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The purpose of this paper is to introduce a novel approach, underpinned by systems thinking, to structure requirements and support front-end design decision-making around the performance in-use of developments within highly complex environments, with diverse stakeholders and users, such as the case of learning spaces in higher education (HE).

Work domain analysis (WDA), a sociotechnical systems design framework, is first used to model the constraints that shape the expected performance of an informal learning space (ILS). Based on the model, the following stage involved a sector-wide survey questionnaire (n = 175) to appraise the views of different stakeholder groups in relation to ILS. These were analysed using the analytical network process (ANP).

This study provides a novel approach, using WDA, to conceptualise the constraints shaping the performance in-use, integrating the perspectives of different stakeholder groups. Furthermore, it provides a structured approach to establish priorities that can serve as the basis to support complex decision-making during early design stages. The findings and proposed WDA–ANP approach aim to support HE estate managers on better understanding and integrating perspectives in relation to campus developments.

In this paper, a novel systems-based approach is proposed as an alternative to conceptualise ILS. Furthermore, the approach is combined with ANP, a multi-criteria decision-making approach, to develop a novel tool to derive priorities and support front-end design decision-making in learning space design.

This paper presents results of an empirical investigation involving private construction clients in Malaysia, which seeks to establish appropriate tender evaluation criteria and weightings for a risk-oriented tender evaluation system.

At the initial stage of this study, a list of significant risks is identified and gathered through literature review. These risks are then mapped onto tender evaluation criteria. Following this, the identified risks and their mappings are validated through a questionnaire survey to determine appropriate criteria for tender evaluation. Weightings for the selected evaluation criteria are established through an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) group decision-making (GDM) method.

In practice, different lists of criteria, covering tender's technical capability and financial performance, are often used by different client organisations. However, there is a paucity of research behind the selection of these criteria and the weighting being attributed to different criteria.

This study provides an important and a valuable insight into the actual criteria used during tender evaluation practice based on an analysis of documentary evidence. Both current practice and existing tender evaluation studies failed to address the risk element adequately. There is a lack of an explicit link between evaluation criteria and project risks. This study fills this knowledge gap by identifying tender evaluation criteria through reviewing criteria used in practice and examining their links to risk factors.

Feminist research acknowledges the centrality of female knowledge and experience. Within this two further strands can be identified: that many feminist researchers place an emphasis on the social construction of meaning, with particular emphasis on the role of language as the primary vehicle of such constructions; and that within the centrality of female knowledge and experience is a feminist analysis of the role of power in determining the form and representation of social knowledge. The latter is an acknowledgement that feminist research is not just an extension of traditional research in non‐sexist ways and areas of relevance to women but that it must entail a critical evaluation of the research process in terms of its ability to illuminate women's experiences. This should comprise three strands — a critique of traditional theories and methods, the development of more appropriate theories and methods for studying the experience of women and the analysis of the role of the researcher within his/her research.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the factors relating to the implementation of a new procurement initiative that affect performance and value for money (VFM). The study is based on a four-year research project carried out on behalf of the Scottish Government to monitor and evaluate the performance and efficiency of a bulk procurement vehicle for social housing.

The researchers had a brief to monitor and evaluate the implementation of the procurement process and its influence on cost and efficiency targets. The study employed a mixed method approach with annual rounds of qualitative and quantitative data collection from project stakeholders including the contractors, consultants, clients and sponsor. Confidential semi-structured interviews were conducted on conclusion of the project to gauge views on how well the procurement process worked from the various perspectives and to reflect on the influence of the process on VFM.

The procurement programme failed to achieve the capital cost and efficiency savings targets quantified at the outset and on this measure alone VFM was not demonstrated, although there were a number of reported benefits. A major factor was the extent of process and behavioural change required from the project team and, although a procurement consultant was engaged to facilitate this, the theoretical benefits of “best practice” were not realized. The picture was further complicated by rapidly changing economic conditions experienced, and debate about the robustness of original cost savings targets.

The findings and conclusions are of relevance and interest to clients and construction organisations undergoing change through adopting novel procurement processes.

The empirical nature of the study provides a comprehensive evidence base for the performance of a collaborative procurement programme and an understanding of the potential difficulties in attaining the theoretical benefits of procurement innovation.

The study tested the effects of gender on negotiation initiation in three topics: salary, work-role and work-home balance; and on employee's perceptions of Covid-19 as inhibiting or enhancing negotiation initiation in these topics.

The authors employed a mixed-methods approach in a sample of 387 Israeli employees (189 female). Analyses of variance tested for gender differences in negotiation initiation and in Covid-19's perceived effects. Participants' additional written explanations, specifying how the pandemic inhibited or enhanced negotiation initiation, were inductively analyzed.

Compared to male, female employees were less inclined to initiate negotiation in all three topics, and more likely to perceive Covid-19 as inhibiting salary and work-role negotiations. Qualitative explanations demonstrated gender-role-consistent motives for avoiding or initiating salary negotiations during Covid-19. They also suggested that the pandemic increased the legitimacy and significance of work-home balance negotiations, across gender.

The study provides new evidence on gender differences in negotiation initiation, particularly over work-role and work-home balance, and is among the first to test these differences in Israel. Moreover, it sheds light on the effects that Covid-19, as a world-wide crisis, had on employees' negotiations in general, and gender equality in employees' negotiations in particular.

The existing housing stock needs substantial adaptation to meet national and international carbon reduction targets. The largest proportion of housing is owner‐occupied, and will require improvement works which go beyond those measures provided through the Green Deal and similar programmes. Therefore, the motivation of owner‐occupiers to perform more substantial energy efficiency refurbishments is essential to facilitate greater action. This paper aims to address these issues.

A synthesis of the extant literature from a range of disciplines reveals the role of motivation and the factors influencing motivation and pro‐environmental action in the context of the home. Based on this synthesis of the literature, a new motivation model for energy efficiency refurbishment in the owner‐occupied housing stock is then described.

The study has found that multiple factors affect motivation to refurbish in the owner‐occupied housing stock. Key motivations for energy efficient refurbishment can be categorized into the broad themes of economic, social, and environmental motivations. These motivations will be affected by a wide number of interrelated internal and external factors and mediated by the emotions of the individual. The model presented demonstrates the relationship between the multiple factors that affect energy efficiency refurbishment in relation to specific contexts.

The study represents a potential addition to motivational theory and concepts for use within the field of energy efficient refurbishment of the owner‐occupied housing stock. Implications for future government policy and towards raising the motivation of owner‐occupiers are identified: it can be used to shape national and local policy and information campaigns to motivate energy efficiency refurbishment in the owner‐occupied housing stock. To be successful, this should take differing internal factors and contexts into consideration and the dynamic nature of owner‐occupier motivation. The model can also be used by industry professionals to better understand the owner‐occupier customer motivations for energy efficiency refurbishment and therein provide a better service.

Implicitly, the negotiation literature has generally assumed that, if economic gains are sufficient, individuals will negotiate. However, recent research has begun to consider the social costs incurred by negotiating. This paper aims to develop a conceptual model of the role of one of those social costs – threat to face – in the decision of whether to negotiate or not to negotiate.

The approach was to combine relevant literature from face theory and from negotiation to develop and support a model of the role of face in the decision to negotiate or not to negotiate.

A model was developed which proposed that, if people believe that negotiating will result in a loss of face, they are less likely to negotiate in situations that they recognize are potentially negotiable. Six variables are proposed to be antecedents to the belief that negotiating could result in loss of face. These six are divided into categories of social context (social roles and status), individual differences (face threat sensitivity and negotiation self‐efficacy), and knowledge (knowledge of negotiation scripts and knowledge of negotiation content).

The question of why some people do not negotiate when the potential for economic gains would suggest that they should negotiate has received very little attention in the negotiation literature. This model provides one theoretical approach for exploring this phenomenon.

This paper presents a tool for reliability and failure mode analysis based on an advanced version of the popular failure mode, effects and criticality analysis (FMECA) procedure. To help the analyst formulating efficiently effective criticality assessments of the possible causes of failure, the fuzzy logic technique is adopted. Particular attention has been devoted to support the maintenance staff with a fuzzy criticality assessment model easy to implement and design. To test the proposed methodology, an actual application concerning a process plant in milling field for human consumption flour is showed in the paper.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of archetypes on collective fantasies and covert ideations and argue that archetypal fantasies, dreams and emotions impact organisational performance all the way down to the bottom line.

The author maintains that role‐figures in fairy tales and mythology can teach us significant lessons about the management of organisations. The impact of the Hero archetype is elaborated in particular.

In order to manage hidden, yet important, dimensions of organisational life, the study of managerial behaviour should focus more on archetypal dimensions of human interaction.

The paper asserts that allowing scholars, management, and leadership practitioners to study organisational behaviour and cultural patterns from an archetypal perspective, offers prospects of more effective leadership and decision making.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of categorization endogeneity (CE), meant as the influence of endogenous elements (e.g. behavioral traits) in group categorization, in the persistence of group inequality.

The author integrates economic and sociological elements in a dynamic model of human capital accumulation by phenotypically distinct individuals. Both kinds of elements are influenced by the degree of CE.

Effect of CE in the incentive of members of dominated groups to accumulate human capital is twofold: it allows them to pass as belonging to the dominant group but, on the other hand, it reduces the social pay-off stemming from such behavior, as they may be “expelled” from the reference group by their peers. It is found that, under sufficiently low levels of discrimination, CE widens the range of values of the neighborhood effects parameter for which group inequality is stable.

Despite the endogeneity of categorization has been explored in other studies, this is the first one which argues that this element may underpin, under certain conditions, group inequality regarding human capital accumulation. The results presented here sheds some light on real-world issues, as the nature of neighborhood effects, the role of segregation on the maintenance of racial inequality and public policies to combat group inequality.