevated levels of non-performing loans to reduce credit risk so as to bolster the stability of their respective banking sectors.

This comparative study is the first attempt to analyse the market power and risk relationship and includes a novel bank-specific variable, i.e. technology, apart from other established variables.

This paper aims to find the effects of mothers’ schooling on child schooling.

This paper uses Bangladesh's Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES), which is a nationally representative survey. It employs the instrumental variable technique to estimate the intergenerational model.

Interestingly, the results show that the intergenerational transmission of schooling from mothers is slightly higher than that of fathers in Bangladesh.

Estimating the intergenerational model is challenging due to the endogeneity issue. The methodology used in this paper may help to find similar evidence from other countries.

The findings of the study may help to design and evaluate the educational policies in Bangladesh or a country like Bangladesh. For instance, the results of this paper suggest that the female stipend program (FSP) in Bangladesh is effective for the next generation’s schooling.

This paper is among the first to analyze the effect of mother’s schooling on the child’s schooling, controlling the father’s education and other household characteristics. In addition, it controls for endogeneity bias due to genetic transmission.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-06-2023-0491

Construction delay always causes massive damage to the advancing construction industries, which is no different in the case of Bangladeshi construction industries. This paper aims to investigate the major delay factors causing construction delays in public-funded, mixed and private-funded construction projects of Bangladesh. Also, it offers preventive suggestions from expert stakeholders to reduce the recurrence of delays.

At first, an extensive literature review was conducted to identify the thirty-seven major delay factors categorized under seven groups. A questionnaire was then developed for survey at ongoing construction projects at a different division of Bangladesh. Next, data from 110 respondents were collected, and the delay factors were ranked based on the Relative Importance Index (RII); lastly, probable solutions were suggested for top-ranked delay factors based on opinions from expert stakeholders in the construction sector of Bangladesh.

The overall RII ranking of the 37 delay factors showed “Construction mistakes and defective work,” “Contract modifications by the client” and “Adverse weather condition” as the top three factors causing the delay. For public-funded projects, “Construction mistakes and defective work” and “Slow decision making by a consultant” are the top delay factors. For mixed projects, “Slow decision making of the client” and “Construction mistakes and defective work ranked top, and for private-funded projects, “Financial problems and payment delay of the client” and “Adverse weather condition” ranked top. These nuances of ranking in individual project types ascertain that the causes of delay vary in terms of project features.

The outcome of this project will help identify the significant delay factors based on their severity of effectiveness associated with public-funded, mixed and private-funded projects in Bangladesh. The suggestions regarding preventing these delay factors obtained through the opinions of expert stakeholders can help reduce the effect of these delays in the context of Bangladesh and in countries where the similarity in construction environment prevails.

Previously, studies on construction delays in Bangladesh focused mainly on identifying the delays using qualitative analysis techniques. This study is based on a unique methodology of integrating quantitative research on delay factor identification and qualitative research on preventive measures following the opinions gathered from expert stakeholders in the construction sector.

The paper aims to examine the state of electronic service delivery in Bangladesh. It reviews the structure and operation of the “e-service” centers at the district, sub-district (upazila), and union levels by taking an inventory and assessing their contributions.

The paper is based on a review of the functions and operations of the service delivery agencies with reference to the claims made by the government. It is based on secondary materials obtained from academic studies, government documents, relevant websites, and media reports.

Electronic delivery of public services in Bangladesh has not been effective as planned. There are issues regarding channels of communication, the competence of public officials, human and financial resources, and political will to support the agencies delivering public services.

The paper examines the arrangements, practices, and problems of delivery of public services in Bangladesh through e-service centers at the local levels to determine the progress and potentials of employing digital technology for addressing problems. It proposes the strategy for public service delivery by using digital technology in the country.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on managing the risk of fraud in commercial letters of credit (LC) in Bangladesh involving three parties: the seller, the buyer and the bank. It addresses the severity of LC fraud, the banks’ actions when detected and the preventive measures the relevant parties can adopt.

This research uses doctrinal and qualitative methods to propose strategic actions that benefit buyers, sellers, banks, legal professionals and judges. The study aims to explore the modus operandi used by fraudsters through thematic analysis.

The study’s findings reveal that LC fraud has escalated to a concerning level, posing a significant threat to the economic stability of Bangladesh. Measures must be taken to mitigate this risk and safeguard the country’s financial integrity. To effectively combat the risk of LC fraud, the updated version of UCP must include specific and detailed guidelines on LC fraud. This study recommends preventative measures that all parties involved must take to reduce the likelihood of fraud significantly.

Due to a lack of LC experts, the participant sample for the study in Bangladesh was limited. Nevertheless, most banking participants were highly distinguished and held the Head of Trade Finance Department position in commercial banks. A few academics and legal practitioners with LC expertise also participated in the study.

It provides cutting-edge solutions to effectively handle LC fraud risk and provides proactive measures to prevent it.

Since Industry 4.0 (I4.0) is a new idea in Bangladesh, this study supports I4.0 adoption. Companies struggle to implement I4.0 and fully profit from the fourth industrial revolution’s digital transformation due to its novelty. Although barriers to I4.0 adoption are thoroughly studied, the literature has hardly examined the many aspects that are crucial for I4.0 adoption in Bangladesh’s Ready-Made Garment (RMG) industry. So, the purpose of this study is to investigate the barriers of adopting I4.0 in relation to Bangladesh’s RMG industries to enhance the adoption of I4.0 by developing a framework. Ultimately, the goal of this research is to improve the adoption of I4.0 in Bangladesh.

Through a comprehensive analysis of the existing research, this paper aims to reveal the barriers that must be overcome for I4.0 to be adopted. For evaluating those barriers, a decision analysis framework based on the combination of Delphi technique and Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method has been developed. The use of DEMATEL has led to a ranking model of those barriers and a map of how the barriers are connected to each other.

The findings reveal that “I4.0 training”, “Lack of Motivation” and “Resistance to Change” are the most significant barriers for adopting Industry 4.0 in RMG sector of Bangladesh based on their prominence scores.

These findings will help the people who make decisions in the RMG industry of Bangladesh, such as company owners, managers and the executive body, come up with a plan for putting I4.0 practices into place successfully. The decision-making framework developed in this research can be utilized by the RMG industry of Bangladesh and other similar industries in developing countries to figure out how important each barrier is for them and how to get rid of them in order of importance.

As far as the authors are aware, there has not been a comprehensive study of the barriers inhibiting the adoption of I4.0 within the scope of Bangladeshi RMG industry. This work is the first to uncover these barriers and analyze them using the combination of Delphi technique and DEMATEL.

Online hate speech (OHS) is becoming a serious problem worldwide including in Bangladesh. This study aims to understand the nature of OHS against religious groups and explore its impact on their social life and mental health.

A qualitative approach was followed and 11 in-depth interviews (IDIs) were conducted with the selected OHS victims. This study conducted a semi-structural interview using Google Form following the design questionnaire for selecting IDIs participants.

This study found that religious minorities experience online hatred through online media by the major religious group in Bangladesh. Natures of OHS are commenting on social media posts, sharing hateful memes and sending private messages using slang language targeting religious identity, religious food habits and ethnic identities. Victims were offended, abused and bullied by unknown persons, their university friends and colleagues. Victims of OHS did not take any action against it due to fear of insecurity. Victims of OHS felt low-minded, helpless and anxious after the experience of OHS; they felt more insecure and vulnerable socially and mentally.

The findings of this study suggest that policymakers identify the nature of OHS and take proper steps for reducing the frequency of OHS in Bangladesh. To combat the OHS, authorities have to make legal enforcement equal for everyone.