Search Results

This paper aims to develop a framework for implementing the integrated project delivery (IPD) approach during the design process in architecture design firms (ADFs) in Egypt.

A research methodology consists of literature review, case studies and survey questionnaire was designed to achieve the abovementioned aim. First, literature review was used to identify and categorise the challenges of implementing IPD during the design process. Second, four case studies were analysed to investigate the values delivered to the client or missed due to the use of IPD or traditional procurement approaches, respectively. Finally, a survey questionnaire was carried out with a representative sample of ADFs in Egypt to investigate their perception towards the challenges of IPD implementation in Egypt. Based on the results of the above, the research developed a framework to facilitate the implementation of IPD in ADFs in Egypt.

Through literature review, the research identified 30 challenges that hamper the implementation of IPD in ADFs. These challenges were categorised due to their nature into five groups, namely, integration, cooperation, commitment and trust challenges, knowledge, experience skills and decision-making challenges, cultural challenges, legal and contractual challenges and technical and financial challenges. Results of data analysis showed that “poor communication and spirit of collaboration between project stakeholders” was ranked the highest influential challenge as IPD is based on collaboration and trust between project participants. In addition, “lack of training and motivation in investing for using IPD” was ranked the lowest influential challenge due to the poor attention paid to training in the construction industry. Moreover, despite the benefits of IPD implementations in many countries worldwide, it is not implemented in the Egyptian context. This necessitated taking action towards developing a framework to facilitate IPD implementation in ADFs in Egypt.

The research focussed on ADFs in Egypt.

Adopting the proposed framework developed through this research will help implementing IPD during the design process in ADFs.

The research identified, categorised and analysed the challenges that obstruct the implementation of IPD in ADFs. The research tackled a topic that received scant attention in construction literature in the Middle East generally and Egypt in particular. In addition, this paper presented a framework to facilitate the implementation of IPD during the design process, which represents a synthesis that is novel and creative in thought and adds value to the knowledge in a manner that has not previously occurred.

Despite the extensive research on post-disaster reconstruction projects (PDRP), there is a paucity of studies that examine critical challenges for the project practices in post-war-developing countries, particularly, Africa. The purpose of this research is to investigate the key project management challenges impacting the post-disaster reconstruction projects (PDRP) during the construction and planning stages in Angola, with an aim to fill the knowledge gap.

The primary data was collected from 130 project management practitioners working with planning, provincial government organisations including consultants, and contractors within the Angolan public sectors organisations. Response data was subjected to descriptive statistics, mean scores, and inferential statistics (One sample t-tests) and Kendall's concordance.

The descriptive and empirical analysis demonstrated a disparity of the ranking of the 21challenges affecting the PDRP among the groups; with statistically significant differences amongst the 10 challenges. Based on the overall sample, 6 out of 10 critical challenges are between (24–25) levels of agreement close to the mean. The results of the mean score ranking indicate that “working with poor or restricted access to location”, “project culture that fits the needs of local people”; “improving the capacity of local government”, “minimizing the negative effects of local people” and “relocation issues by establishing property rights during the reconstruction project” were the five critical challenges to managing PDRP whereas “improving information and communication processes”, “securing adequate resources (material and machinery)”, “dealing with rising costs of materials and labour” were considered to be the least critical.

The study was restricted to one province and Country (out of 18) namely, Luanda, Angola. Therefore, the findings may not be generalized to public sector organisations operating in different countries with different contexts, political settings and disaster complexities.

The establishment of challenges in PDRPs helps the key stakeholders by providing the foundation to project teams to address the challenges during planning and construction stages, and thus improving project delivery in the future. Understanding the uniqueness of PDRPs and interdependency of project management from the implementing organization is of particular value for the managers of future projects and other decision-makers, especially in the emerging countries. Moreover, the findings could be used to reflect on the need to formulate policies appropriate to post disaster environments, which among other issues could address building policies, which could include land ownership regulations and procedures together with property rights.

This study contributes to the body of knowledge on the subject within a previously unexplored post-war context with a focus on public organizations perspective. The study provides insights on the challenges affecting the post-disaster reconstruction across the Angolan public sector.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the challenges and critical factors of interagency information sharing (IIS) from the perspectives of technology, organization, policy and public participation in a developing country.

This study conducted a case study encompassing documentation analysis and in-depth semi-structured interviews of 15 public managers and other public officials in the Regency of Bojonegoro, Indonesia.

The findings demonstrate that addressing factors residing in organizational and policy and regulations challenges are critical and should precede the needs of technology. The findings also identified three factors affecting IIS in a developing country. First, the embeddedness of agencies in rigid bureaucratic and autocratic structure complicates the collaboration in IIS, such as promoting jurisdiction conflicts. Second, this study identifies the crucial influence of top executives on every activity in IIS, including resolving conflicts. Finally, political instability augments the crucial function of creating public awareness and participation. Public awareness and participation become more critical because public support carries political precedent that eventually affects the continuity of ICTs initiatives.

Owing to the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalizability beyond Indonesia. Furthermore, this research design did not specify the interviewees to rank and prioritize the challenges and critical factors, nor that the authors ask for the strategy to alleviate the challenges.

The challenges of data management engender practical implication in which public managers should focus more on communicating and socializing, as well as providing training on the importance of data and the new technology not only early in the phase of the project but also during the implementation. Furthermore, in the effort to ensure the continuity of the project, public managers could continuously nurture public participation and spark public interest through the use of social media.

Many studies on the challenges of implementing IIS focusing in developed countries might overlook the possible distinctive challenges affecting the adoption of IIS by the government in developing countries. This study identified several unique contexts and critical situational factors affecting interagency information sharing pertinent to a developing country.

Adoption of blockchain technology (BT) leads to shrinking supply chains, produces a better quality product, saves product development time and increases the customized offering to the customer. Since it is a new and growing area of research, researchers and practitioners are not entirely aware of challenges in the adoption of BT in supply chain (SC). Therefore, the objective of this research is to provide an overview of BT in SC and modeling of challenges in the adoption of BT in SC.

Interpretive structural modeling (ISM) is used to model the challenges of adoption of BT in SC. Challenges are identified by the literature review and verified by expert's opinions.

This study presents some key challenges, i.e. to develop trust within SC management system, obey the governance rules and regulations of institution while implementation of BT in SC, provide transparency of data, obtain tamperproof data to avoid fraud, improve coordination and information sharing among the SC partners, choose a profit-earning product SC for adoption of BT, adopt societal changes and train the participants to strengthen behavioral intention towards adoption of BT in SC. Additionally, interrelationships among the challenges have been identified. This work discusses potential implications based on challenges and provides a platform for the adoption of BT in SC.

The interrelations of the challenges will provide valuable understandings for developing BT solutions in SC to the practitioners.

Digital technologies have become indispensable in businesses and are gaining attention in academic institutions context too. Digital technological ecosystems provide a platform to communicate and share their products and services to existing and potential customers. Entrepreneurial startups and companies face internal and external challenges utilizing social media technologies to commercialize their business ideas. The purpose of this paper is to identify opportunities and challenges faced by academic entrepreneurs' startups.

This research has adopted a qualitative approach comprising of semi-structured in-depth interviews with academic entrepreneurs’ startups to find the main challenge they face using social media platforms. The purpose was associated with an exploratory type of study and also included a prominent unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) and technological opportunism (TO) model. The research respondents were 23 academic entrepreneurs startups who were chosen applying purposive sampling. Respondents were given a set of a questionnaire consisting of close-ended questions that are five-point Likert scale. The questionnaire included various parameters to measure the social media challenges the academic entrepreneurs’ startups undergo in the initial phase of their businesses.

The study identified that business-to-customer relations, brand, reputation, competition and cultural and language influence digital technologies entrepreneurship. While, the findings discovered the extended research model has a positive influence on academic entrepreneurs' intentions to use digital technologies media platforms. The outcome of this paper has thrown more light on which issues are there in digital technologies entrepreneurship, the determinants and actual usage advantages from UTAUT model and TO model that could be properly employed to solve issues of digital technologies media platforms and the potential concerning the adoption and use of digital technologies.

The study of academic entrepreneurs' startups can be considered original in nature. There is dearth of standard literature in the upcoming area of academic entrepreneurship. Governments are taking initiatives to promote academic entrepreneurs' startups, and the findings will be able to give them a right direction.

This paper aims to compare the American Library Association's statistics on the most frequently challenged books in the years 2000‐2010 that appear on the ALA's “Banned and Challenged Classics” list versus those that are contemporary that are found in the ALA published Banned Book Resource Guide.

Analyses were made to determine whether classics were challenged more than contemporary books, and if there has been a rise in contemporary challenged books. To find out the similarities and difference in contemporary and classic books, the reasons for challenges were broken down into the categories of: drugs, homosexuality, offensive language, parental permission, racism, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, suicide, unsuited to age group, violence, witchcraft, challenged, and “other”.

The study found that contemporary books were challenged more than classic books between 2000‐2010, but there has not been a rise in the number of challenges. The similarities and differences show that a small percentage of difference is seen in some of the reasons for the challenges, but the largest percentage for being sexually explicit, and the largest margin of difference in the percentages in racism.

Because the Banned Book Resource Guide was published in 2010, the statistics for challenged books in the year 2010 are incomplete. A suggestion for further research would be conducting the study when a later version of the Resource Guide is available and includes the 2010 statistics.

By examining patterns that have taken place in book challenges over the past ten years, the paper helps those interested in censorship and its many complications to better understand its trends.

The increase in automobile usage across the world has fortified the opportunities of maintenance service garages. However, there are significant numbers of challenges in front of maintenance service providers at all stages of the business. This paper identifies, analyzes and prioritizes various challenges associated with the establishment and survival of garages specific to Indian context.

In this paper, challenges for automotive service garage are identified through expert opinion, garage survey and literature. A structural hierarchical framework of the identified challenges is established through structural models, including interpretive structural modeling and analytic hierarchy process.

This paper has identified nine challenges, namely proliferation of new models and variants; technological advancements in automobile systems; demand of better service quality; space and ambience requirements; labor requirements; requirement of modern support equipments, tools and spares; safety requirements and prevention of occupational hazards; environmental norms and concerns; proper documentation requirements. The drivers and dependent variables have been identified. A hierarchical framework of challenges has been established.

This paper provides a comprehensive list of challenges and their priority in establishing an automobile maintenance garage business in Indian context. This will help the budding entrepreneurs and existing maintenance organizations to focus on the challenges that necessitate immediate attention and corrective actions.

This paper provides a significant contribution in the literature of garage maintenance services, which is established on the viewpoint of different collaborators associated with this business. This study will be a foundation to investigate further in this domain.

Using survey data from the 1993 Wilson Task Force on Gender and Equality in the Legal Profession and qualitative data from in-depth interviews with female law professors, we examine the social basis of professional authority in Canadian law school classrooms. Our quantitative and qualitative findings are consistent with classic sociological work and contemporary anecdotal accounts that suggest women experience greater difficulties achieving professional authority. In the law school classroom, however, we find that stratification within the profession and stratification within the knowledge base further undermine the professional authority of female law professors.

A collaborative community is an organizational form that is increasingly being used in knowledge-intensive industries to accelerate innovation via collaboration. This study examines key design issues faced by a bilateral broker collaborative community at the point of its formation: (1) whether a critical mass of members is required for community survival, (2) the nature of the match between member skills and community challenges, and (3) how the mix of member skills needs to be adjusted over time to sustain community growth. Findings from our agent-based simulation study indicate that, contrary to suggestions in the literature, a critical mass of members is not necessary for a bilateral broker community to survive early on. The literature also suggests that there should be a match between the skill levels of community members and the skill requirements of the challenges that the community must solve in order for it to grow. We find that a match between skill levels and challenge requirements is necessary but not sufficient: the skill levels of community members must significantly exceed the skill requirements of the challenges. Lastly, we find that the appropriate amount of heterogeneity in member skills is contingent on several factors associated with how the community adapts over time. Implications of these findings for the theory and practice of organization design are discussed.