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The construction sector has a global reach, and construction professionals worldwide often encounter challenges in delivering a project on time and within the assigned budget. Hence, this paper aims to investigate the preproject factors that most affect the performance of construction projects.

A literature review was conducted to identify these factors from previous research, after which a questionnaire was developed and distributed to construction industry professionals worldwide. The response data were collected and analyzed using several methods, including Cronbach’s alpha, Relative Importance Index (RII), Kruskal–Wallis test, and Spearman’s and Pearson correlations.

The results highlight four categories of significance, namely design, stakeholder, engineering, and procurement, with 31 factors being assigned to these categories. The relationships between each factor based on the categories established in the survey are then presented. With the help of data analysis, focusing on these significant preproject factors will help management teams to evaluate and improve the preconstruction process to achieve a higher project success rate.

This study differs from other studies in the literature by gathering all relevant preconstruction success factors by an extensive literature review. Finally, highly ranked factors are studied in detail for a better understanding of the impact of preconstruction factors on project performance. This study is supported by powerful tests such as Kruskal–Wallis test and Spearman’s correlation to study the perception of different groups on preconstruction factors. Furthermore, the data analysis will help in identifying and avoiding the failure part of the previous projects and will improve the planning and/or forecasting of the new projects.

Over the last decade, investments in green energy companies have witnessed noticeable growth rates. However, the glacial pace of the world economic restoration due to COVID-19 pandemic placed a high degree of uncertainty over this market. Therefore, this study investigates the short- and long-term relationships between COVID-19 new cases and WilderHill New Energy Global Innovation Index (NEX) using daily data over the period from January 23, 2020 to February 1, 2023.

The authors utilize an autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing estimation technique.

The results show a significant positive impact of COVID-19 new cases on the returns of NEX index in the short run, whereas it has a significant negative impact in the long run. It is also found that the S&P Global Clean Energy Index has a significant positive impact on the returns of NEX index. Although oil has an influential effect on stock returns, the results show insignificant impact.

Governments have the chance to flip this trend by including investment in green energy in their economic growth stimulation policies. Governments should highlight the fundamental advantages of investing in this type of energy such as creating job vacancies while reducing emissions and promoting innovation.

First, as far as the authors are aware, the authors are the first to examine the effect of oil prices on clean energy stocks during COVID-19. Second, the authors contribute to studies on the relationship between oil prices and renewable energy. Third, the authors add to the emerging strand of literature on the impact of COVID-19 on various sectors of the economy. Fourth, the findings of the paper can add to the growing literature on sustainable development goals, in specific the papers related to energy sustainability.

This study aims to look into the scope of exploring and promoting business zakah for the enhancement of the well-being of the underprivileged in society.

This is mainly a qualitative research conducted using both primary and secondary data. Primary data have been collected from 34 business entrepreneurs in Bangladesh through semi-structured in-depth interviews. The secondary data have been collected from annual reports with a view to calculating business zakah of five business enterprises for providing an indicative picture of prospective volume of business zakah in Bangladesh. Finally, collected qualitative data have been analyzed thematically following the due procedures with a view to addressing the research questions.

The findings reveal that around thirty five percent of sample entrepreneurs have used business zakah fund for fully and partially financing their social projects. It also reveals that on average annual business zakah fund amounts to nearly 144m BDT (around US$1.7m) per business enterprise. These findings bear clear witness that business zakah has extensive scope and promising prospect to be an instrument of financing social projects aimed at ensuring social well-being of the disadvantaged.

The findings of this research can be used as a guide to promote business zakah to finance social programs aimed at ensuring the well-being of the underprivileged of all societies particularly of Muslim countries representing one-fourth of the world population.

Exploring and promoting business zakah as an initiative of broadening the base of zakah is an innovative move and net addition to the literature of Islamic finance. It contributes greatly to the poverty alleviation movement in the sense that Muslim business entrepreneurs will now find their business zakah fund readily available to finance their social projects aimed at ensuring well-being of the impoverished.

Prisons in the sub-Saharan African region face unprecedented challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Malawi, the first prison system case of COVID-19 was notified in July 2020. While prison settings were included in the second domestic COVID-19 response plan within the Law Enforcement cluster (National COVID-19 preparedness and response plan, July–December 2020), they were initially not included in the K157bn (US$210m) COVID-19 fund. The purpose of the study was to assess prison preparedness, prevention and control of COVID-19 in Malawi..

A multi-method situation assessment of the COVID-19 response and human rights assurance of prisoners and staff was conducted in a large prison complex in Malawi. Qualitative research underpinned by the Empirical Phenomenological Psychological (EPP) framework consisted of interviews with key informants such as prison health personnel, senior prison staff, penal and judicial policymakers, government and civil society organisations (n = 14) and focus group discussions with consenting male (n = 48) and female prisoners (n = 48) and prison wardens (n = 24). Prison site visits were supported by detailed observations based on the World Health Organisation Checklist for COVID-19 in prisons (n = 9). Data were collected and analysed thematically using the EPP stepwise approach and triangulated based on Bronfenbrenner’s model conceptualising COVID-19 as a multi-level event disrupting the prison eco-system.

The results are presented as MICRO-MESO level individual and community experiences of incarceration during COVID-19 spanning several themes: awareness raising and knowledge of COVID-19 in prisons; prison congestion and the impossibility of social distancing; lack of adequate ventilation, hygiene and sanitation and provisions and correct use of personal protective equipment; MESO-MACRO level interplay between the prison community of prisoners and staff and judicial policy impacts; medical system COVID-19 response, infrastructure and access to health care; COVID-19 detection and quarantine measures and prisoner access to the outside world.

This unique situation assessment of the Malawian prison system response to mitigate COVID-19 illustrates the dynamics at the micro-level whereby prisoners rely on the state and have restricted agency in protecting themselves from disease. This is due to severe structural inadequacies based on low resource allocation to prisons leading to a compromised ability to prevent and treat disease; an infirm and congested infrastructure and bottlenecks in the judicial system fuelling a continued influx of remand detainees leading to high overcapacity. Multi-pronged interventions involving key stakeholders, with prison management and line Ministry as coordinators are warranted to optimise COVID-19 interventions and future disease outbreaks in the Malawian prison system.