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Community centers play a socio-economic and urban role of combining different communal necessities, that serve inhabitants, at different neighborhoods in cities. Their role emerged in importance as being a hub for improving and customizing quality of life experiences of the public. This research presents a code-based risk assessment tool for evaluating fire safety measures that can be adapted in the context of community centers. It also provides an exemplary case study to demonstrate its application.

The study identified the factors that render community centers as a high-risk type of facilities in fire events. Various fire codes and standards were reviewed to describe the relevant fire safety measures. A code-based fire risk assessment tool was developed and implemented, through a case study. A set of recommendations were developed to improve the fire safety conditions of the case study facility.

Several violations to fire safety were identified in the case study building. The findings led to identifying a set of recommendations to improve its fire safety conditions.

This research introduced a systematic approach to raise awareness about fire incidences and consequences in community centers, and provides facilities managers with a tool, to assess compliance based on international fire code requirements.

In fire events, community centers are considered as high-risk facilities that may lead to significant losses of human lives and damages to assets. It is significant to study the causes of fire, for ensuring effective prevention and safe operations.

Globally, there is a growing proportion of disabled people as a result of different circumstances. This growth generates attention and leads to ways to integrate the affected population into society. Addressing such disability and integration is particularly important at buildings level, enabling and expanding the scope of activities for people with disabilities (PWDs). The rising number of PWDs and the need to integrate them into society create a need for action to improve their living condition and integration into society. This study aims to examine the issue of accessibility for PWDs in higher education facilities in Qatar.

Addressing accessibility at buildings level is particularly important in higher education because it enables inclusion in training and education and increases the potential for productive engagement in society. The study aims to develop an objective tool to assess and measure accessibility in educational institutions. Five selected buildings were examined and evaluated at Qatar University based on proximity, multi-use, vertical and horizontal circulation availability. The survey respondents were randomly selected. An existing assessment method was used in surveying respondents, including those with and without disabilities.

A comparative study was conducted to explore the discrepancy between facility users with and without disability, indicating the gap in existing tools.

The developed tool generates the same outcome when conducted by different assessors, indicating the level of compliance and percentage met as a benefit, not a focus. It allows professionals and non-professionals with minimal experience to conduct the assessment.

Global building failures, such as the Grenfell Tower fire in London, UK, emphasised the need for trustworthy building handover information for safety. However, a notable gap remains in understanding how reliable handover information can ensure the safety of occupants. This study aims to investigate the use and essential quality of handover information to understand the effects of the quality of information on the management of commercial buildings.

Ninety-four participants from nine organisations who regularly use handover information to manage multiple commercial buildings participated in the semi-structured interviews. Qualitative thematic coding using interview transcripts was performed to identify the utilisation of handover information and its quality requirements.

This study reveals that as-built drawings and product information are predominately used to fulfil statutory obligations, comply with the organisation’s internal policies, evaluate asset valuation and make informed decisions about capital investment and operating expenses. The quality dimensions of “accuracy”, “timeliness”, and “completeness” are preferred in combination to achieve desired outcomes.

This study focused on using handover information in the management of commercial buildings. However, its results can offer valuable perspectives for improving its application across various sectors in the built environment.

The findings affirm the need for quality handover information for safety, compliance and efficient management in commercial buildings.

This research significantly contributes to the current knowledge of handover information in the building sector. Given the study findings, building owners are equipped to define specific handover information requirements and quality requisites.

The purpose of this paper is to describe an innovative approach to overcoming a common dilemma in designing negotiation simulations – that of situating a simulation in a real-life or fictitious context. This binary choice, which the authors call the negotiation designer’s dilemma, has profound implications for the types of learning activities and outcomes that can be integrated into the overall learning experience. As a way of overcoming the trade-offs inherent in this dilemma, the authors developed what they term hybrid simulations, which blend elements of fact and fiction in its contextual design in a particular way.

The authors were part of a negotiation simulation design team that used Design Thinking to understand the negotiation designer’s dilemma and to prototype and test a corresponding solution.

This paper demonstrates the benefits, potential applications and the how-to of hybrid simulations within the context of two such simulations the authors have designed at two different Swiss business schools. This paper concludes by discussing the potential and limitations for the application of hybrid simulations, as well as areas of potential further development.

The concept of a hybrid negotiation is a novel design trick that can be used in a variety of negotiation simulation contexts.

This study aims to develop and validate two scales: quiet quitting (QQ), measuring individual-level work disengagement, low organisational commitment and not going above and beyond in work, and quiet firing (QF), measuring employee perceptions of the degree to which their managers devalue them and when organisations intentionally create a situation to make them quit.

The scale development process involved item generation through literature search, review and interviews with working executives. The scales were then tested online by 264 participants from India.

In the quantitative analysis, the QQ and QF scales have good psychometric properties when tested with factor analysis, reliability analysis and Cronbach’s alpha. Furthermore, the convergent, discriminant and predictive validity of outcome constructs also showed significance.

This study found that the QQ and QF scales are highly reliable and exhibit good psychometric properties. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies to empirically develop and test the QQ and QF constructs and offer implications for organisations and managers.

The aim of this study is to identify the travel constraints of people with special needs (PwSN) and the strategies used to overcome them. The article also intends to analyze the differences in travel constraints and negotiation strategies according to the type of disability and/or special need.

A qualitative study was conducted in which a sample of PwSN (people with disabilities – mobility, sensory and cognitive – seniors and people with food allergies) were interviewed in depth.

PwSN face a wide range of constraints when engaging in tourism activities. These constraints are very diverse and influence people with different intensity and have to be overcome using different negotiation strategies. However, differences in the constraints were observed according to the type of special needs.

One of the most significant practical implications of this research is the need for raising awareness regarding human diversity among tourism stakeholders. It is critical to link sectoral policies that are reflected in the social and business reality, creating public–private partnerships to raise the sharing of knowledge, equipment and services. By addressing the constraints that prevent PwSN from traveling, the tourism sector can create more opportunities for them to participate in social activities, improving their quality of life and contributing to a more sustainable and inclusive industry.

Traveling can present significant challenges for people with special needs, which affect the quality of their tourism experience. Despite growing academic attention to this issue in recent years, research in this field has primarily focused on specific aspects of disability. This study seeks not only to identify the barriers to travel faced by people with different special needs but also to explore the negotiation strategies used to overcome these barriers and the differences according to the type of special need.

The common language behind vernacular architecture only seems to be maintained in societies that preserve a traditional way of life. Changes in these societies can threaten their cultural heritage, while research may be a tool for its conservation and enhancement. In this paper, the habitat of a Mossi community is therefore studied as a first stage in analysing the possibilities of its maintenance.

After a previous study, data collection from a stay in Baasneere (Burkina Faso) and the analysis of 32 traditional residential units were completed. The research showed some common features which, when compared against the bibliography reviewed, could be defined as characteristic of the traditional architecture of this culture.

The home for a family unit consisted in an enclosure formed by the grouping of adobe constructions around a courtyard. As the family grew so did the compound, in a relationship directly linking the scales of architecture and the levels of kinship. The main daily activities took place in the courtyards while the individual interior spaces were understood as private shelters. Other typologies such as granaries, kitchens, warehouses and sheds were also analysed.

Some features of Mossi architecture already described in the existing bibliography were verified in the Baasneere case studies, showing that this tradition is still preserved. With a multidisciplinary approach, the house was examined not so much from the perspective of construction, but of its cultural configuration.

This study aims to develop an extended social attachment model for expatriates, integrating a multiple stakeholder perspective, to understand evacuation decisions during disasters.

Through interviews with 12 Tokyo-based expatriates who experienced the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters, this study collects the lived experiences of a diverse set of expatriates. This data is analyzed abductively to map relevant evacuation factors and to propose a reaction typology.

While the 2011 Tohoku disasters caused regional destruction and fears of nuclear fallout, Tokyo remained largely unscathed. Still, many expatriates based in Tokyo chose to leave the country. Evacuation decisions were shaped by an interplay of threat assessment, location of attachment figures and cross-cultural adjustment. The study also discusses the influence of expatriate types.

Disaster planning is often overlooked or designed primarily with host country nationals in mind. Expatriates often lack the disaster experience and readiness of host country nationals in disaster-prone regions in Asia and beyond, and thus might need special attention when disaster strikes. This study provides advice for how to do so.

By unpacking the under-researched and complex phenomenon of expatriate reactions to disasters, this study contributes to the fields of international human resource and disaster management. Specifically, seven proposition on casual links leading to expatriate evacuation are suggested, paving the way for future research.

For the provision of smart library services to end users, tools of the Internet of Things (IoT) play a significant role. The study aims to discover the factors influencing the adoption of IoT in university libraries, investigate the impact of IoT on university library services and identify challenges to adopt IoT applications in university libraries.

A systematic literature review was carried out to address the objectives of the study. The 40 most relevant research papers published in the world’s leading digital databases were selected to conduct the study.

The findings illustrated that rapid growth in technology, perceived benefits, the networked world and the changing landscape of librarianship positively influenced the adoption of IoT in university libraries. The study also displayed that IoT supported library professionals to initiate smart library services, assisted in service efficiency, offered context-based library services, provided tracking facilities and delivered effective management of library systems. Results also revealed that a lack of technical infrastructure, security and privacy concerns, a lack of technological skills and unavailability of policy and strategic planning caused barriers to the successful adoption of IoT applications in university libraries.

The study has provided theoretical implications through a valuable addition to the current literature. It has also offered managerial implications for policymakers to construct productive policies for the implementation of IoT applications in university libraries for the attainment of fruitful outcomes. Finally, the study provides a baseline for understanding the adoption of IoT in academic libraries.

This paper presents a new conceptualization of digital service anchored in a coconstitutive ontology of digital “x” phenomena, illuminating the pivotal role of the digital qualifier in the service context. Our objective is to provide a theoretically grounded conceptualization of digital service and its impact on the nature of the value cocreation process that characterizes digital phenomena.

Drawing from scholarly works on digital phenomena and fundamental principles of service-dominant logic, this paper delineates the essence of digital service based on the interplay between digitization and digitalization as well as the operational dynamics of generativity and its constitutive dimensions (architecture, community, governance).

The paper defines digital service as a sociotechnical process of value cocreation, where participants dynamically architect, govern and leverage digital resources. This perspective highlights the organic development of digital service and the prevalence of decentralized control mechanisms. It also underscores how the intersection between generativity’s dimensions—architecture, community and governance—shapes the dynamic evolution and outcomes of digital services.

Our conceptual framework sheds light on our understanding of digital service, offering a foundation to further explore its nature and implications for research and practice, which we illustrate using the case of ChatGPT.