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This book aimed to conceptualise a construction workforce management model suitable for effectively managing workers in construction organisations. To this end, this chapter presents the conceptualised model, which consists of seven workforce management practices with their respective measurement variables. Drawing from existing theories, models, and practices, the chapter concludes that a construction organisation that will attain its strategic objectives in the current fourth industrial revolution era must be willing to promote effective recruitment and selection, compensation and benefits, performance management and appraisal, employee involvement and empowerment, training and development, as well as improving workers emotional intelligence and handling external environment pressure. These practices can promote proactiveness, participation, and improved skills and can lead to effective commitment, better quality, and flexibility within the organisation.

Strategic management is traditionally seen as an exclusive managerial task rather than inclusive where accountability is reserved for top managers. However, contemporary strategy management practices increasingly pay attention to equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) by engaging with broader internal and external stakeholders via more open business models such as ecosystems. Hence, central to our examination is the concept of openness disposition, which in the context of strategic management refers to the tendency of individuals, collectives, and managers to make strategy transparent, participatory, and/or inclusive, or look for closure. While openness in strategy is regarded as a positive means of contemporary management, fostering diversity, creativity, innovation, and empowerment, there are some researched downsides too. The purpose of this chapter is to address the openness puzzle in strategy and gain a deeper understanding of the dilemmas of bottom-up strategy initiatives, and investigate the associated dilemmas, if any in the context of manufacturing small and medium enterprises (SMEs). We contribute to addressing the performative effects of the dynamic expansion and contraction in openness within the SME strategy process while using the concept of openness dilemmas, tensions, and disposition. Using the Management Control Theory, this chapter will combine theory with SME practitioners’ experiences of bottom-up strategy initiatives to increase EDI in their organisations. Based on findings that emerged from a four-year longitudinal multiple case study research with 10 European SMEs, we found that bottom-up strategy exercises are more interactive. They consider a greater number of views, increase legitimacy, and EDI at the workplace, and yield more process benefits, but are time-consuming and difficult to organise that require special attention to the capability, reciprocity, and credibility dimensions.

Floods are among the most frequent urban disasters in cities of the global south where capacity and resource limitations collude with rapid urbanization to force many poor people to live in flood prone settlements. This paper investigated the impact of flood disasters on social resilience of low-income communities in Mzuzu City, Malawi.

Using a quantitative design, 345 households were interviewed in Zolozolo West and Mzilawaingwe Wards in Mzuzu City. The survey instrument achieved a 100% response rate. A reliability test using Cronbach’s alpha showed internal consistency of survey instrument at 0.711 for Zolozolo West Ward and 0.730 for Mzilawaingwe Ward.

Out of the eleven indicators of social resilience used in this study, six indicators showed no correlation with the outcome expectancy of social resilience. Of the five indicators that showed relationship with social resilience, only improvisation and inventiveness (r_s = 0.356, p = 0.000 at two-tailed, n = 213; r_s = 0.610, p = 0.000 at two-tailed, n = 132) had a strong relationship with the outcome expectancy of social resilience.

The study was only conducted in two settlements; caution should be observed when generalizing the results.

Practitioners should ensure that social resilience strengthening mechanisms are incorporated in flood risk management as they strive to achieve SDG 11 of making cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.

The study showed how floods can negatively impact the social resilience of low-income communities, which is different from common knowledge that floods can enhance community social resilience.

This paper aims to illustrate by means of a case study how HKT-R Spider reference profiles of recidivists and non-recidivists may be supportive in leave decisions.

The authors describe what is known for recidivists and non-recidivists about changes in risk factors during treatment. The HKT-R Spider is introduced. By comparing a case study to group profiles, the authors illustrate how discussions about leave may be rationalised. From a study among 278 patients to explore the profiles, the authors report the inter agreement, and differences between recidivists and non-recidivists of the clinical HKT-R factors. Intra correlation coefficients, Wilcoxon signed ranks test and independent and paired t-tests are applied. To explore which combination of factors are discriminating between both groups, the authors also performed logistic regression analyses at six treatment stages.

The inter agreement reliability and internal consistency of the clinical HKT-R scale were acceptable to good in all six stages studied. The HKT-R Spider and profiles can be used to assist in evidence-informed decision-making about leave.

Globally recidivists had somewhat higher levels of clinical risk factors at all six decision moments, but the interpretation of HKT-R Spiders profiles should always be adapted to the individual’s context.

Applying the HKT-R Spider reference profiles on individual cases may structure and rationalize discussions lead to decisions based on clinical facts.

Mental health recovery across cultures lacks understanding and suitable measures. The Questionnaire about the Process of Recovery (QPR) is a self-report instrument measuring personal recovery outcomes for consumers of mental health services. However, the extent of its relevance among culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities is unclear. This pilot study aimed to examine the relevance and utility of the QPR among CALD consumers of primary mental health services in Australia.

Eleven individual, semi-structured interviews were conducted with two general practitioners (GPs) and nine consumers from two clinics, at locations with high Iranian and Burmese refugee or asylum seeker populations. Interviews were transcribed and analysed using a thematic framework approach.

Although almost all consumers had little or no understanding of the concept of personal recovery, they found the QPR culturally acceptable and understandable. Using the QPR during mental health consultations can help with needs identification and goal setting. Challenges in using the QPR included completion time, cross-cultural differences in concepts and norms for some items, and need for careful translation. Consumers suggested additional items regarding family reputation, sexuality, and spirituality.

The QPR is potentially a valuable tool to support mental health consultations with CALD consumers, from the perspectives of both GPs and consumers.

The purpose of this paper is to enlighten the intriguing process of industry asset consolidation. It is critical for firms to manage their business acquisitions strategically for survival in this industry life cycle process, which develops through multiple company mergers. The companies extensively acquiring industry assets have utilized acquisition programs consisting of both pre-acquisition strategizing and post-acquisition integration; however, the existing literature on acquisition programs focuses on post-acquisition integration activities. This study aims to bridge this gap.

This study focuses on pre-acquisition strategizing of acquisition programs and proposes a model in which an acquiring company could manage its acquisitions for industry asset consolidation over the industry evolution.

Empirically, in the multi-case study of telecommunications infrastructure companies, the authors collect an extensive set of archival records accumulated over the whole industry life-cycle, spanning more than 30 years, and they apply a qualitative data analysis to reveal strategic actions within the companies.

The discoveries elaborate on activities comprising the acquisition process model: social legitimacy, strategic alignment, resource fulfillment, consolidation pursuit and merging.

The counterintuitive findings are that the companies strived to ensure legitimacy early in the telecommunication infrastructure markets before they reached strategic alignment with their owners.

The results extend the understanding of industry asset consolidation as an organization-level phenomenon and show how contextual factors connected to industry life-cycle phases, such as regulatory regimes and financial cycles and industry evolution, influence the attributions of an acquisition program.

This study aims to propose a systematic knowledge management model to explore the causal links leading to the organizational crisis preparedness (OCP) level of integrated resorts (IRs) during the COVID-19 pandemic based on the intangible capital of organizational climate, dynamic capability, substantive capability and commitment.

The authors use data obtained from IRs in Macau. The Wuli–Shili–Renli (WSR) approach underpins the study. Structural equation modeling following fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was used for data processing.

The results showed that organizational climate has an essential role in IRs preparedness for crises and affects their dynamic capacity, substantive capacity and commitment. The fsQCA results revealed that the relationships between conditions with a higher level of dynamic and substantive capability lead to higher OCP scores.

Executives should develop systemic thinking regarding organization preparedness in IRs for crisis management. A comprehensive understanding of the IRs’ business environment and crises is necessary, as they will require different factor constellations to allow the organization to perform well in a crisis. Financial support for employees could ensure their assistance when dealing with such situations. Rapid response teams should be set up for daily operations and marketing implementation of each level of the IRs management systems.

This study contributes to the extant literature on IRs crisis management in the OCP aspect. The authors constructed a systematic composite picture of organization executives’ knowledge management through the three layers of intangible capitals in WSR. Moreover, the authors explored causal links of WSR from symmetric and asymmetric perspectives.