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Traditional construction planning relies upon the critical path method and bar charts. Both of these methods suffer from visualization and timing issues that could be addressed by 4D technology specifically geared to meet the needs of the construction industry. The purpose of this paper is to propose a new construction planning approach based on simulation by using a game engine.

A 4D automatic simulation tool was developed and a case study was carried out. The proposed tool was used to simulate and optimize the plans for the installation of a temporary platform for piling in a civil construction project in Hong Kong. The tool simulated the result of the construction process with three variables: equipment, site layout and schedule. Through this, the construction team was able to repeatedly simulate a range of options.

The results indicate that the proposed approach can provide a user-friendly 4D simulation platform for the construction industry. The simulation can also identify the solution being sought by the construction team. The paper also identifies directions for further development of the 4D technology as an aid in construction planning and decision making.

The tests on the tool are limited to a single case study and further research is needed to test the use of game engines for construction planning in different construction projects to verify its effectiveness. Future research could also explore the use of alternative game engines and compare their performance and results.

The authors proposed the use of game engine to simulate the construction process based on resources, working space and construction schedule. The developed tool can be used by end-users without simulation experience.

The introduction of Building Information Model (BIM) tools over the last 20 years is resulting in radical changes in the architectural, engineering and construction industry. One of these changes concerns the use of virtual prototyping – an advanced technology integrating BIM with realistic graphical simulations. Construction virtual prototyping (CVP) has now been developed and implemented on ten real construction projects in Hong Kong in the past three years. The purpose of this paper is to report on a survey aimed at establishing the effects of adopting this new technology and obtaining recommendations for future development.

A questionnaire survey was conducted in 2007 of 28 key participants involved in four major Hong Kong construction projects – these projects being chosen because the CVP approach is used in more than one stage in each project. In addition, several interviews are conducted with the project manager, planning manager and project engineer of an individual project.

All the respondents and interviewees give a positive response to the CVP approach, with the most useful software functions considered to be those relating to visualisation and communication. The CVP approach is thought to improve the collaboration efficiency of the main contractor and sub‐contractors by approximately 30 percent, and with a concomitant 30 to 50 percent reduction in meeting time. The most important benefits of CPV in the construction planning stage are the improved accuracy of process planning and shorter planning times, while improved fieldwork instruction and reducing rework occur in the construction implementation stage. Although project teams are hesitant to attribute the use of CVP directly to any specific time savings, it is also acknowledged that the workload of project planners is decreased. Suggestions for further development of the approach include incorporation of automatic scheduling and advanced assembly study.

Whilst the research, development and implementation of CVP is relatively new in the construction industry, it is clear from the applications and feedback to date that the approach provides considerable added value to the organisation and management of construction projects.

The construction industry is well known for its high accident rate and many practitioners consider a preventative approach to be the most important means of bringing about improvements. The purpose of this paper is to address previous research and the weaknesses of existing preventative approaches and then to describe and illustrate a new application involving the use of a multi‐dimensional simulation tool – Construction Virtual Prototyping (CVP).

A literature review was conducted to investigate previous studies of hazard identification and safety management and to develop the new approach. Due to weaknesses in current practice, the research study explored the use of computer simulation techniques to create virtual environments where users can explore and identify construction hazards. Specifically, virtual prototyping technology was deployed to develop typical construction scenarios in which unsafe or hazardous incidents occur. In a case study, the users' performance was evaluated based on their responses to incidents within the virtual environment and the effectiveness of the computer simulation system established though interviews with the safety project management team.

The opinions and suggestions provided by the interviewees led to the initial conclusion that the simulation tool was useful in assisting the safety management team's hazard identification process during the early design stage.

The paper introduces an innovative method to support the management team's reviews of construction site safety. The system utilises three‐dimensional modelling and four‐dimensional simulation of worker behaviour, a configuration that has previously not been employed in construction simulations. An illustration of the method's use is also provided, together with a consideration of its strengths and weaknesses.

The purpose of this paper is to postulate that the technique of Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) is currently underutilised in visitor management studies reported in the peer-reviewed marine wildlife tourism (MWT) research literature. Further, this paper provides insight into how IPA could inform future research and management of tourism experiences at marine wildlife destinations.

This paper synthesises learning gained from the natural area tourism and recreation literature that report the application of IPA in MWT and insights from a recent study at the Dolphin Discovery Centre in Bunbury, Western Australia.

Although currently underutilized in MWT research, IPA is a relatively straightforward, easy to interpret, and, if correctly applied, a powerful tool that managers and researchers can employ to investigate and enhance visitor satisfaction in the short-term and for longer-term sustainability of the industry through visitor-informed tourism management.

Having identified the opportunity to enhance visitor experiences, site management and target species welfare through increased IPA research, this review provides a plain language introduction to the application of IPA and direct access to comprehensible academic discourses and exemplars for the technique. Moreover, in light of increasing tourism demand, IPA can assist in determining management options for the future.

The overall aim of this paper was to examine the impact of the Australian research assessment exercise on the research approaches (positivist/non-positivist) favoured by accounting disciplines in Australia. Our key research question examined how the outputs and foci of research in elite accounting disciplines changed over a 16-year period. Our analysis was informed by Bourdieu's notions of academic elitism and symbolic violence.

We analysed all papers published in 20 major accounting journals across a 16-year period by Australian accounting disciplines that were highly rated in the research assessment exercise. We also compared our results from this group against two case study accounting disciplines that were not rated as “world class”.

Our key finding is that the introduction of a research assessment exercise in Australia has resulted in research outputs of elite accounting disciplines over this period being increasingly focused on positivist rather than non-positivist research. Our findings evidence a narrowing of accounting disciplines' research agendas and foci across the period.

Our findings highlight a considerable narrowing of the research agenda and paradigms in accounting disciplines that is not in the public interest. Our findings also have implications for the literature on academic elitism. The narrowing of the research agenda and greater foci on positivist research exhibited in our findings demonstrates the role of dominant elites in controlling the research agenda through a research assessment exercise.

A practical implication is that proper research, regardless of the approach used, must be appropriately recognised and accepted by Accounting Disciplines, not ostracised or discouraged. Research implications are the breadth of accounting research should be celebrated and concentration eschewed. Australian accounting discipline leaders should not fall for the illusion that the only good research is that which is published in a small number of North American positivist journals.

Our findings provide insights into Bourdieu's work through demonstrating how dominant players have successfully exploited an external regulatory mechanism, a research assessment exercise, to strengthen their position within a field and exert control over the research agendas of accounting disciplines. Previous work by Bourdieu has not directly examined how actors utilise these outside forces as instruments for shaping their own field.

Globalisation is generally defined as the “denationalisation of clusters of political, economic, and social activities” that destabilize the ability of the sovereign State to control activities on its territory, due to the rising need to find solutions for universal problems, like the pollution of the environment, on an international level. Globalisation is a complex, forceful legal and social process that take place within an integrated whole with out regard to geographical boundaries. Globalisation thus differs from international activities, which arise between and among States, and it differs from multinational activities that occur in more than one nation‐State. This does not mean that countries are not involved in the sociolegal dynamics that those transboundary process trigger. In a sense, the movements triggered by global processes promote greater economic interdependence among countries. Globalisation can be traced back to the depression preceding World War II and globalisation at that time included spreading of the capitalist economic system as a means of getting access to extended markets. The first step was to create sufficient export surplus to maintain full employment in the capitalist world and secondly establishing a globalized economy where the planet would be united in peace and wealth. The idea of interdependence among quite separate and distinct countries is a very important part of talks on globalisation and a significant side of today’s global political economy.

Much like “Yeti,” the Abominable Snowman whose footprints are everywhere but itself nowhere to be seen, unfounded assertions of human capital as valuable contributors to strategic success continue to proliferate. Many of these treatments are nonbinding, nonmeasureable, idiosyncratic, tautological, and therefore nearly impossible to use for any comparative market valuation. In this chapter, we selectively review the interdisciplinary literature on exemplars of human-derived capital. We systematically examine specific epistemological strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in recognized theories, measures, and practices. In particular, a multidisciplinary, multilevel, connectionist point of view is suggested. We present the case for an evidence-based classification system of human-derived capital at the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels. Our framework goes beyond static stock models by emphasizing dynamic human-derived capital flows, as well as their within-level and cross-level linkages, all within the context of a modern society that increasingly is networked, fluent with technology, and prodigious with social media.

Drawing upon a systematic literature review in new technology, innovation transfer and diffusion theories, and from interviews with technology leaders in digital transformation programs in the US Oil & Gas (O&G) industry, the authors explore the relationships among O&G industry dynamics, organization's absorptive capacity and resource commitment for new digital technology adoption-implementation process.

The authors employed the empirical survey method to gather the data (a sample size of 172) in the US O&G industry and used structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the measurement model for validity and reliability and the conceptual model for hypothesized structural relationships.

The results provide support for the study’s causal model of adoption and implementation with positive and direct relationships between the initiation and trial stages, between the trial stages and the evaluation of effective outcomes and between the effective outcomes and the effective implementation stages of digital technologies. The results also reveal partial mediating relationships of industry dynamics, absorptive capacity and resource commitment between respective stages.

Based on the current study's findings, managers are recommended to pay attention to the evolving industry dynamics during the initiation stage of new digital technology adoption, to utilize the organization's knowledge-based absorptive capacity during digital technology trial and selection stages and to support the digital technology implementation project when the adoption decision of a particular digital technology has been made.

The empirical research contributes literature on digital technology adoption and implementation by identifying and demonstrating the importance of industry dynamics, absorptive capacity and resource commitment factors as mediating variables at various stages of the adoption-implementation process and empirically validating a process-based causal model of digital technology adoption and a successful implementation project that has been missing in the current body of literature on digital transformation.

Liability of foreignness (LOF) has been one of the central constructs in the field of international business and management. Over the past two decades, a significant body of theoretical and empirical research has accumulated, theorizing on the sources of these LOFs, investigating their magnitude, and prescribing approaches to mitigate these disadvantages. However, much of this research is almost exclusively related to firms expanding their products, services, and operations to other countries as part of their global expansion. The difficulties firms face in foreign product markets is just one dimension of the costs they can face in their attempts to secure resources abroad.

We expand the domain of the LOF construct to include liabilities faced by firms accessing foreign capital markets in light of the increasing integration of capital markets. We identify four sources of LOF in capital markets: regulatory costs, information costs, unfamiliarity costs, and costs arising out of cultural differences. Based on an extensive review of “home bias” in equity markets, we propose four strategies to erase the legitimacy deficits that firms encounter in foreign capital markets: bonding, signaling, adoption of business practices isomorphic with the host country, and certifications and endorsements by third parties. We also offer suggestions for operationalizing and measuring LOF in capital markets as well as several directions for advancing further research on LOF in the context of capital markets.

Malaysia is an ex‐colonial, newly‐industrialising country, with a sustained high economic growth rate averaging eight per cent GDP per annum over the past ten years. Within such a rapidly booming economy, the pace of social, economic and political change is fast, as is the pace of technological change. Other things being equal, these are the changes in which environmental hazards can be magnified. As a result of rapid economic development, physical systems are disturbed and changed. For example, the modification of the hydrological cycle due to deforestation, urbanisation, development of hill slopes and other human land use have given rise to increased risks of landslides. In recent years, the collapse of a block of luxury condominiums in Kuala Lumpur, the Genting Highland and Pos Dipang landslide tragedies as well as other landslide disasters have caused substantial loss of life and damage to property and infrastructure. Combined with intensive development of hill slopes and hill land for housing, recreation, tourism, agriculture, highway and dam construction, and other human induced land use changes, the exposure and vulnerability of human populations to landslide hazards have also increased. Other reasons, largely structural, such as persistent poverty, low residential and occupational mobility, and landlessness, manifested in illegal squatting and farming on hill slopes and foothills have also contributed to increased vulnerability of large communities to landslide hazards in many parts of the country. As Malaysia pushes ahead to meet its target of becoming a fully industrialised country by the year 2020, further environmental degradation is expected to occur. Notwithstanding other aspects of environmental degradation, the occurrence of landslide hazards is expected to become a common feature of Malaysian life.