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As current university students may access information for their study anytime, anywhere with ubiquitous mobile technologies, this research re-examines the roles of study space in students' learning and campus life.

A survey was conducted to collect students' opinions and habits regarding the usage of different study spaces. Results in three different academic majors (science and engineering, arts and business) of a comprehensive international university were compared.

The authors’ findings showed a more diversified space usage among students, with the library café increasingly important in students' learning and life while learning commons remain important. However, there were only minor differences among these three study majors towards the learning and entertaining spaces, as these students generally apply inquiry-based learning.

While some researches have investigated students' usage of university and library learning spaces, few studies have focused on the study space issue in Hong Kong or other metropolises in the East under the current mobile learning environment. This study's insights could help libraries and universities improve the management of their physical spaces to meet student needs.

Social networks provide convenient communication and connection among people, and they have become essential in college students' lives. However, problems also come along with increasing concern about trust and privacy issues. This research attempts to investigate the trust and privacy perceptions of university students when using social networks for learning purposes.

This paper investigated the differences in trust and privacy perceptions between undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) students through an online survey with 96 subjects in Hong Kong. The authors used the Mann–Whitney U test to compare the differences between the responses provided by UG and PG subjects.

The authors found that both PG and UG students were generally satisfied with the use of social networking sites (SNSs) for learning. However, PG subjects used SNSs more for learning and were more willing to exchange with classmates than UG and PG perceived higher value of SNSs than UG students. The authors also found a relative lack of privacy awareness of UG students.

Based on the study’s findings, the authors made some recommendations about the application of SNSs for learning purposes. The authors also suggest universities provide more guidance and training to students on the privacy issues of SNSs.

Even though some previous studies have focused on studying privacy and trust issues on SNSs, studies that aim at university students in the context of Asia–Pacific are rather limited, especially university students' own trust and privacy perceptions on using SNSs for learning purposes.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-02-2020-0042

This research studies the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the operation management of Hong Kong academic libraries for understanding the difficulties and challenges for librarians to adapt to the special arrangements during the pandemic.

Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with librarians in major universities and higher education institutions of Hong Kong. Participants were interviewed either in the face-to-face format or text-based format.

Participants provided a broad scope about the actual library management and operation changes during the COVID-19. According to the respondents, the most challenging problem for librarians during COVID-19 was to strike a balance between concerns of library staff and users. While they described how these arrangements and changes affected the service quality of academic libraries from different perspectives, the pandemic situation also brought some opportunities, such as pushing the digitalization of all collections and using online resources for future development. A hybrid model for library service would be more common in the future with more demands toward online resources and digital collection, in which academic libraries should be prepared after the pandemic.

This paper provided broad insights into library management and the future development of academic libraries for the post-COVID-19 period. There are scant studies of this topic, especially in an Asian metropolis context with dense population, small campus and limited library physical spaces.

The studies on contractor prequalification focus more on the review of models and algorithms rather than review of the criteria for contractor prequalification. However, the basis of every prequalification model primarily relates to the measurement and judgement of prospective contractors based on a set of decision criteria. This paper aims to address the gap by reviewing academic papers on contractor prequalification criteria.

A desktop search was conducted under the “T/A/K (title/abstract/keyword)” field of the Scopus search engine. A total of 49 papers were initially identified; however, only peer reviewed journals were selected for the study; therefore, a sample of 36 was subsequently used. Further filtering was done in which 26 papers were found valid for further analysis as it was realized that, not all the identified papers presented empirical arguments about the issue of contractor pre-qualification criteria. The selected 26 papers were subjected to content analysis to identify the key contractor pre-qualification criteria.

A total of 41 criteria were identified which were subsequently classified into six main categories, namely, technical considerations, management considerations, financial considerations, reputation considerations, general experience considerations and health, safety and environmental considerations. There was an indication that, the involvement of health, safety and environmental considerations in contractor prequalification proceedings is limited.

The major limitation of this research was the limited number of papers selected for further analysis based on the Scopus search engine. The identified criteria serve as a basis for further empirical studies on contractor prequalification criteria.

The outcome of this study broadens the understanding of practitioners and researchers on the various criteria for contractor prequalification.

By critically reviewing available literature on contractor prequalification, the study sets the tone for further empirical studies on contractor prequalification.

The selection of a suitable contractor for a project has a significant impact on project success. In order to avoid the selection of an incapable contractor, the capabilities of contractors must be assessed prior to tendering through pre-qualification. However, the pre-qualification process is characterized by partiality and ambiguity. In view of this, numerous models have been developed to solve the pre-qualification problems. Prior to the development of such models, it is very important to assess how the pre-qualification criteria impact project success criteria so as to aid in the selection of pre-qualification criteria while considering the project and client’s objectives. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to ascertain the relationship between contractors’ pre-qualification criteria and project success criteria.

The study utilized explanatory research design in testing 35 hypotheses. The views of 121 practising quantity surveyors were solicited using a structured questionnaire and analyzed using the partial least square structural equation modeling to validate the hypothesis.

In all, 13 of the 35 hypotheses were not supported. The findings indicated a clear relationship between contractors’ pre-qualification and project success.

Therefore, it is evident that the practice of lowest evaluate bidder is not adequate for providing a satisfactory project outcome. It is, therefore, suggested that more emphasis should be placed on contractor’s technical abilities, health and safety and management capabilities as they have proven to have a significant correlation with the project success.

This study provides insights to the how various pre-qualification criteria can impact the project success criteria and further contributes to the symbiotic that exist in the literature on pre-qualification and project success.

Allocating risk in public–private partnership (PPP) projects based on public–private parties’ risk management (RM) capabilities is a condition for success of these projects. In practice, however, risks are allocated to these parties beyond their respective RM capabilities. Too much risk is often assigned to the private or public party, resulting in poor RM and costly contract renegotiations and terminations. This chapter proposes a methodology based on fuzzy set theory (FST) in which decision makers (DMs) use linguistic variables to assess and calculate RM capability values of public–private parties for risk events and to arrive at risk allocation (RA) decisions. The proposed methodology is based on integrating RA decision criteria, the Delphi method and the fuzzy synthetic evaluation (FSE) technique. The application of FSE allows for the introduction of linguistic variables that express DMs’ evaluations of RM capabilities. This provides a means to deal with the problems of qualitative, multi-criteria analysis, subjectivity and uncertainty that characterise decision-making in the construction domain. The methodology is outlined and demonstrated based on empirical data collected through a three-round Delphi survey. The public–private parties’ RM capability values for land acquisition risk are calculated using the proposed methodology. The methodology is helpful for performing fuzzy-based analysis in PPP projects, even in the event of limited or no data. This chapter makes the contribution of presenting a RA decision-making methodology that is easy to understand and use in PPP contracting and that enables DMs to track calculations of RM capability values.

The principal objective of corporate planning is to try to direct corporate or national destiny in a logical and formalized manner. In this article A. M. Taylor, Managing Director of L. A. Mitchell (Holdings) Ltd., answers question on why the LAM Group is introducing this technique and what it has achieved so far

Multicultural individuals are those who identify with two or more cultures, such as Chinese-Canadians, Turkish-Germans, or Arab-Americans. They are more likely to see multiple sides of an ethical dilemma than monocultural individuals, who identify with one culture. This tendency toward ethical relativism – where ethics are seen to be relative to the context – could help multicultural individuals excel as ethical global leaders. Global leaders must manage the ethical tensions inherent in their multinational operations by understanding multiple ethical perspectives. Multiculturals’ inclination toward relativism may be driven by the structure or content of their cultural identities. The identity structure argument is based on the patterns in which individuals mentally organize their cultural identities, while the identity content argument is based on the degree to which individuals endorse relativism as a result of having internalized cultural schemas with relativist norms. We offer an exploratory test of these dual hypotheses, and find evidence to support the identity structure, but not the identity content argument. Specifically, multicultural individuals who separate their cultures are more likely to exhibit relativism in decision-making than those who integrate them. This indicates that identity patterns can drive relativism. In contrast, individuals who identify with high relativism cultures are not more likely to endorse relativism than those who identify with low relativism cultures, indicating a lack of evidence for identity content driving relativism. These findings have implications for hiring or placement managers who seek global leaders who are likely to see more than one side of an ethical issue.

This study aims to examine service quality in Nigerian general hospitals and determines possible differences in service quality perceptions between employees and patients.

Using the Servqual scale, data was collected from 328 employees and patients of two government hospitals in Abuja and Delta states. Analysis was carried out using SPSS 26 package for constructs reliability frequency, mean, standard deviation and t-statistics.

The study found significant differences in the perception of service quality between employees and patients of the Nigerian general hospitals. While employees gave a high rating to empathy, patients rated it low. Also, the patients’ poor perception of tangible did not match the employees’ high perception. Other specific findings are patients’ unfavourable assessment of the physical facilities and judged the staff to lack professional dressing. Patients felt the hospitals could not provide necessary equipment for their procedures and thus considered their services unreliable.

Reliability was perceived as a significant problem in this study; therefore, the hospitals management should ensure correct diagnoses and treatment results of the highest quality and timely services. Also, the management should invoke strong relationships between the employees and patients to earn patients’ trust. Employees should ensure to listen to patients’ complaints and find solutions promptly. Patients need health-care workers’ support and rely on their abilities; Therefore, health-care workers should be highly dependable and show empathic behaviour in discharging their duties. Health-care managers must access employees‘ and patients’ particular perceptual gaps and reconcile the difference before further quality improvement initiatives.

The findings in this study strengthen the clamour for assessing service quality from both employees and patients’ views in public hospitals. Hospital service quality is complex and primarily judged from the patients’ perspective. This study showed that health-care quality means different things to all stakeholders.

The purpose of this study is to compare market reactions to the change in the demand by index funds between large and small company stocks by examining the transition of the S&P 500, S&P 400 MidCap and S&P 600 SmallCap indexes from market capitalization to free-float weighting. This unique information-free event allows not only avoiding confounding information signaling and investor awareness effects but also comparing the effect of the decrease in demand on stocks of different sizes.

This study uses the event study methodology to calculate abnormal returns and trading volume around the full-float adjustment day. It also tests for significant changes in institutional ownership and liquidity. Multivariate regressions are used to examine the relation of liquidity changes and price elasticity of demand to the cumulative abnormal returns around the full-float adjustment day.

This study finds significant decreases in stock price accompanied with significant increases in trading volume on the full-float adjustment day, and significant gains in quasi-indexer institutional ownership and liquidity. The main finding is that cumulative abnormal returns around the event period are related to changes in the number of quasi-indexer and transient institutional shareholders, not to changes in liquidity or price elasticity of demand.

This study provides the first comprehensive comparison analysis of stock market reactions to the decline in demand between large and small company stocks. As an important implication for future studies of the index effect, changes in institutional ownership should be considered in the analysis.