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Homeownership has been the main focus of housing policies in most countries. Typical means that households use to achieve homeownership is to take out a loan and supplement this with accumulated wealth for a downpayment. This paper aims to analyze the mortgage demand behavior of households in the UK, Australia and Japan.

Using three panel data sets, HILDA for Australia, KHPS for Japan and USS for the UK, the paper estimates three equations using ordinary least squares: mortgage demand function, housing demand function and initial loan to value ratio function.

Though homeownership is a preferred tenure and the mortgages are “recourse” loans, housing markets in these three countries operate in different mortgage market institutional structures. Results indicate that income elasticity of mortgage demand differ despite income elasticity of housing demand being similar. Different mortgage institutions in countries that pose constraints for borrowers also determine mortgage demand. Other factors such as demography and economic conditions have also played an important role in determining mortgage and housing demand.

The paper is first, to the authors’ knowledge, that explores the role of institutions in mortgage demand in a comparative framework for the UK, Japan and Australia.

The purpose of this study was to explore strategies used by developers of master-planned housing development projects in Victoria, Australia, for obtaining certification under the Urban Development Institute of Australia’s (UDIA) EnviroDevelopment (ED) sustainable development certification programme. To be awarded ED certification, a development must demonstrate that it meets the assessment criteria within at least four of the six ED “leaves”. These leaves relate to its performance in terms of energy, water, materials, waste, community and ecosystems. This study explored how developers make choices regarding sustainability features they build into the planning, design and management of their developments to gain the leaves needed for ED certification. Having this certification is valued by developers as it can be used to demonstrate the sustainability credentials of their developments to potential house buyers, the validity of which is backed up by a trusted independent non-profit organisation (UDIA).

The study sought to quantify the preferential weightings of nine developers in selecting ED “leaves” and the strategies they use for meeting the assessment criteria needed to obtain selected ED leaves. This was done using a novel data collection and analysis method, the analytical hierarchical process (AHP), which relies on respondents, in this case, developers of ED certified development projects, making pairwise comparisons between choices of different development factors associated with the different ED “leaves”.

The most highly preferred ED leaves were found to be community, energy and ecosystems. “Community facilities” and “on-site transportation” were the two most highly weighted factors associated with the community leaf. Energy, the next most preferred leaf, was most highly weighted on “saving on operational costs” for the consumers (home buyers). Here consumer demand factors seem to be driving preferences. The ecology leaf was the next most preferred, with “existing site conditions” being the most highly weighted factor for this leaf. For sites that already contain significant areas of indigenous habitat, such as wetlands, selecting this leaf would seem to be an attractive, and potentially lower cost, option. Existing ecologically significant natural areas that are preserved, and where necessary enhanced, can be used for marketing purposes and serve in fulfilling planning open-space contribution requirements. The developers were more indifferent to the water, waste and materials leaves; however, the water leaf was rated slightly higher than the other two and was most strongly associated with “recycled water” and opportunities for “water conservation”, another example of demand factors driving preferences.

The results of this study reveal the preferences of a small sample of developers in terms of how they weigh different factors in making decisions about acquiring sustainability certification for residential master-planned development projects through the UDIA’S ED programme. The findings provide insight into the types of decisions developers make in the process of seeking ED certification, which includes considerations of site characteristics, costs, predicted effectiveness of different interventions and usefulness for marketing and other factors in terms of which ED leaves to pursue and how to acquire them to gain ED certification. The study also tested the AHP method as a methodological tool for addressing this question. Modifications in how data are collected using the on-line survey can be made to allow the method to be more easily used with larger respondent sample sizes. Collection of more focussed data elicited from respondents with specific areas of expertise, for example, specialists in energy, water, landscape architecture and planning, ecology and other relevant areas of knowledge, should also been considered.

Property often forms the biggest component of household wealth and assets. Irrespective of landowners’ willingness, the act of compulsory acquisition abruptly ceases the security that this ownership carries. This often induces dissatisfaction among affected landowners over the: loss of “property rights”; loss of commodity, or property; and loss of future opportunities associated with the property. Though there have been attempts in various land acquisition laws and a practice to compensate acquirees for their loss, the dissatisfaction of acquirees has persisted. The persisting resistance of landowners compels deeper insight into the process of compulsory purchase and the compensation mechanism to understand underlying causes for resistance. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent of involvement of these different stakeholders, at various stages in the compulsory purchase process, using stakeholder interaction analysis. Results obtained from this research will be helpful in identifying the gaps in the process of compulsory purchase of land for public projects in Australia.

A survey of ten different stakeholder groups has been conducted to inquire the level of interaction of different stakeholders at various stages of compulsory purchase process. A comparative study was then performed to identify the gaps between the advocated process (suggested in the literature) and the process adopted by stakeholders.

The results illustrate that: affected landowners seek involvement at the initial stage when the project plan is under preparation and compulsory purchase declaration are not finalised; objectors (from the public) seek opportunities to convey, to the public agency, their views even though the accountability of public agencies towards this stakeholder is nil; and strong interactions are established during negotiation over the compensation amount thus signifying the urge of acquirer and acquirees to avoid monetary losses and time delays.

This research will be useful in identification of pain points in the compulsory purchase process for public projects. This shall help in evolution of fairer mechanism of land acquisition.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate and propose a framework for environmental impact assessment of packaging material being used to package a product.

The research considers parameters identified in the literature by the use of “Delphi Technique”. Based on available data, methods of measurement of the parameters are carried out. Furthermore, a metrics is proposed for measurement of environmental impact. Based on the metrics, the research proposes a framework for environmental impact assessment by use of Dominic’s method. The research validates the proposed framework through Pahl and Beitz method.

The proposed framework establishes a metrics for measurement of 16 parameters for environmental impact assessment. The framework can be used to compare a set of alternate packaging material for the same product for its environmental impact. The framework also provides a quantitative measure of the environmental impact assessment of a product packaging.

The research can be used to evaluate a packaging as compared to its alternate. It can also be used to propose suggestions for improving the environmental impact of packaging in comparison to its alternate.

The data considered for establishing of metrics for measurement of parameters for environmental impact may not be available in all practical situations in the similar way as considered in the research.

This paper proposes a framework for environmental impact assessment for product packaging considering data in the Indian scenario.

Over the past few years, the electronic media, as represented by the internet version of print media and independent blogs of journalists, has become a major player in the coverage of incidents related to violence against women. While this has brought forward issues of violence and specifically rape prominently into the public sphere, the media portrayal of women has often been as victims or victims who are somehow responsible for the violence against them. Such portrayal has been repeatedly challenged by feminists. Using data from 572 national and international English media reports for a six-month period (from December 2012 to April 2013) the coverage of the protests about the 2012 case of gang rape and eventual death of Jyoti Singh Pandey in India’s capital city, New Delhi, is examined in this chapter. Drawing from past research, three main frames are discerned in the portrayal of women in the reports: mainstreaming gender, endangered woman, and the ungendered woman. Media portrayals of these three frames by three broadly categorized actors most prominently covered by the media reports are analyzed: activists, state representatives or political actors, and ordinary citizens. The findings suggest that while some reports allude to women’s agency and rights particularly when they cover feminist activists, women’s agency is marginalized in the debates around safety and protection for women when other actors (such as state representatives or political actors, and ordinary citizens) are considered. Indian women’s rights have been reduced to passive messages negating the broader politics of the contemporary women’s movement.

The present study seeks to evaluate the role of village bamboo management in the rural landscape of North East India in global climate change mitigation.

A set of 100 home gardens and 40 bamboo groves were selected from Irongmara and Dargakona village, in Cachar district, Assam, North East India through random sampling. Sampling was done mostly for smallholders. Culm growth, carbon storage, carbon sequestration and carbon in litter floor mass and soil of bamboo growing areas in homegarden was explored from 2003‐2007.

Culm growth extension revealed the brief periodicity of culm growth in a single growth period. Of the total carbon storage soil contributed 84.6 per cent of the total (50.1 Mg ha⁻¹) followed by carbon in above ground vegetation 15 per cent (9 Mg ha⁻¹) and carbon in litter floor mass 0.4 per cent (0.2 Mg ha⁻¹).

Bamboo plantation development and its management in home gardens has social, ecological and economical benefits for the rural life in North East India and its promotion can become an effective choice for climate change mitigation strategy.

Bamboo forms an important component in the traditional home garden system of North East India where the practice of bamboo cultivation and management provides an important sink for CO₂. Village bamboos play an important role in local economics, societies and environments and, considering its potential to mitigate global climate change, the authors recommend the promotion of bamboo in agroforestry expanding practices and rehabilitation of degraded lands. Management of village bamboos in rural landscape is highlighted in context to environmental sustainability and as a sink measure under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of Kyoto Protocol.

This study aims to examine the influence of diversity climate perceptions (DCPs) on team member’s contribution to team innovation and team performance in a multicultural team (MCT). The authors also investigate the moderating effect of cultural intelligence on these relationships.

The authors draw upon the interactional model for cultural diversity to build their hypotheses. Data was gathered from 43 teams consisting of 217 members using a structured questionnaire. Ratings were obtained from both team members and supervisors. The data collected was analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Results indicated that when team members have positive DCPs, it had a positive impact on their innovation and performance in the team. Cultural intelligence was also found to have a direct impact on team member innovation but not on team member performance. Furthermore, cultural intelligence was found to positively moderate the DCPs – team member performance relationship but not the DCPs – team member innovation relationship.

Managing diversity is a key concern for organizations worldwide given the exponentially rising cultural diversity within the workforce. This study would enable practitioners to understand that developing positive DCPs and cultural intelligence of team members are critical to the success of MCTs.

Literature has documented mixed results pertaining to team diversity and its effect on performance, resulting in scholars urging the need to explore how the negative effects of team diversity can be mitigated. This research establishes that positive DCPs and cultural intelligence as two key factors contributing to the performance of MCTs.

The purpose of this paper is to examine sharing economy online marketplaces with the aim of understanding how trust perceptions form and get communicated through sharing economy platforms.

The authors build on online user comments and reviews as aggregated by independent third-party websites, and apply a qualitative analysis.

The findings show that the quantity of information and communication are important drivers towards building trust perceptions, while an overall lack of interaction between users and the marketplace provider intensifies perceived risks.

The authors validated the importance of trust and the authors have illustrated that the critical conditions that hinder trust formation are information asymmetry as well as the lack of interaction. What is also an interesting implication is that the impact of both of these can be exacerbated when there is a perceived lack of support among users and between them and the marketplace operator.

Literature refers to the key factors of total quality management (TQM) based on studies carried out in individual countries. However, few studies focus on studying the TQM factors in service companies based on multinational data. The purpose of this paper is to empirically identify the key TQM factors and their impact on internal and external customer performance measures across different countries.

The research questions regarding the TQM factors and their effects were examined using a sample of service organisations from three countries (131 from Greece, 70 from Mexico and 151 from Spain). TQM factors and their impact on employee and customer satisfaction were analysed separately for each country. Exploratory factor analyses, coupled with multiple linear regression analyses, were conducted.

The key TQM factors identified are common among the three participating countries and can be summarised as follows: quality practices of top management, process management, employee quality management, customer focus, and employee knowledge and education. The adoption level of these five key factors of TQM varies across service organisations in different countries. The results also confirmed that some of the TQM elements are antecedents of customer- and employee-focused performance.

Multinational service organisations may use such an instrument to evaluate TQM implementation among worldwide operations and then benchmark their performance. In addition, an understanding of similarities and differences among countries would help managers around the world to address difficulties of TQM implementation related to the country culture.

Previous studies have compared key TQM factors across different countries in manufacturing, but overall, there has been a little attempt in the literature to analyse the adoption of TQM factors among service firms, as well the relationships between quality improvement and performance across different geographical regions.