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Contract risk management has become a critical mission, as contract issues may lead to a loss of vast amounts of money to parties involved or cause project failure. This study sought to identify effective management strategies to mitigate construction contract issues that might emerge during construction.

A quantitative research approach was adopted for the study. Structured questionnaires made up of close-ended questions were distributed to construction professionals in South Africa via the SurveyMonkey platform. The data were then analysed using descriptive statistics.

The findings indicate that the critical sources of contract-related disputes are ambiguous definitions of the contract parties' scope of their rights and obligations, lack of precise arrangements regarding the calculation of contractual penalties for failure to meet the deadline, lack of detailed specification of the works and specific milestones, lack of provisions regulating changes to the project documentation during the construction stage, an excessive amount of contractual penalties on contractor's side and lack of provisions regarding the rules of performing additional and replacement works and their settlement. However, for these disputes to be effectively managed, strategies such as reduction uncertainties in project's phases, setting up contingency plans, construction guarantee, extension of time claims, payment guarantee, retention and escalation clause should be implemented by the parties involved.

Even though the empirical study focused on construction professionals in South Africa, the findings could be applied to other countries outside of South Africa.

To effectively manage and prevent contract disputes from averting project failures and losses to parties involved in the contract, construction professionals need to be aware of strategies that must be implemented before and during the project execution. If well implemented, these strategies will help a construction project be successful and experience fewer contractual disputes.

The study has identified the knowledge gap concerning suitable contract risk management strategies available for implementation to effectively prevent any contract parties from losing money, time and project failure.

The Korea-China-Japan Investment Promotion, Facilitation and Protection Agreement is the first treaty in the economic field that binds the three Northeast Asian countries together under a single legal instrument. The existence of effective dispute-settlement procedures under the treaty will contribute to the creation of a favourable investment climate in the host country. Nevertheless, there have been fears about frivolous or vexatious claims that could inhibit legitimate regulatory actions by governments. How to compose an investment chapter of the Korea-China-Japan FTA that is being negotiated is a pressing demand for all in the region. Any pertinent answers to such a quest require a thorough comparison of the benefits and drawbacks of any development of relevant rules and governance. In the end, a quest for better international investment governance in Northeast Asia in the future requires sound evaluation of lessons from the past and present.

The purpose of this article was to provide an outline of the citation practices of “Evolving to a new dominant logic for marketing” by Vargo and Lusch (2004) to identify and discuss the most prominent research topics in which citations were used and to suggest future research based on the results of the analysis.

The authors used a comprehensive framework of citation practices based on iterations of previous literature to analyze the relevant literature, which they identified by accessing, systematically and rigorously, every available contribution matching a set of criteria. The authors then categorized these contributions and highlighted the main topics of research interest in each category.

The findings identify some of the factors in the continuous development of SDL, the way this new marketing logic permeated the scientific debate, the infusion of Vargo and Lusch (2004) into several contributions framed in the new logic or justified through it, and a general perception of a default reference. Additionally, the findings highlight the main topics of research interest in each category.

The analysis enabled the detection of the original paper's influence through advances in service studies, pollination into other fields of research and continuous scientific debate. The authors have highlighted several avenues for research and proposed future research directions.

This research analyzed the effects of the spread of the SDL cornerstone article and emphasized the advantage of using an in-depth approach to the analysis of studies through a framework applied to more than 4,600 studies.

This paper aims to use the advertisements of three major brands – Chymol, Formamint and Lifebuoy Soap – to examine how advertisers responded to the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic in Great Britain influenza pandemic. It looks particularly at the ways in which marketing strategies changed and how these strategies were enacted in the lexical and semiotic choices (e.g. language, image, colour, typography, texture, materiality, composition and layout) of advertisements.

A total of 120 advertisements for the three brands were collected from the British Newspaper Archive and analysed using the theory and analytical tools of multimodal critical discourse analysis. The general themes and semiotic structures of the advertisements were identified, with the aim of deconstructing the meaning potentials of verbal and visual resources used to convey ideas about the pandemic, and how they work to shape public understanding of the products and make them appear as effective and credible.

Each brand rapidly changed their marketing strategy in response to the influenza pandemic, using such techniques as testimonials, hyperbole, scaremongering and pseudoscientific claims to persuade consumers that their products offered protection. Whilst these strategies may appear manipulative, they also had the function of fostering reassurance and sympathy amongst the general public in a moment of turmoil, indicating the important role of brands in building consumer trust and promoting a sense of authority in early twentieth-century Britain.

Exploring the way in which advertisers responded to the 1918‐1919 influenza pandemic reminds us of the challenges of distinguishing legitimate and illegitimate medical advice in a fast-moving pandemic and highlights the need to cast a critical eye to the public health information, particularly when it comes from unofficial sources with vested interests.

This theme will be addressed through main points: Special Nature of Investment Disputes and its methods of peaceful settlement. International legal framework governing Arbitration in investment disputes: A. Multilateral legal framework. B. Bilateral legal framework/Investment promotion and protection agreementsTypes of arbitration in investment disputes. The Egyptian experience in investment disputes arbitration. The National legal framework. Egypt on the map of investment disputes in the world. A case study. Conclusion: Results related to the legal framework regulating investment disputes in Egypt. Results related to The arbitration cases against Egypt.

The researcher investigates the subject of international arbitration in investment disputes in the framework of voluntary theory, which is based on the premise that the satisfaction of people who are addressing the international legal norm is the basis of the same rule. In other words, the basis of international law is based on the satisfaction of the State and other international legal persons Both, and then express or implied consent.

Despite the availability of domestic and regional arbitration mechanisms in Egypt represented by a large number of cases.

The theme for the study primarily on Egypt and the international arbitration of investment disputes, through theoretical and practical study of disputes arbitration which Egypt is a party defendant in which to focus on what was issued in which the provisions of the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes, in an attempt to find out the reasons for the verdicts image released it, where it came mostly against Egypt, and whether these judgments against them in investment disputes due to reasons related to the legal framework of the arbitration process, or for reasons of bodies of arbitration issued by those provisions, or to the defense, which represents the Egyptian party, or to the circumstances Economic and political (which represents the investment climate).

The proposed solutions to improve the conditions and factors surrounding the arbitration disputes that Egypt is waging against foreign investors, whether they are initially alleged or accused of drafting agreements and contracts, through amending the relevant legislation and laws, selecting arbitration bodies and defense bodies.

The purpose of this paper is to reveal the main causes of delays in the projects are from the client (relative importance index (RII)=0.716), labor and equipment (RII=0.701) and contractor (RII=0.698). Hence determining the contractual responsibility of delay is the most likely source of dispute in construction projects and many techniques have been used in the courts to demonstrate the criticalities of a delay event on the project schedule. Therefore, authors try to investigate all process-based techniques of delay claims and evaluated and conformed them with principles by Society of Construction Law (SCL) protocol and Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering International (AACEI) in order to choose the best techniques based on the specific circumstances of each project.

This section is divided into two distinct parts: refers to the methods used to assess the perceptions of clients, consultants, and contractors on the relative importance of causes of delay in construction industry; and refers to advantages and disadvantages of various techniques used to analyze delays and their conform with SCL protocol. A questionnaire was developed to assess the perceptions of clients, consultants, and contractors on the relative importance of causes of delay in Iranian construction industry. The respondents were asked to indicate their response category on 78 well-recognized construction delay factors identified by authors.

In total, 78 causes of delay were identified through research. The identified causes are combined into seven groups. The field survey included 58 contractors, 55 consultants, and 62 client. Data collected were analyzed by RII and Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The authors identified main causes of delay and ten most important causes, according to Table AII, from the perspective of three major groups of participants (clients, consultants and contractors). The ranking of categories of causes of delay, according to Table I, were: client-related causes (RII=0.716); labor and equipment category causes (RII=0.701); contractor-related causes (RII=0.698); material-related causes (RII=0.690); design-related causes (RII=0.666); external causes (RII=0.662); and consultant-related causes (RII=0.662). But according to the discussions and given that determining the contractual responsibility of delay is the most likely source of dispute in construction industry and many techniques have been used in the courts to demonstrate the criticalities of a delay event on the project schedule.

All process-based techniques of delay analysis have been present in this paper and categorized in 11 groups. In order to understand the advantages and disadvantages of them by clients, contractor and consultant, a thorough review conducted to reveal the nature of techniques. In the next step, given that selecting the most appropriate technique based on constraints and specific conditions of each project is one of the most important steps to carry out a successful delay analysis. The authors conformed, all process-based techniques of delay analysis, by SCL protocol and AACEI principles. Finally, the result of this match was brought in order to choose the best technique based on the specific circumstances of each project.

This paper covers the development of a multidimensional contract administration performance model (CAPM) for construction projects. The proposed CAPM is intended to be used by the industry stakeholders to measure the construction contract administration (CCA) performance and identify the strengths and weaknesses of the CCA system for running or completed projects.

The research design follows a sequential mixed methodology of qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis. In the first phase, contract administration indicators were collected from relevant literature. In the second phase, an online questionnaire was prepared, and data were collected and analyzed using the crisp value of fuzzy membership function, and structural equation modeling (SEM). The fuzzy set was chosen for this study due to the presence of uncertainty and fuzziness associated with the importance of several key indicators affecting the CCA performance. Finally, SEM was used to test and analyze interrelationships among constructs of CCA performance.

The data collected from 336 construction professionals worldwide through an online survey was utilized to develop the fuzzy structural equation model. The goodness-of-fit and reliability tests validated the model. The study concluded a significant correlation between CCA performance, CCA operational indicators, and the process groups.

The contribution of this paper to the existing knowledge is the development of a fuzzy structural equation model that serves as a measurement tool for the contract administration performance. This is the first quantitative structural equation model to capture contract administration performance. The model consists of 93 Construction Contract Administration(CCA) performance indicators categorized into 11 project management process groups namely: project governance and start-up; team management; communication and relationship management; quality and acceptance management; performance monitoring and reporting management; document and record management; financial management; changes and control management; claims and dispute resolution management; contract risk management and contract closeout management.

Poor quality in building projects is high and increasing. Poor quality can increase the cost of a building by up to more than 50% and can delay a project by up to 50%. This research investigated the poor quality of building elements/components.

The site operatives were requested to rate the frequency of poor quality in 25 building elements/components. The frequencies of the poor quality were scored on a five-point Likert scale, ranging from least often to extremely often. The survey forms were administered to construction site operatives by hand delivery.

The data revealed that poor quality occurred in more than 80% of the building projects completed. Approximately 40% of the cost of a building project is attributed to poor quality. In total, 70% of the respondents measured the poor quality of building elements as being high and frequent. The size and frequency of poor quality are higher in concrete, plaster, brick, foundations and roof trusses.

The research findings would help to reduce claims, disputes, maintenance costs and waste on sites.

This research provides fresh information on poor quality in building projects and provides a systemic process for anticipating poor quality in building projects. The findings also provide an option to increase maintenance span and a means to reduce claims and disputes in the construction sector.

This study examines the information literacy practices of young video bloggers, focusing on the ways in which they construct their cognitive authority through a health-related information creation process.

This study draws upon socially oriented information literacy research and nexus analysis as its methodological framework. Data, including YouTube videos, theme interviews and video diaries, were collected with three Finnish video bloggers and qualitatively analysed using nexus analytical concepts to describe the central elements of social action.

The study shows that video bloggers employ several information practices during the information creation process, including planning, information-seeking, organization, editing and presentation of information. They construct their cognitive authority in relation to their anticipated audience by grounding it on different types of information: experience-based, embodied and scientific. Trustworthiness, emphasized with authenticity and genuineness, and competence, based on experience, expertise and second-hand information, were recognized as key components of credibility in this context.

This study increases the understanding of the complex ways in which young people create information on social media and influence their audiences. The study contributes to information literacy research by offering insights into the under-researched area of information creation. It is among the few studies to examine cognitive authority construction in the information creation process. The notion of authority as constructed through trustworthiness and competence and grounded on different types of information, can be taken into account in practice by information professionals and educators when planning information literacy instruction.

Statistics show that the construction sector has the second-highest number of accident cases in Malaysia. A total of 100, 000 construction workers suffer from work-related bad health each year. Scaffolding accidents are the second cause of accidents on construction sites. Therefore, this present research provided answers to the following questions: (1) what are the causes of scaffolding accidents and (2) what are the possible measures to reduce scaffolding accidents?

The research developed a questionnaire instrument that included 24 causes of scaffolding accidents and 21 remedial actions. The research was based on a cross-sectional survey questionnaire administered to 129 members of construction organizations.

Data revealed that scaffolding-related cases caused a total of 70% of the deaths/injuries on sites. Furthermore, scaffolding accidents were mainly caused by a lack of guard rails on scaffoldings, poor inspections, improper assembly, a poor safety culture, poor attitudes towards safety, poor footing of scaffoldings and unsecured planking. To reduce scaffolding accidents, there must be a lifeline on scaffolding, proper guardrails and proper assembling of scaffoldings, and preventing access to incomplete or defective scaffoldings. The 24 causes are structured into six factors through factor analysis and the 21 remedial actions into six factors.

This research serves as the first attempt to conduct broad research on the causes and remedial actions concerning scaffolding accidents on construction sites in Malaysia. Theoretically, the research has provided fresh insights into the impact of scaffolding accidents.