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This study aims to evaluate the key risk factors inherent in public–private partnership (PPP) power projects in Ghana and further determine the critical risk factors affecting both the public and private sectors in PPP power projects.

Ranking-type Delphi survey in two rounds was conducted to establish a comprehensive list of critical risk factors of PPP. Purposive and snowball sampling techniques helped obtain experts for the Delphi survey. Mean score ranking, factor analysis, Cronbach α coefficient and Kendall’s concordance were used for analysis. The probability of occurrence and severity of each risk factor were computed to obtain the risk impact.

From the list of 67 risks, 37 risk factors were deemed to be critical. The five topmost risk factors were: delay payment on contract, private investor change, political risks, fluctuating demand of power generated and public opposition. Principal component analysis grouped the risk factors into seven major themes.

This study develops an authoritative risk factor list for PPP power projects, which reflects both sector and country conditions for prioritizing and mitigating risk factors. Delphi approach adopted in this study can be used by future studies in similar environments where PPP is novel and expert respondents scarce.

This paper aims to understand the opportunities and challenges to engage emerging adult gamers (aged 18–25) in adopting healthier diet behaviours through online games and related platforms such as esports and streaming. The study uses a socio-ecological approach to understand influences and suggests approaches to changing behaviours.

Purposive and convenience sampling were used to identify (n = 13) online gaming industry professionals and emerging adult (EA) gamers for interview. Qualitative thematic analysis of data using NVivo was undertaken.

Bi-directional influences were found that are potentially impacting EA diet behaviours. Food industry advertising and sponsorships were identified as dominant influences within the behavioural ecology, using microcelebrities and esports events to target EAs. The study identifies a need for social marketers to engage EA gamers in healthful behaviours through interventions across various levels of the behavioural ecology, including those upstream with industry and potential government regulation, to promote better health and balance food marketing. It also identifies future research avenues for engaging gamers in good health.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore the impact of the gaming behavioural ecology on EA diet behaviour. It identifies new channels that social marketers can use to engage EAs, who are difficult to reach through more traditional marketing channels.

The goal of this study is to propose and test a model of the effect of the socio-cultural context on the disability inclusion climate of organizations. The model has implications of hiring people with disabilities.

To test the model, we conducted a cross-sectional study across four countries with very different socio-cultural contexts. Data were gathered from 266 managers with hiring responsibilities in Canada, China, Norway and France. Participants responded to an online survey that measured the effect of societal based variables on the disability inclusion climate of organizations.

Results indicated support for the theoretical model, which proposed that the socio-cultural context influenced the disability inclusion climate of organizations through two distinct but related paths; manager’s value orientations and their perception of the legitimacy of legislation regarding people with disabilities.

The vast majority of research regarding employment of people with disabilities has focused on supply side factors that involve characteristics of the people with disabilities. In contrast, this research focuses on the less researched demand side issue of the socio-cultural context. In addition, it responds to the “limited systematic research examining and comparing how country-related factors shape the treatment of persons with disability” (Beatty et al., 2019, p. 122).

Public–private partnerships (PPPs) are notoriously prone to disputes among stakeholders, some of which may unduly jeopardize contract performance. Contract disputes arising in Iran are often due to inefficiency of PPP concession agreements and practice. This study presents a causal-predictive model of the root causes and preventive measures for inter-organization disputes to enhance the likelihood of achieving desirable performance in PPP projects.

A theoretical “causal-predictive” model was developed with fourteen hypotheses based on extant literature and contractual agency theory, which resulted in the creation of a pool of 110 published items. Data were obtained from a questionnaire survey with 75 valid responses, completed by 4 stratified groups of Iranian PPP experts. Partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used for validating the proposed model via a case study.

Results reveal that the main three factors of PPP desirable performance are as follows: on-time project completion, high quality of activities/products and services for public satisfaction. Further, the most influential factors of the lifecycle problems, construction stage, and preferred risk allocation included risk misallocation, improper payment mechanism and failure to facilitate a timely approval process.

For researchers, the findings contribute to the theory of contractual agency; specifically, how different influences among the model's elements lead to better PPP performance. In practical terms, proposed outcome-based strategies will inform PPP stakeholders to avoid dispute occurrence and thus improve the time, quality and services of projects.

This study aims to investigate the dynamic influences of clustered barriers that hinder electronic procurement technology (EPT) implementation in construction procurement, using the neuro-fuzzy system.

A comprehensive literature review was conducted and 21 barriers to EPT implementation within construction projects were identified. Based on an expert survey, 121 datasets were gathered for this study. Using mean and normalization analysis for the datasets, 15 out of the 21 barriers were deemed to have critical influences in EPT barriers phenomenon. Subsequently, the critical barriers were classified into five groups: human-related; technological risk-related; government-related; industry growth-related; and financial-related. The relationships and influence patterns between the groups of barriers to EPT implementation were analyzed using the neuro-fuzzy system. Furthermore, sensitivity analysis was performed to examine the dynamic influence levels of the barriers within the hindrance level composition.

The results reveal that addressing one barrier group does not reduce the high levels of hindrances experienced in EPT implementation. However, addressing at least two barrier groups mostly tends to reduce the hindrance levels for EPT implementation. Further, this study revealed that addressing some barrier group pairings, such as technological risk-related and government-related barriers, while other barrier groups remained at a high level, still resulted in high levels of hindrances to EPT implementation in construction procurement.

This study provides insights for researchers to help them contribute to the development of theory with contemporary approaches based on the influence patterns of barrier interrelationships.

This study provides a model that would help practitioners and decision makers in construction procurement to understand and effectively determine the complex and dynamic influences of barrier groups to EPT uptake, for the development of suitable mitigation strategies.

This study provides novel insights into the complex influence patterns among grouped barriers concerning EPT adoption in the construction industry. Researchers and practitioners are equipped with knowledge on the influence patterns of barriers. This knowledge aids the development of effective strategies that mitigate the combined groups of barriers, and promote the wider implementation of EPT in the construction industry.

Sustainability has been the subject of several scientific investigations. Many researchers in the construction industry have also examined a range of sustainability-related studies. However, few studies have thoroughly reviewed implementing sustainability concepts in high-rise residential buildings (HRRBs).

By adopting scientometrics and systematic review (SR), this study seeks to map out recent sustainability trends and concepts in the design, development and operation of HRRBs worldwide and in Hong Kong. With a focus on bibliographic records from the Web of Science (WoS) database, 1,395 journal articles from 2013 to 2022 were analysed. Furthermore, thirteen studies were systematically reviewed.

The SR indicated that sustainable practices in developing Hong Kong's HRRBs emphasised zero-carbon buildings, reduced energy usage and energy-efficient retrofitting. Likewise, terms such as BIM, urban density, life cycle assessment and system dynamics are strongly connected with clusters that include “residential buildings”, “high-rise buildings” and “high-rise residential buildings”. The study identified significant themes in establishing HRRBs by combining sustainable practices, emphasising urban governance and policy management, building performance and thermal comfort, energy and design optimisation, occupant behaviour and sensitivity analysis. Core sustainability ideas have improved resource management, air quality management and knowledge of user behaviour in HRRBs.

The study allows researchers and practitioners to explore future research directions in the built environment per the application of sustainable concepts in the development of HRRBs from design, construction and post-construction phases.

This chapter provides a brief overview of community sanctions in Australia and examines the extent to which McNeill’s analysis in Pervasive Punishment (2019) is applicable in the Australian context. Two key issues in the Australian context are, firstly, state and territory-level variations within a federal political structure, and secondly, disproportionate Indigenous imprisonment and community sanction rates and the generally destructive impact of the criminal legal system on Indigenous communities and peoples. The chapter argues that developing a better agonistic politics around community sanctions requires descending from the broad level of historical and sociological analysis to examine state and territory-level variations in judicial and correctional structures, histories and cultures. Further, that Australian community sanctions cannot be understood without a primary focus on the differences between Indigenous and non-Indigenous rates, experiences and meaning. The key to addressing the destructive impact of criminal legal processes and practices on Indigenous peoples lies in developing Indigenous governance, empowerment, self-determination, sovereignty and nation-building. Two recent developments promoting Indigenous governance are examined: the Uluru Statement from the Heart and Justice Reinvestment projects initiated by First Nations communities, highlighting the importance of activism, contest and struggle by community organisations.

Recent United Nations Climate Change Conferences recognise extreme climate change of heatwaves, floods and droughts as threatening risks to the resilience and success of public–private partnership (PPP) infrastructure projects. Such conferences together with available project reports and empirical studies recommend project managers and practitioners to adopt smart technologies and develop robust measures to tackle climate risk exposure. Comparatively, artificial intelligence (AI) risk management tools are better to mitigate climate risk, but it has been inadequately explored in the PPP sector. Thus, this study aims to explore the tools and roles of AI in climate risk management of PPP infrastructure projects.

Systematically, this study compiles and analyses 36 peer-reviewed journal articles sourced from Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar and PubMed.

The results demonstrate deep learning, building information modelling, robotic automations, remote sensors and fuzzy logic as major key AI-based risk models (tools) for PPP infrastructures. The roles of AI in climate risk management of PPPs include risk detection, analysis, controls and prediction.

For researchers, the findings provide relevant guide for further investigations into AI and climate risks within the PPP research domain.

This article highlights the AI tools in mitigating climate crisis in PPP infrastructure management.

This article provides strong arguments for the utilisation of AI in understanding and managing numerous challenges related to climate change in PPP infrastructure projects.

Public-private partnership (PPP) power projects are associated with varying risk factors. This paper aims to develop a fuzzy quantitative risk allocation model (QRAM) to guide decision-making on risk allocation in PPP power projects in Ghana.

A total of 67 risk factors and 9 risk allocation criteria were established from literature and ranked in a two-round Delphi survey using questionnaires. The fuzzy synthetic evaluation method was used in developing the risk allocation model.

The model’s output variable is the risk allocation proportions between the public body and private body based on their capability to manage the risk factors. Out of the 37 critical risk factors, the public sector was allocated 12 risk factors with proportions = 50%, while the private sector was allocated 25 risk factors with proportions = 50%.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research presents the first attempt in Ghana at endeavouring to develop a QRAM for PPP power projects. There is confidence in the model to efficiently allocate risks emanating from PPP power projects.

Even though emotional intelligence (EI) is reported to have many benefits, yet it remains mainly unexplored in the construction industry. This paper aims to present a critical review of EI research in the construction industry.

Search of literature was conducted by using Scopus engine. Relevant keywords were used to discover 146 publications. The titles, abstracts, keywords and full texts of the publications were examined to finally select 48 publications that were relevant. Scientometric analysis was undertaken with the aid of VOSViewer. Content analysis systematically reviewed the key themes.

The five topmost countries conducting research into EI in the construction industry are UK, Australia and the USA. The most influential authors in construction EI research are Goleman, D., Salovey, P. and Mayer, J.D. The significant impact of EI on leadership in the construction industry were that EI boosted transformational leadership style and EI influenced use of management-by-exception active style by construction leaders. Furthermore, EI leads to resilience against stress and EI enhances stress tolerance were the significant roles of EI on stress management.

A limitation is in the number of publications reviewed. In spite of the critical review, the number of publications reviewed may not be exhaustive.

This research enhances knowledge and stimulates a deeper comprehension of EI research and also provides recommendations for further studies based on identified research gaps.

As a pioneering study that combines scientometrics and systematic review for EI research, this study enhances knowledge on EI in the construction industry.