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While well-designed and environmentally conscious infrastructures are essential for economic growth and social progress, their implementation can sometimes neglect the unique characteristics of territories. The chapter explores the issues posed by eco-blind infrastructure projects, challenging the assumption that all forms of greening are universally beneficial. It delves into the implications of urban greening initiatives, showcasing instances where these projects, while aiming for sustainability, have inadvertently exacerbated issues of inequality, displacement, and social marginalization. Through critical analysis of cases, the chapter reveals the complex interplay among environmental improvement, territorial identity, and community involvement, underscoring the importance of community engagement in project planning and execution. This approach is described as a tool to balance environmental considerations with an appreciation for local identity, fostering projects that truly benefit communities while advancing the broader goals of environmental development.

The internationalization of higher education institutions (HEIs) is the top stage of international relations among universities, and it is no longer regarded as a goal but as a means to improve the education of sustainability. As institutional commitments to internationalize higher education continue to grow, so does the need to critically consider the intended purposes and actual outcomes of the resulting programs and policies. This study aims to explore how institutional international policies influence outcomes of HEIs internationalization in the East Asian region, specifically in Taiwan and Japan.

The study used quantitative design. 3,158 participants, including 1,192 participants from Taiwan and 1,966 participants from Japan, were randomly recruited to complete the Academic Profession in the Knowledge Society (APIKS), an international survey examining the change in academic work in HEIs. The study adopted quantitative data and used two variables (institutional international policies and outcomes of internationalization) with descriptive, correlational, and moderated multiple hierarchical regression analysis with SPSS computer software to answer the research questions.

The study showed that both Taiwanese and Japanese academics have high agreements on the outcomes of internationalization for enhancing academic quality and increasing mobility of students. In both countries, two institutional international policies of HEIs internalization-- clear internationalization strategies and funding for faculty members to undertake research abroad-- can significantly influence the process of internationalization in the teaching-oriented and research-oriented HEIs respectively.

This study provides insight into the relationship between institutional international policies and the outcomes of HEIs internationalization in Taiwan and Japan. It provides university leaders with empirical evidence for implementing managerial strategies of internationalization that promote education for sustainability in HEIs.

The procurement reforms carried out by the Government of Ghana have led to the creation of the Public Procurement Authority and the passage of the Public Procurement (Amended) Act 2016. Nevertheless, many obstacles could prevent an open and fair competition during the procurement of works. This significantly affects the success of Ghanaian construction projects. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the factors to enhance the success of the contractor selection phase of the Ghanaian public labor-based construction project.

A quantitative research approach was adopted by this study. Data was collected through a self-administered questionnaire to 377 respondents across Ghana. The data was then analyzed using structural equation modeling.

This study revealed that external, project procedures and project management factors impact the Ghanaian labor-based contractor selection phase success.

This study is limited to the contractor selection phase of Ghanaian public labor-based projects and developing nations with similar socioeconomic characteristics.

Strict adherence to this study’s findings will enable the government to undertake more infrastructure projects to raise the standard of living for its populace.

Although several studies have been conducted to improve the success of construction projects in developing nations, very little focus has been placed on the success factors of the contractor selection phase of public construction projects. These findings are vital in discovering for the first-time factors influencing the success of the tender stage of public labor-based projects in Ghana and developing nations with similar socioeconomic characteristics.

The construction industry is facing an enormous number of challenges due to continuous advancements in construction technologies and techniques. Hence, construction management theories have to confront critical newly issues concerning market globalization and construction innovations. The key factor to address these challenges is to ameliorate the competitive abilities of the competing construction firms. In this context, measuring competitiveness of construction firms is an efficacious approach to amplify their competitive growth and profitability. To this end, the purpose of this research paper is to design a three-tier multi-criteria decision making model for competitiveness assessment and benchmarking of construction companies, meanwhile tackling a wide range of essential factors and attributes that covers broad aspects of the present competitive market.

In the first tier, four new pillars (4P) of competitiveness assessment are introduced for construction firms, namely, organization performance, project performance, environment and client and innovation and development. These pillars are able to aid in construction firms’ management on both long and short term basis. Hence, 21 key competitive factors and eighty key competitive criteria are identified, incorporated and analyzed in this research study. The second tier encapsulates carrying out a questionnaire survey in the Canadian and Vietnamese market to garner two main sets of information. The first set of information incorporates responses of the pairwise comparisons between competitiveness factors and criteria. The second set involves gathering utility scores pertinent to each competitiveness criteria. The developed model then leverages the use of analytical hierarchy process to scrutinize the relative importance priorities of competitiveness factors and criteria. The third tier of the developed model encompasses the use of multi-attribute utility theory to compute competitiveness scores for construction companies through blending criteria’ relative importance weights alongside their respective utility functions. In addition, the third tier comprises conducting a sensitivity analysis to derive the most important criteria influencing the overall competitiveness of construction companies. The developed model is tested and validated using three case studies; one construction company from Canada and two construction companies from Vietnam.

Results demonstrated that the developed model has a potential to render a synthesized and methodical performance evaluation for the competitive ability of a given construction company. Furthermore, it was found that Vietnamese companies are more considerate towards pillars pertaining to environment and client while Canadian companies are more attentive towards innovation and development. The outcome of sensitivity analysis revealed that effectiveness of cost management highly affects the competitive ability of Vietnamese companies while effectiveness of cost management exhibits the most significant influence on the competitive of Canadian companies.

The developed model can benefit construction companies to understand their competitiveness in their market and diagnose their strengths and weaknesses. It is also can be useful in efficient utilization of their limited resources and development of sustainable and long-term strategic plans strategic plans, which consequently leads to maintaining better position in their dynamic business markets.

Literature review manifests that reported competitiveness assessment models and practices are not able to address present challenges, technologies and developments in construction market.

When it comes to deterring and incarcerating people seeking asylum, there is a fusion between racialisation and politicisation. The bedrock is the colonisation of the nation now called Australia, where the dispossession of Indigenous peoples was a national project that later merged into the building of a state that lauded British heritage and the exclusion of migrants through the White Australia policy. This foundation of nationhood continues in a manner that challenges the myth of harmonious multiculturalism by determining who is deemed worthy and who is excluded. The centrepiece of racialised bordering is the immigration detention regime which is increasingly characterised by transporting people to offshore sites. This chapter argues through examples, how people seeking asylum have been racialised, dehumanised and criminalised, particularly through a national security lens.

This study is devoted to examining the peer effects of engineering enterprises’ internationalization from the viewpoint of industry subdivision and how information and competition alter peer effects. Furthermore, the heterogeneity of peer effects is analyzed based on manager characteristics.

In this study, multiple regression analysis was conducted on a sample of 38 Chinese engineering enterprises listed in the Engineering News-Record’s top 250 international contractors over the period of 2013–2021. This study collected the paired data from the enterprise annual reports and the China Stock Market & Accounting Research database.

The results reveal that (1) there exist peer effects within the subdivided industry of the engineering field; the quality of information disclosure of peer enterprises and degree of market competition moderate the peer effects; (2) the peer effects of internationalization are more pronounced in engineering enterprises with managers who have lower ability, hold greater power or are older.

The findings of this study contribute to understanding the peer effect in the process of internationalization of engineering enterprises, and help enterprises to effectively supervise the irrational behavior of top managers, so as to develop better internationalization strategies.

The results extend peer effects to the subdivision industry of the engineering field. Furthermore, this study also enriches the relevant research on peer effects among enterprises by empirically supporting the moderating role of information and competition as well as analyzing the heterogeneity of the peer effects from the perspective of manager characteristics.

Climate change has been universally recognized as a major threat to human well-being, necessitating a comprehensive transformation of people's activities. Various measures have been proposed to contain climate change among which the green transformation grabs special attention, thanks to its desirable properties. Within the green transformation process, green tourism comes to prominence with huge potential. As one of the largest carbon emitters, the transition towards green tourism may offer substantial benefits not only for tourism companies but also for the whole economy. Yet, most studies tend to focus on the adverse effects of tourism on climate change while overlooking the potential impact of climate change on tourism. This chapter clarifies the feedback relationship between climate change and tourism and makes some recommendations.

With the increasing agility of IT enterprises, it is crucial to identify suitable managerial strategies for controlling information system development (ISD) projects in the new agile working environments. These environments are characterized by the collaborative nature of work and the recurring nature of communication. This study aims to explore how perceived transparency in ISD processes, controlled by transparency strategies, impacts project quality.

In collaboration with a firm that implemented a customized Scaled Agile Framework, questionnaires were distributed to employees involved in ISD projects. The goal was to understand the influence of perceived transparency in ISD processes on project quality.

Our research demonstrates that perceived transparency in ISD processes enhances project quality through knowledge exchange by strengthening goodwill trust among team members. Additionally, transparency improves project quality through client feedback by strengthening competence trust of clients toward the team. Goodwill trust of clients toward the team and competence trust among team members have less impact on project quality enhancement.

This study reveals the nomological network among the perceived transparency, different types of trust among stakeholders, social interactions among stakeholders, and project outcomes in agile ISD environments. This nomological network has been overlooked by previous studies that biased toward top-down, interorganizational communication. It highlights that not all types of trust among stakeholders are involved in the processes through which perceived transparency influences ISD project quality in agile working environments. Additionally, it exposes the limitations of transparency strategies for controlling projects in agile IT enterprises.

This study aims to establish an evaluation method for cross-regional major infrastructure project (CRMIP) supportability. The focus is to identify evaluation indicators from a complexity perspective and develop an evaluation model using qualitative and quantitative methods. Case studies are carried out to verify the reliability of the evaluation model, thereby providing theoretical and practical guidance for CRMIP operations and maintenance (O&M).

Guided by the idea of complexity management, the evaluation indicators of CRMIP supportability are determined through literature analysis, actual O&M experience and expert interviews. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, consisting of sequential relationship analysis, entropy weighting, game theory and cloud model, is developed to determine the indicator weights. Finally, the evaluation model is used to evaluate the supportability of the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macao Bridge (HZMB), which tests the rationality of the model and reveals its supportability level.

The results demonstrate that CRMIPs' supportability is influenced by 6 guideline-level and 18 indicator-level indicators, and the priority of the influencing factors includes “organization,” “technology,” “system,” “human resources,” “material system,” and “funding.” As for specific indicators, “organizational objectives,” “organizational structure and synergy mechanism,” and “technical systems and procedures” are critical to CRMIPs' O&M supportability. The results also indicate that the supportability level of the HZMB falls between good and excellent.

Under the guidance of complexity management thinking, this study proposes a supportability evaluation framework based on the combined weights of game theory and the cloud model. This study provides a valuable reference and scientific judgment for the health and safety of CRMIPs' O&M.