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The idea of implementing supply chain management (SCM) principles for the construction industry was embraced by construction stakeholders to enhance the sector's performance. The analysis from the literature revealed that the implementation of SCM in the construction industry enhances the industry's value in terms of cost-saving, time savings, material management, risk management and others. The construction supply chain (CSC) can be managed using the pull or push system. This chapter also discusses the origin and proliferation of SCM into the construction industry. The chapter revealed that the concept of SCM has passed through five different eras: the creation era, the use of ERP, globalisation stage, specialisation stage and electronic stage. The findings from the literature revealed that we are presently in the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) era. At this stage, the SCM witnesses the adoption of technologies and principles driven by the 4IR. This chapter also revealed that the practice of SCM in the construction industry is centred around integration, collaboration, communication and the structure of the supply chain (SC). The forms and challenges hindering the adoption of these practices were also discussed extensively in this chapter.

This paper aims to examine the impact of environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure and firm value (FV), as well as, pinpoints the role of the audit quality (AQ) as a moderating variable on such impact; where the authors hypothesize that AQ modulates the relationship between ESG disclosure and the FV.

Data of a sample of firms listed on the Egyptian Stock Exchange Market (EGX) were collected over the period of 2017–2021 and analyzed using the regression and 2SLS models.

The results suggested that: (1) the ESG has a significant positive impact on the FV in the EGX, and (2) AQ has a significant impact, as a moderating variable, on the relationship between ESG disclosure and FV.

The findings would help the Egyptian market authorities in realizing the importance of integrating ESG information within the financial reports of the listed firms. The findings could also help in developing effective disclosure procedures to provide shareholders with useful information.

This paper contributes to the literature regarding the ESG disclosure components and the FV value by considering AQ in testing such relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an enhanced elephant herding optimization (EEHO) algorithm by improving the exploration phase to overcome the fast-unjustified convergence toward the origin of the native EHO. The exploration and exploitation of the proposed EEHO are achieved by updating both clan and separation operators.

The original EHO shows fast unjustified convergence toward the origin specifically, a constant function is used as a benchmark for inspecting the biased convergence of evolutionary algorithms. Furthermore, the star discrepancy measure is adopted to quantify the quality of the exploration phase of evolutionary algorithms in general.

In experiments, EEHO has shown a better performance of convergence rate compared with the original EHO. Reasons behind this performance are: EEHO proposes a more exploitative search method than the one used in EHO and the balanced control of exploration and exploitation based on fixing clan updating operator and separating operator. Operator γ is added to EEHO assists to escape from local optima, which commonly exist in the search space. The proposed EEHO controls the convergence rate and the random walk independently. Eventually, the quantitative and qualitative results revealed that the proposed EEHO outperforms the original EHO.

Therefore, the pros and cons are reported as follows: pros of EEHO compared to EHO – 1) unbiased exploration of the whole search space thanks to the proposed update operator that fixed the unjustified convergence of the EHO toward the origin and the proposed separating operator that fixed the tendency of EHO to introduce new elephants at the boundary of the search space; and 2) the ability to control exploration–exploitation trade-off by independently controverting the convergence rate and the random walk using different parameters – cons EEHO compared to EHO: 1) suitable values for three parameters (rather than two only) have to be found to use EEHO.

As the original EHO shows fast unjustified convergence toward the origin specifically, the search method adopted in EEHO is more exploitative than the one used in EHO because of the balanced control of exploration and exploitation based on fixing clan updating operator and separating operator. Further, the star discrepancy measure is adopted to quantify the quality of exploration phase of evolutionary algorithms in general. Operator γ that added EEHO allows the successive local and global searching (exploration and exploitation) and helps escaping from local minima that commonly exist in the search space.

This paper aims to (1) investigate the effect of other comprehensive income (OCI) on audit fees (AF) and audit report lag (ARL) and (2) test the moderating effect of board gender diversity (BGD) on such relationships.

This paper uses data extracted from the financial reports for a sample of Egyptian firms from 2013 to 2019, where the data are processed using the Panel Corrected Standards Errors (PCSE) and the Structure Equation Model (SEM).

The results reveal that (1) the OCI existence and OCI volume have a significant positive effect on AF and ARL, and (2) the presence of female directors on the board and the percentage of female representation affect the relationship between OCI and AF positively, but this effect on the relationship between OCI and ARL is insignificant.

This paper has some limitations, where the analysis uses a small sample of Egyptian listed firms, as well as, the measures that were used as proxies of the study variables, which do not necessarily express the most suitable ones.

The results of this paper would (1) provide signals to the audit market, the professional bodies in Egypt and stakeholders about the determinants of AF and ARL, (2) provide guidelines that support the capital market authority to consider gender diversity in boards of companies taking into considerations its impact on AF and ARL, and (3) help the accounting setters in emerging economies as Egypt in drafting more suitable standards and guidelines regarding OCI.

This paper adds to the literature on OCI, where it investigates the effect of OCI on ARL, which was not yet studied in prior studies. Also, this paper complements and extends the literature by providing empirical evidence from one of the emerging markets as Egypt about the effect of BGD on the relationships between OCI, AF and ARL, as these relationships have not been examined before.

This study aims at investigating the extent to which Egyptian universities disclose information on social responsibility to different stakeholders, which leads to the enhancement of sustainable development.

An index of social responsibility that fits the Egyptian universities is established, comprising four dimensions: organizational governance, energy and environment resource sustainability, human resource development and community participation and community development. This index has been used to score the disclosure level of social responsibility of Egyptian universities. This study uses information available on websites of Egyptian universities as of the end of December 2018. Frequencies provide the basis for discussion.

The results reveal that the level of disclosure of universities on social responsibility is low, but, in favor of private universities vs public universities. At the university level, only a few numbers of public universities disclosed high volume of information on social responsibility, such as Cairo University, Ain Shams University, Alexandria University and Assiut University. Furthermore, the results manifest that public universities disclose higher level of information related to organizational governance, energy and environment resource sustainability and community participation and community development, whereas, private universities disclose higher level of information related to human resource development.

The results are constrained with the social responsibility dimensions and attributes used to establish a disclosure index that fits Egyptian universities, as well as the information disclosed on universities websites.

This study provides insights to Egyptian higher education regulators and the rectors of Egyptian universities that may help in planning and monitoring social responsibility activities in a way that could lead to sustainable development.

Purpose – This chapter provides an overview of issues related to analysing crash data characterised by excess zero responses and/or long tails and how to overcome these problems. Factors affecting excess zeros and/or long tails are discussed, as well as how they can bias the results when traditional distributions or models are used. Recently introduced multi-parameter distributions and models developed specifically for such datasets are described. The chapter is intended to guide readers on how to properly analyse crash datasets with excess zeros and long or heavy tails.

Methodology – Key references from the literature are summarised and discussed, and two examples detailing how multi-parameter distributions and models compare with the negative binomial distribution and model are presented.

Findings – In the event that the characteristics of the crash dataset cannot be changed or modified, recently introduced multi-parameter distributions and models can be used efficiently to analyse datasets characterised by excess zero responses and/or long tails. They offer a simpler way to interpret the relationship between crashes and explanatory variables, while providing better statistical performance in terms of goodness-of-fit and predictive capabilities.

Research implications – Multi-parameter models are expected to become the next series of traditional distributions and models. The research on these models is still ongoing.

Practical implications – With the advancement of computing power and Bayesian simulation methods, multi-parameter models can now be easily coded and applied to analyse crash datasets characterised by excess zero responses and/or long tails.

This paper aims to study the effects of various compatibilisers (maleic anhydride (MAH), methyl methacrylate/butyl acrylate emulsion lattice, and adhesion system (HRH)) on properties of carbon black (CB) filled with natural rubber (NR)/styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR)/ nitrile butadiene rubber (NBR) blends). A series of NR/SBR/NBR blends at a 30/30/40 blend ratio reinforced with 45 phr of CB was prepared using the master-batch method.

The tensile properties such as the tensile strength, stress at 100, 200 and 300% elongations, and elongation at break (EB)% were studied. Additionally, the morphological properties of compatibilised and uncompatibilised composites were compared to determine the optimal compatibiliser content.

The influence of compatibilisers appeared on all the properties studied. The properties of the blends compatibilised with prepared emulsion are very distinct from those of blends compatibilised with MAH and adhesion systems.

Interactions among the different components of blends at the interfaces have a high impact on the interfacial properties of the rubber blend.

Compatibilisers significantly improve the physicomechanical properties of the resulting composites with the loading of investigated compatibilisers because of the uniform dispersion of CB in the rubber matrix.

Using blends in the rubber industry leads to high-efficiency production of low-cost products.

The rubber blending has a significant positive effect on a wide range of applications such as structural applications, aerospace, military, packaging, tires and biomedical. Hence, improving the compatibility of blends will make new materials suitable for new applications.

The aim of this paper has twofold: (1) to explain and compare the financial evolution of Islamic and conventional banking sector in the Gulf Cooperative Council (GCC) countries before and during the COVID-19 pandemic and (2) to explore the key success factors that might affect Islamic and conventional banks performance before and mainly during COVID-19 pandemic period.

Orbis Bank Focus database and annual financial reports are used to collect financial information of Islamic and conventional banks in GCC countries over four years: 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020. Descriptive statistics, T-test, multiple regression, and 2SLS and GMM models are employed to analyze the financial structure and performance of Islamic and conventional banks before and during the COVID-19 pandemic period.

Results of this study reveal that (1) there is a significant difference between Islamic banks and conventional banks during the crisis of COVID-19, where the conventional banks have presented a higher level of financial performance and financial liquidity than their Islamic counterparts, (2) conventional banks have revealed higher capacity to manage their financial risk during the crisis period, and (3) a high level of non-performing loan, high inflation rate and high percentage of non-important cost have a negative impact on the financial performance of Islamic banks mainly during the pandemic period of COVID-19. However, the result indicates that a high level of liquidity risk increased the performance of Islamic banks but this impact falls sharply during the pandemic period.

This study provides information that supports investors, regulators and executive managers in GCC countries. A well-structured balance sheet would improve the financial performance and risk management of the banking sector in GCC countries, especially in times of crisis and pandemics.

In recent years, there have been many concerns about issues surrounding building maintenance, which are continually increasing. However, there is a lack of comprehensive studies on building maintenance issues, their effects and the way forward. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to carry out a comprehensive review of building maintenance issues, their effects and the way forward. It also aims to develop a conceptual model that can support future research.

A systematic review of the literature published from 2009 to 2019 was carried out. Five relevant databases were searched, based on this study's search terms, and a narrative synthesis of the results from the included studies was carried out. Studies were eligible for inclusion if they fulfilled the inclusion criteria of this systematic review.

This study has identified and classified building maintenance issues, their effects and the way forward, and also developed a conceptual model that demonstrates the association between issues, their effects and the way forward. The way forward of the conceptual model focuses on effective management, technical capability, development of human resources and cost optimisation.

This paper addresses an important topic: the aspect in which it differs from existing studies is that, in the latter, the researchers studied a single sub-issue, whereas this systematic review includes a comprehensive study of building maintenance issues. Furthermore, this review has demonstrated how the way forward can moderate issues and their effects.

This chapter provides a survey of alternative methodologies for measuring and comparing productivity and efficiency of airlines, and reviews representative empirical studies. The survey shows the apparent shift from index procedures and traditional OLS estimation of production and cost functions to stochastic frontier methods and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) methods over the past three decades. Most of the airline productivity and efficiency studies over the last decade adopt some variant of DEA methods. Researchers in the 1980s and 1990s were mostly interested in the effects of deregulation and liberalization on airline productivity and efficiency as well as the effects of ownership and governance structure. Since the 2000s, however, studies tend to focus on how business models and management strategies affect the performance of airlines. Environmental efficiency now becomes an important area of airline productivity and efficiency studies, focusing on CO₂ emission as a negative or undesirable output. Despite the fact that quality of service is an important aspect of airline business, limited attempts have been made to incorporate quality of service in productivity and efficiency analysis.