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This paper highlights the importance of creating a learning culture for strategic partnering in construction. Theories of organizational learning and strategic partnering are interpolated to identify the related attributes that help to relate and intertwine the two concepts. With the emergence of a learning culture, organizations are able to undergo the transition from no organizational learning to integrated organizational learning, which in turn reinforces the embedded culture. Since learning from experience, continuous improvement and a learning climate are pre‐conditions for a learning culture, three models are presented respectively in dealing with issues relating to these conditions. These models help to attain strategic partnering.

This paper aims at presenting the analysis of the views of construction participants in China’s construction industry on three major site safety issues. First, data from three distinctive roles (project managers, safety officers, and foremen) on site safety knowledge were analysed. Results indicate that they have low levels of safety knowledge. This is consistent with the existing literature, implying that safety training and education is a major issue around the world. In addition, the views of project managers and safety officers are further elicited on the second issue (that is, factors affecting site safety) and the third issue (that is, methods for improving project safety management). Results indicate that both parties have quite consistent views. The six most important factors are “lack of attention to safety protection by workers”, “lack of attention to safety management by main contractors/project managers”, “insufficient safety training”, “inadequate safety level”, “tiredness of workers”, and “poor quality of construction materials and equipments”. The five most promising methods are “increase in safety investment in terms of manpower, capital and finance”, “improvement in safety operations”, “no alcohol at work”, “increase in safety training and education for workers”, and “increase in safety inspection”. Discussions are given in this paper.

This paper presents the employment of the analytic network process (ANP) to select the best site for a shopping mall. ANP is an innovative and robust multicriteria decision‐making (MCDM) method because it can produce a comprehensive analytic framework for solving societal, governmental, and corporate decision problems. Yet, there is a lack of published papers in the construction field demonstrating the method with illustrative examples. In the current paper, it is suggested that ANP is appropriate for shopping mall location selection. An example is therefore demonstrated. In order to explicate the difference between ANP and analytic hierarchy process (AHP), the findings obtained from the two methods are compared. Results of the comparison indicate that ANP is a powerful tool to solve the decision problem if interdependent relationships have substantial impacts in the decision model.

Field experience (FE) has long been a crucial component of the process of teacher education. Clearly, a range of stakeholders can affect student-teachers’ achievements in FE. Given the importance of these stakeholders in FE, it may be possible to improve FE practices by clarifying the involvement of different parties in the FE process. Since student-teachers are the major beneficiaries in FE, their voices should not be ignored. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore student-teachers’ perceptions of the roles played by different stakeholders.

In a qualitative research design, 18 student-teachers took part in this study. Content analysis was used to classify and compress the large amount of text provided by the informants into a manageable number of categories to track trends, patterns, frameworks and typologies.

In addition to those of the five major stakeholders of FE (i.e. student-teachers, cooperating teachers, institute supervisors, schools and institutes), this study identified the roles of three other stakeholders (i.e. students, other student-teachers and parents) that had not been widely focused in previous studies.

The present research took the first step to investigate the roles played by different parties in FE from the perspective of student-teachers and offered insights for enhancing student-teachers’ performance in FE.

Wikis, as one of the Web 2.0 tools, has been increasingly used to engage students to learn with others in a collaborative virtual environment. However, there are relatively few studies examining the application of wikis in secondary schools. Therefore, this study aims to investigate factors affecting the use of PBWorks (a popular wiki tool).

The aim was achieved by empirically examining an extended technology acceptance model (TAM) from a sample of 429 junior secondary students in Hong Kong. Specifically, relationships among six latent variables, which were school support, teacher support, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, attitudes towards use and the intention to use, were posited in the model. The more robust factor-based partial least squares structural equation modelling (factor-based PLS-SEM) was used to test the research model.

The results indicated that most of the hypotheses were supported, which suggested that the extended TAM could explain the rationale behind students’ intentions to use PBWorks for group projects.

This paper extended the original TAM by including two additional variables (school support and teacher support) for explaining behavioural intentions. Because of the increased use of e-learning platforms in secondary schools, more understanding of what motivates secondary school students’ e-learning intentions is necessary.

This paper reexamines the traditional approaches to study value and quality, and suggests the need of linking these isolated approaches. A new concept called value mix which focuses on the customers’ perception of the value of a product or service in terms of function, quality and price is developed to provide a vehicle for an amalgamation of varied management thinking. Value is suggested to form the core of organisations’ strategic process of pursuing customer satisfaction. Leading edge can be forged by formulating and applying an appropriate value mix. Given that quality is the focus of total quality management (TQM) while value is that of value analysis/value engineering (VA/VE), researchers should explore the opportunity of integrating TQM and VA/VE tools and techniques to enhance product or service value.

This study aimed to provide evidence to support the use of a wiki called PBworks as a learning tool to foster students' information literacy (IL) skills based on activity theory.

The participants consisted of 421 students (i.e. form 1 to form 3) from Hong Kong taking a liberal studies course during the 2016–2017 academic year. This study mainly used a mixed methods design, proposing 11 hypotheses. Quantitative data from 374 questionnaires were analysed to test these research hypotheses, while a qualitative method (interviews) was used to explain the quantitative results. A structural equation modelling approach was used to analyse the data, and data triangulation was used to answer the same research questions.

The results showed that the model components PBworks affordances (PB) and rules and divisions (RD) had significant direct effects on individual activities (IA) and community activities (CA) and significant indirect effects on information literacy (IL). The results also revealed that CA had a significant effect on IA and had an even greater effect on IL.

Using PBworks and the project-based learning (PjBL) approach, this study examined the determinants affecting the IL skills of Hong Kong junior secondary school students and proposed a wiki-based information literary activity (WILA) model.

As students' IL skills have become increasingly important, this study can shed light on related topics for future studies.

And contribute to social stability and harmonious development.

This study eventually confirmed the validity of the WILA model with all hypotheses supported.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-03-2020-0092.

Provides evidence showing that although analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is effective to use for management decision making, it can be defective if used improperly. AHP becomes one of the essential multi‐criteria, decision‐making methods used by both management practitioners and academics. With the development of computer software packages, its usage expands vastly across different business and management areas. An example is presented to illustrate how the defective methodology of AHP can contaminate the findings and subsequent analyses and discussions. The “defected” papers disclosed a defective methodology that generated invalid findings. This paper first points out what the query is. Then, possible reasons behind the invalid findings are described, which are also explained with mathematical expressions. Apparently, “defected” papers may infect those who use them and transfer the risks out into the academic world. Asserts its researchers’ responsibility to raise any risky papers for discussions once they have found them, and advises the authors of these papers to take a positive attitude in dealing with queries and critiques.

This paper presents the development of a conceptual model of construction partnering. This model aims at exploring the relationship between two types of partnering (project and strategic) by studying the key factors that affect the partnering process stages. It also helps to determine the critical success factors (CSFs) of the two types of partnering. The paper commences by reviewing the literature on project and strategic partnering to develop the conceptual model. A survey was conducted to test the model. Results indicate that there are some critical factors (i.e. top management support, mutual trust, open communication, and effective co‐ordination) affecting both types of partnering, while some are specific to project (i.e. facilitator) or strategic partnering (i.e. long‐term commitment, continuous improvement, learning climate, and partnering experience). Practical implications are given to advise how to facilitate the implementation of partnering. Future research directions are also given to suggest how to improve our understanding of the concept of partnering.

To improve organizational performance and sustain a competitive advantage many Australian businesses have begun to embrace e‐commerce. For example, businesses from the automotive, banking, insurance and retail industries have been able to leverage the benefits of information and communication technologies. Yet, those from the construction industry have been slow, perhaps even reluctant, to implement information and communication technologies to support ecommerce. Thus, this paper aims to determine the barriers that small‐medium sized contractors are experiencing when confronted with the need to implement e‐commerce to sustain their competitiveness. Unstructured interviews were undertaken with managers from 20 small‐medium sized contractors from the State of Victoria in Australia, which had annual turnovers ranging from $1‐50 million. The financial, organizational, technical and human barriers that were identified from findings are presented and discussed. The paper concludes by proposing strategies that small‐medium sized contractors may adopt if they to leverage the benefits of e‐commerce.