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The aims of this study are to conduct a systematic review of public–private partnership (PPP) studies published from 2009 to 2019, to compare the results with Ke et al. (2009) who reviewed the PPP literature published from 1998 to 2008, and to trace the evolution of the PPP knowledge in the past two decades. This study also presents the possible directions that the PPP research may go towards in the future, arguably.

This study carried out a top journal-based search to identify the quality PPP articles published from 2009 to 2019. A total of 12 top-tier construction journals were systematically searched in the database of web of science (WOS), from which 279 PPP articles were identified for review.

The number of the identified articles, the titles of the journals, institutions, the most cited papers, and prevalent research methods were analyzed and compared. The existing PPP studies in construction journals were classified into seven streams. Through analysis of the PPP research status and gaps, five future research directions were revealed.

This study contributes to the current body of knowledge by revealing the research trend of PPP from 2009 to 2019. It presents the change of PPP development trend in the past decade through comparison with Ke et al. (2009). It also reveals the major research streams and points out the directions that the PPP research may go towards in the future. Moreover, this study is helpful to the practice as well. It can enhance the practitioners' understanding of the PPP development in the past decade. In addition, it identified the research institutions contributing the most in the area of PPP, which may serve as valuable reference for practitioners to locate the best institutions for consultancy or collaboration.

Psychological resilience, defined here as the capacity to bounce back from adversity and failure, has been studied in various leadership contexts. However, the literature demonstrates less consensus concerning how psychological resilience manifests in, and interacts within, the leadership role and, equally, the focus on resilience development is underdeveloped. This paper addresses these issues by focusing on the interactions between psychological resilience and leadership and presents practical development strategies.

A systematic review employing 46 empirical studies followed a thematic synthesis within an associated model encapsulated as building-up resilience and being effective.

First, resilience is identified as essential and can benefit individuals and organizations' work outcomes across leadership contexts, including work performance, job engagement, well-being, and enhanced leadership capability. Secondly, leaders may build up their resilience by obtaining coping skills and improved attitudes toward challenges. Resilient attitudes, which are presented as paradoxical perspectives towards challenges, may help leaders adapt to challenges and adversities leading to beneficial outcomes.

Even though this study provides a deeper understanding of the essential function of psychological resilience in leadership, the findings are limited to the workplace contexts investigated, e.g. exploring small sample sizes (13,019) or country contexts (22). Future research could expand the rhetoric around interactions between psychological resilience and leadership. Furthermore, the underlining mechanism between the paradoxical perspective and resilient attitudes is still largely unclear. Thus, more research is needed to disclose the interaction of paradoxical perceptions and leadership resilience. Further research can investigate how resilient attitudes demonstrate in actions in dealing with challenges and adversities.

The authors further an argument that leaders may enhance their resilience through embracing a paradoxical perspective towards challenges (resilient attitude), e.g. being adaptive to adversities, and the attitude of learning from failures. These enhanced resilient attitudes could help leaders deeper understand and examine their reality and persist under high pressures and develop an innate ability to utilise resources more effectively to help them survive and thrive in challenging circumstances, instead of becoming overwhelmed by the burden of complexity or giving up. This will offer a practical contribution to resilience development.

Importantly, this study found that resilience is an essential leadership trait and can benefit individuals and organizations' work outcomes across leadership contexts. These positive effects of resilience may encourage organizations or society to promote psychological resilience, including a resilient attitude, to deal with adversities and uncertainties.

Fundamentally, the synthesized model applied may encourage further studies to focus on how to build up resilience and practically apply it in workplaces across leadership contexts. In particular, this study found that adopting paradoxical perspectives and ambidextrous leadership approaches toward adversities is an original resilience development strategy, which serves to contribute to the gap in the literature.

This paper aims to expand the application area of Inconel 718 alloy in marine environment, the sensitivity of pitting corrosion should be analyzed and discussed, especially the effect of block carbides.

Effect of carbides on the sensitivity of pitting corrosion for Inconel 718 alloy was carried out at 30°C in 3.5% NaCl solution using dynamic electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and anodic polarization techniques. In addition, the initiation of pitting corrosion was investigated by immersion test in 0.05 M HCl + 6% FeCl₃ solution.

As a result, the precipitation of carbides, as the initiation of pitting corrosion, increased pitting corrosion susceptibility, especially the block carbides could lead to deep-spalling. Within that process, temperature and potential acted as the main controlling factors, and the effect of the latter was more distinct.

The initiation of pitting corrosion was revealed by the immersion test. The mechanism of pitting corrosion was analyzed and discussed.

Teamwork in the construction industry has attracted much attention from both academic and industrial circles. Most importantly, improving team effectiveness will increase the likelihood of successful project delivery. Recognising the factors influencing team dynamics is important for enhanced team performance.

Based on a detailed literature review, a survey questionnaire containing 10 aspects and 25 attributes of teamwork relevant to construction is used to collect feedback from Malaysian construction practitioners from client, consultant and contractor organisations to prioritise these hypothesised variables. The data are then subjected to reliability analysis, descriptive statistics (means, standard deviations, and frequencies), a one-sample t-test, the Kruskal–Wallis ANOVA and exploratory factor analysis.

The significance of these aspects and attributes is then presented. The three most crucial aspects are “project performance”, “decision-making capability” and “problem-solving ability”. The most influential attributes are “effective communication between project team members”, “efficient team leadership”, “well-defined team responsibilities and roles”, “clear team goals and objectives” and “good collaboration between all project leaders”. The Kruskal–Wallis ANOVA reveals five attributes having statistically significant differences with respect to company size, namely “clear team goals and objectives”, “commitment to the project”, “adequate resources”, “team or task processes” and “creativity and innovation”. Six underlying dimensions are found, comprising (1) participative engagement and task commitment; (2) team responsibility structure and accountability; (3) culture of trust and respect; (4) leader's skills and abilities; (5) top management support; and (6) synergic working environment.

The identification of these dimensions for team effectiveness provides rigorous basis for formulating useful team-building strategies for integrating a collaborative environment among project stakeholders and consequently improving project performance.

This paper bridges the identified knowledge gap concerning the dimensionality of teamwork attributes in construction-based setting and adds to existing knowledge of how team effectiveness can be leveraged to improve project performance in the construction management literature.

The evaluation of both tourism and tourist resources in China remains problematic. On the macro‐level, only the positive contributions of tourism have been evaluated, ignoring the aspects of disparities between the east coast and the inland area, inbound tourism and domestic tourism, nature‐based and city‐based tourism, positive and negative effects from tourism and so on. On the micro‐ and site‐ specific level, tourist resources characterised by non‐marketable and non‐use values are not properly evaluated, exposing these fragile resources to the plight of exploitation. Commercialisation of tourist resources, including natural environment and ethnic cultures, threatens further development of tourism in China. The limited applicability of the travel cost and the contingent valuation method in measuring the value of recreation sites in China is discussed.

This paper aims to provide a review of the challenges facing the reform of SOEs, and to address the impacts of SOE reform on business executives, on the base of literature review and empirical data collected in Guangzhou, China.

A qualitative research on the base of literature review, supported by empirical data collected from surveys, interviews, and focus group discussion.

Although China has made significant achievement in economic reform and the transition into a market system and civil society since 1978, there are still fundamental challenges associated with the reform of state owned enterprises (SOEs). It seems that privatisation will not necessarily solve the complex problems associated with SOEs. This paper suggests that a balanced approach reflecting the best of SOE provision and triple bottom line management appears to provide the best way forward for continuing prosperity in China. The current direction of SOE reform seems to have been driven by privatisation and economic rationalism, rather than a more balanced economic and social strategy. If this trend continues, the challenges for business executives, and the general society, can be overwhelming, and not lead to a more sustainable economy, let alone society, in the medium to long term.

Reform of SOEs has impacted on China fundamentally. Against the common view that business managers are the social group that is benefiting from SOE reform, this paper focuses on factors affecting the economic and social status of business executives, especially the challenges associated with the reform of SOEs. Supported by primary and secondary data sources, it draws attention to the situation that although the economic and social status of business executives continues to rise in China, insecurity and stress on business executives are growing. Reforms associated with changing SOEs are viewed as possible sources of challenges facing the Chinese economy and business life. Current SOE reform seems to have focused on the economic bottom line. A more balanced approach in the reform of SOEs is suggested for a more sustainable economy and society.

The purpose of this paper is to address issues related to strategic management in Australia and China, to compare similarities and differences across two countries.

Data were collected from structured surveys and interviews amongst managers undertaking Master of Business Administration study in China and Australia.

The research suggests that there is much to be done in enhancing strategic management. The poor positioning of both Chinese and Australian businesses indicates the need for new public policies and debate. Some directions might include encouragement of exports, rethinking and refining bilateral and multilateral trade agreements, e.g. the current FTA being negotiated between Australia and the USA appears to be based on political considerations more than economic. At national, regional and local levels there is a requirement for industry policy and systematic implementation. Small to medium enterprises need encouragement to operate strategically, with passion and commitment, for the benefit of the enterprise and the nation. Promoting and sharing good practice is one effective way to achieve this. In China, the issues are very similar. Local and regional governments in particular have enormous influence in shaping economic policy and business regulation. The new national policy agenda towards “green DP” rather than the more narrow GDP is another indicator of the need for renewed effort to broaden the strategic management agenda at national and international level in China. The full entry into WTO further underlines the importance of this requirement, particularly the need for a triple bottom line strategic approach.

This paper uses management survey data to offer a useful auditing mechanism and a mirror to existing practices and performance in both China and Australia.

Rock-fill dams are embankments of compacted free-draining granular earth containing an impervious zone. Earth utilized in such dams often contains a high percentage of large particles – hence the term rock-fill. Mass stability of these dams results from friction and particle interactions rather than through a cementing agent binding the particles together. However, high-stress conditions and prolonged exposure to the elements can severely damage rock-fill. Therefore, understanding and modeling rock-fill breakage is important for dam engineering. The purpose of this paper is to improve discontinuous deformation analysis (DDA) techniques for modeling rock-fill breakage, proving the new method using simulations of spherical particle crushing.

This work models rock-fill as bonded ellipsoid particles, and develops an improved DDA method to model the breakage of particle assemblies. The paper starts by describing the principles of three-dimensional DDA for spherical particles, and then derives the submatrices for normal contact, shear contact, and frictional force. The new algorithm incorporates a bond model with a revised open-close iteration algorithm into the DDA method to simulate particle crushing. To validate the improved DDA method, calculated particle contacts and movements are validated against theoretical results. Finally, this work performs a series of point-loading experimental tests for cement ellipsoid particles of both high and low compression strengths, with the test results compared against the results from corresponding DDA simulations.

In particle crushing tests, the force and displacement show an approximately linear relationship until the crushing point, at which point low compression ellipsoid particles split into several large pieces while the high-compression particles break into many small fragments. The DDA simulation results are in good agreement with the crushing tests, demonstrating the validity of the DDA method for solving particle crushing problems. Although the improved DDA model is applicable to rock-fill particle crushing studies, some issues remain, particularly in increasing calculation efficiency and performing large-scale computations and long real-time simulations. Future research should address these issues.

A bond model with a revised open-close iteration algorithm is incorporated into the DDA method. The simulated results shed insight into rock-fill crushing mechanisms, an element of concern in engineering practices.

The purpose of this paper is to see whether ethical and sustainable corporate strategy is not just an “add on” for good community relationships and publicity, and whether companies across the globe are approaching sustainability differently.

This paper is based on the assumption that company publications reflect the principle and philosophy of its business approach.

The paper identifies stark differences in global sustainability practice, with the USA, in particular, falling behind in terms of sustainability leadership, compared with similar organisations in both the European Union and the Asia Pacific region.

This paper implies that US multinationals need to improve their sustainability practice and to begin to think in terms of triple bottom line management, ethical standards and governance.

This paper implies that corporations need more effort in developing and managing ethics and sustainability as part of their competitive advantage and corporate strategy.

The original contribution of this paper is that it provides valuable insights into how different organisations are in reality putting sustainability first.

Academic contention occurs when research evidence is amenable to more than one interpretation. China has a long tradition of Shang Que (商榷), in which authors argue for their preferred interpretation. The modern form of this tradition is the Shang Que article, which often takes the form of research papers in Chinese-language journals and which tends to be question-oriented. Shang Que articles usually take the views of a particular author or article as the focus of independent and complete criticism by another, independent, academic. This paper explains the role of Shang Que articles in Chinese scholarship and their influence on international academia.

A bibliometric analysis was used to explore the characteristics and evolution of Chinese Shang Que articles using 30,577 articles published between 1979 and 2018. Microsoft Excel and Gephi were used for data analysis and visualization.

Findings suggest a decline in the number of Shang Que articles and an increase in the number of co-authors. Shang Que articles remained particularly prominent in Philosophy and Humanities and Social Sciences, where they focused on local issues such as classical Chinese, the Sinicization of Marxism and Chinese literature. This suggests that the number of Shang Que articles is related to the degree of internationalization of a research field.

Shang Que articles, which have been influenced by academic paradigms in English, are a fusion of China's Shang Que tradition and of the modern academic system. Through considering Shang Que articles, this paper explores the benefits of local academic traditions in non-English-speaking cultures.