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Nanostructured titanium dioxide (TiO₂) coatings can potentially address the current surge in façade cleaning cost, maintenance and labour problems. The purpose of this paper is to investigate potential maintainability issues and design challenges concerning the effective performance of TiO₂ façade coatings’ hydrophilic properties, especially in tropical environments such as Singapore. This paper aims to establish a list of green maintainability design criteria to help minimise future TiO₂ façade coating issues when this coating is applied on commercial buildings with concrete and stonemasonry façade materials.

A mixed-mode approach that includes a literature review, site investigation, instrumental case studies and expert interviews is used in this study.

TiO₂ coatings help improve façade performance whilst offering environmental benefits to society. This study reports that green maintainability design criteria are vital requirements in designing sustainable buildings at the outset. The identified defects and issues will aid in ensuring the effectiveness of TiO₂ application in building façades.

This study acts as a foundation for future researchers to strengthen this little researched area, serves as a useful guide in preventing possible TiO₂ coating issues and promotes industry awareness of the use of TiO₂ façade coatings.

One would not commonly associate democracy with Singapore, instead scholars have often described Singapore as an illiberal democracy and an authoritarian state. At the same time, all Singaporean school students recite the national pledge of allegiance in school every morning, in which they pledge “to build a democratic society based on justice and equality”. What do students know about democracy? Are they able to distinguish the characteristics of democratic systems from non-democratic ones? The purpose of this paper is to report on Singapore students’ understandings of democracy.

Using a qualitative instrumental case study design, 64 students from three secondary schools were interviewed and the social studies curriculum was analysed.

Overall, students had poor knowledge of democracy. Consistent with a lack of knowledge of democracy, most students also showed a relatively uncritical acceptance of hierarchy and deference to authority, and held a superficial understanding of citizenship. Civics lessons through social studies, and the school environment did little to promote students’ engagement with democracy.

The authors argue that it is important that students be given the opportunities to develop a basic conceptual knowledge of democracy, as they are not capable of discriminating democratic characteristics from non-democratic ones without it. At the very least, students should know the relevance of what they pledge relative to their nation’s model of democracy, or in the absence of a clear model, be encouraged to struggle with the various existing models of democracies so that, as the future of Singapore, they might determine and adapt the ideals that they deem best for the nation.

This paper is an original study of Singapore students’ understandings of democracy.

The maintenance of green building technologies such as building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) is a challenge due to the non-existence of maintainability considerations during the design stage. This led to building defects which accounts to high expenditures throughout the building's lifecycle. The use of BIPV in buildings is an emergent trend, and further research is requisite for their maintainability. This paper assesses the performance and maintainability of BIPV façade applications based on the green maintainability design considerations.

Qualitative method is undertaken in this study, which includes field surveys, instrumental case studies and stakeholder interviews to probe the issues linked with the BIPV's maintainability.

Findings have shown some technical defects discovered in BIPV applications in tropical areas, as well as issues on cost, aesthetics and implementation are the main causes for the low adoption of BIPV in Singapore.

Understanding the research outcomes will embolden designers and allied professionals to team up in ensuring the long-term maintainability and sustainability of green building technologies. This research gives recent and important information in the design, installation and maintainability of BIPV, as well as good practices that would add value to facilities management and to the design of green building technologies.

This paper aims to examine critical factors of successful logistics outsourcing relationship from the perspectives of both LSPs and shippers employing case studies in Singapore and Vietnam as examples of well-established and growing logistics outsourcing markets.

The case study design is adopted to empirically examine logistics outsourcing practices. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with senior managers from four cases in Singapore and seven cases in Vietnam. These case organisations are engaged comprehensively in logistics outsourcing activities and encompass both international firms that have their local operations and those local firms whose operations expand internationally.

Results suggest that the success of logistics outsourcing may depend on five strategic factors and five operational factors, with some of them being the same between LSPs and shippers in both countries and in line with the literature. There also seemed to be a difference between logistics outsourcing practitioners in a developed country (Singapore), and those in a developing country (Vietnam), in which factors, i.e. having the right people and management support, business processes integration and cultural intelligence, tend to be emphasised and practised more in the former. A strategy matrix of logistics outsourcing was mapped accordingly.

The generalisation of this study would require further empirical examination from more quantitative research, for example, the use of surveys with shippers who engage with LSPs.

Findings from this research can assist managers in charge of outsourcing to reflect on their practices and devise and implement appropriate strategies for successful logistics outsourcing. Especially for growing logistics outsourcing markets and not-yet-standardised practices like Vietnam, the findings of this research are significant as they provide policy and managerial insights into how logistics outsourcing can be performed successfully. Specifically, adequate guidelines and resources including training relating to strategic factors of logistics outsourcing must be provided.

This research is one of the first studies that categorise success factors of logistics outsourcing into strategic and operational factors and postulates their conceptualisation in a strategy matrix that can be applied in future research.

Vertical greenery systems (VGS) have been a widely accepted design strategy that contributes to creating sustainable built environments. However, green building technologies (e.g. VGS) have grown in complexity which poses maintainability challenges. Designing with maintainability in mind is crucial in delivering efficient and sustainable buildings. This paper aims to assist designers and allied professionals in terms of integrating maintainability and sustainable design in developing high-rise VGS directly from its design inception.

The study is grounded on the “Green Maintainability” concept which link maintainability, sustainability and facility management right at the outset. The Green Maintainability factors are translated into critical design criteria which are used to analyze the selected instrumental case studies to evaluate the high-rise VGS performance and maintainability potential. A qualitative approach via the triangulation of data collected from relevant literatures, field surveys and walkthrough interviews is undertaken.

Findings have shown that the major VGS defects which are mostly occurring in the case studies are issues concerning fallen leaves and dirt accumulation; safety issues during cleaning and repairs; insufficient maintenance access; algae/ mould growth; withering plants; water stagnation/ ponding; poor/faulty irrigation and water dripping and unavailability of natural elements. Best practices and lessons learned revealed few design oversight and technical issues concerning high-rise VGS façade implementation. While maintenance cost, biodiversity and lack of coordination among involved professionals are the additional issues which emerged during the stakeholders’ walkthrough interviews.

Current researches conducted on the maintainability of green building technologies (e.g. high-rise VGS) are still few. This research study is the first comprehensive assessment to determine the green maintainability potential and performance of high-rise VGS in tropical conditions.

The Asian financial crisis snowballed in July 1997 following the devaluation of the Thai baht. This triggered off a chain reaction which led to similar crises in many countries in Asia, including Singapore. One of the arguments put forward to explain the financial crisis in Asia relates to the Asian style of management, which purportedly includes kinsmanship and guanxi or family connections. But is this really the case? Is the Asian management style significantly different from the Western style of management? It is shown that the style of management in Asian countries can also be explained and described using contemporary management theories from the West. This is achieved through a case study in construction project management for a typical family‐run building firm in Singapore. Field observations on the construction site suggest that the style of management in Asia can be related to modern management theories from the West.

The purpose of this paper is to present a case study of the evolution of Singapore as a destination for international tourists, comparing contemporary circumstances with those existing 50 years ago when full independence was attained.

A case study methodology is adopted and findings are derived from the analysis of materials in the public domain.

Function as a tourist destination cannot be understood without an appreciation of a place’s history and evolving general economic, political and socio-cultural conditions. These determine opportunities and constraints and thus the character and image of the destination from a tourism industry perspective. Singapore is shown to have undergone transformation as a country and consequently as a tourist centre under the leadership of a strong government which has brought prosperity to the now highly urbanised and industrialised city state. Achievements are considerable, although the future is one of some uncertainty as the wider context continues to change in ways which pose new challenges.

The paper’s core argument is that performance as a destination cannot be separated from broader circumstances demonstrated by comparisons of Singapore’s tourism in 1965 and 2015 and the political, economic, socio-cultural and environmental contexts of the two periods.

While possessing many unique attributes related to its defining characteristics, the republic’s experiences afford valuable insights into the dynamics of destination development and especially in nations which are young, small and rapidly modernising.

The Asian financial crisis snowballed in July 1997 following the devaluation of the Thai Baht. This triggered off a chain reaction which led to similar crises in many countries in Asia, including Singapore. One of the arguments that has been put forward to explain the financial crisis in Asia relates to the Asian style of management, which purportedly includes kinsmanship and guanxi or family connections. This paper seeks to discover whether the Asian management style is significantly different from the western style of management. This is achieved through a case study in construction project management for a typical family‐run building firm in Singapore. Field observations on the construction site suggest that the style of management in Asia can be related to modern management theories from the West.

Purpose: This paper aims to review the effect of the 2003 SARS epidemic on tourism and to analyze the learning outcomes from this crisis critically. The study further proposes practical and strategic tips for airlines, hoteliers and destination marketers in the top Asian tourism market such as India, China, Singapore and Thailand if a similar crisis affects the region.

Study Design/Methodology/Approach: The study followed the qualitative approach for deriving the findings. The research reviewed past literature by using the Prisma method, which is an evidence-based minimum set of items, for reporting in systematic reviews and meta-analyses. The research summarized the previous literature on the SARS outbreak in 2003 and reviewed various practices for tourism industry sustainability.

Finding: The study provides the information of how the airlines, hoteliers and destination marketers tackled the SARS epidemic and proposes the integrated strategy for managing such crisis in future.

Originality/Value: This paper performed the systematic literature review of all the relevant researches related to the 2003 SARS outbreak and its effect on the tourism industry.

Implications: This paper suggests the strategies and practices based on past reviews and learnings from experiences which may be useful for the tourism stakeholders to tackle and minimize the effect of such crisis in future.

The objectives of this study are two-fold. The first is to examine the peculiarities of KM processes that are unique in SMEs from three perspectives, namely knowledge creation, knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse. Secondly, to identify enablers and impediments of these KM processes that influence the competitiveness of SMEs.

The study adopted a case study approach involving 21 participants comprising management staff and front-line employees from four Singaporean SMEs.

The SME owner, rather than the employees, was found to be the key source and creator of knowledge and the sole driver of the KM processes. In SMEs, knowledge creation takes the form of innovative customized solutions to meet customers' needs; knowledge sharing occurs through cross functionality, overlapping roles, and facilitated by close physical proximity in open workspaces; and knowledge reuse is often made tacitly, where common knowledge is prevalently embedded within the KM processes of SMEs. The enablers of knowledge creation process rested largely on the owner's innovativeness, creativity and ability to acquire knowledge of the industry. Knowledge sharing processes are enabled by the awareness of roles, mutual respect and the level of trust among employees within the SME while knowledge reuse is fostered by close proximity of employees and the willingness and openness of the owner to impart his knowledge. The lack of the above enablement factors mentioned will hinder these KM processes.

The study is limited by the fact that data was collected from four SMEs in Singapore. Furthermore, only a small sample of staff from these SMEs was interviewed. Hence the findings need to be interpreted in light of such a scope.

For SMEs, this research provides perspectives on the factors influencing KM processes, in particular, the importance of the owners' knowledge and leadership, the flexibility and adaptability of the organization, and open culture to enable the capitalization of its knowledge assets to survive and stay competitive. For practitioners, this paper reinforces the importance of the management owners' innovativeness, initiatives and support, and the level of social interaction and high level of trusts among employees in the SMEs to as enablers to effective KM processes in SMEs.

To deepen on-going knowledge management research on SMEs, this paper provides insights and rich context to the distinctness of KM processes in SMEs.