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Recently, there has been a shift toward the embodied energy assessment of buildings. However, the impact of material service life on the life-cycle embodied energy has received little attention. We aimed to address this knowledge gap, particularly in the context of the UAE and investigated the embodied energy associated with the use of concrete and other materials commonly used in residential buildings in the hot desert climate of the UAE.

Using input–output based hybrid analysis, we quantified the life-cycle embodied energy of a villa in the UAE with over 50 years of building life using the average, minimum, and maximum material service life values. Mathematical calculations were performed using MS Excel, and a detailed bill of quantities with >170 building materials and components of the villa were used for investigation.

For the base case, the initial embodied energy was 57% (7390.5 GJ), whereas the recurrent embodied energy was 43% (5,690 GJ) of the life-cycle embodied energy based on average material service life values. The proportion of the recurrent embodied energy with minimum material service life values was increased to 68% of the life-cycle embodied energy, while it dropped to 15% with maximum material service life values.

The findings provide new data to guide building construction in the UAE and show that recurrent embodied energy contributes significantly to life-cycle energy demand. Further, the study of material service life variations provides deeper insights into future building material specifications and management considerations for building maintenance.

Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV), this study investigates how tax planning affects the likelihood of financial default in different stages of the corporate life cycle.

Collecting a large sample of US firms between 1989 and 2016, hypotheses are tested using a hazard model. Several robustness and endogeneity checks corroborate the main findings.

The results show that tax-planning firms are less likely to default in the introduction and decline stages, while they are more likely to default in the growth and maturity stages. The findings suggest that introductory and declining firms use cash resources obtained from tax planning efficiently to meet their needs and acquire other useful resources. In growing and mature firms, tax aggressiveness generates unnecessary slack resources, weakens managerial discipline and increases reputational risks.

The results shed light on the benefits and costs associated with tax planning throughout firms' life cycle, holding great significance for managers, investors, lenders and other stakeholders.

This study contributes to the literature that examines resource management at different life cycle stages by showing that cash resources from tax planning are managed in distinctive ways in each life cycle stage, having a varied impact on the likelihood of default. The authors shed light on underexplored cash resources. Furthermore, this study shows the potential linkages between the agency theory and RBV.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the hotel growth model including hotel brand, culture and life cycle phases of the Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, the fastest growing tourism destination in the United States.

Culture reflecting consuming behaviour of low-context innovators and high-context imitators is measured by the price elasticity of demand (PED). Hotel brand reflecting guests’ hotel class is measured by the income elasticity of demand. Autoregressive distributed lag has been conducted on the Smith Travel Research data in 33 years (1989–2022) to determine the relationship among hotel brand, culture and life cycles.

Skilled labour is the key to make hotels grow. Therefore, increase room rates when hotels possess skilled professionals and decrease room rates when hotels have no skilled professionals. During the rejuvenation in Myrtle Beach (1999–2003), hoteliers increased room rates for innovators due to skilled professionals to increase revenue. Otherwise, a decrease in room rates due to lack of skilled professionals would lead to increase revenue.

(1) Although Myrtle Beach is one of the fastest growing tourism destinations in the US, it has a relatively small geographic area relative to the country. (2) Data cover over one tourist life cycle, so the time span is relatively short. Hoteliers can forecast the number of guests in different culture by changing room rates.

To optimize revenue, hoteliers can select skilled labour in professional design hotel brands which could make an increase in demand for leisure transient guests no matter what room rates increase after COVID-19 pandemic.

The study has considered the applied ethical processes regarding revenue management that would maximize both revenue and customer satisfaction when it set up an increase in room rates to compensate for professional hotel room design or it decreases room rates for low-income imitators in exploration and development.

This research highlights that (1) skilled design in the luxury hotel brand is the key for the hotel growth and (2) there is a steady state of the growth model in the destination life cycle.

Sustainable building design suffers from a lack of reliable life cycle data. The purpose of this paper is to compare life cycle costs of sustainable building projects, examine the magnitude of various cost drivers and discuss the implications of an emerging shift in cost drivers.

This paper is based on data from 21 office buildings certified in Denmark according to the sustainable certification scheme DGNB.

The paper supports previous findings that construction costs and running costs each roughly make up half of the life cycle costs over a 50-year period. More surprising is the finding that the life cycle costs for cleaning are approximately twice as high as the supply costs for energy and water.

The data set is based on actual construction costs of office buildings constructed in 2013-2017. Although all running costs are calculated rather than measured, they are based on a more detailed, specific and industry-supported set of calculation assumptions than is usual for life cycle costing studies because of extensive collaborative work in a number of concomitant national research and development projects.

Authorities, clients and building professionals heavily emphasise energy-saving measures in new Danish buildings. The paper suggests redirecting this effort towards other more prominent cost drivers like cleaning and technical installations.

This paper provides a notable contribution to the academic understanding of the significance of different cost drivers as well as the practical implementation of life cycle costing.

The purpose of this study is to explore at what stage of a company’s life cycle the theory of market timing has explained debt. Drawing on a unified conceptual framework of market timing theory, the authors scrutinize the impact of life cycle and ownership structure on the market condition.

Based on a sample of 24 Tunisian companies listed on the stock exchange and 100 French firms listed on the CAC All-Tradable on a 10-year period, this paper grounded the market timing theory and attempted to clear the relation between ownership structure, life cycle of the firm and market timing theory by statistical analysis.

The findings of panel data modeling indicate that when the life cycle was used as an explanatory variable, it was found that the variable reflecting the market timing is not significant in either context; it means that no significant support is found in the theory of market timing in both countries. Whereas when the life cycle was used as a dummy variable, it was found that the life cycle has an impact on debt only in the Tunisian context.

This study has several important implications for researchers and practitioners. The findings reported here clarify the strength of the impact of life cycle on the market timing, when it explains the debt in the two contexts and the impact of ownership structure such as the managerial ownership and concentration of capital on debt.

This study contributes to examine the theory of debt in different phases of life cycle. Focused on the case of Tunisian and French firms, this study is unique and valuable.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to develop a numerical framework to predict the time-dependent probability of failure of a bridge subjected to multiple vehicle impacts. Specially, this study focuses on investigating the inter-relationship between changes in life-cycle parameters (e.g., damage size caused by vehicle impact, loss of initial structural capacity, and threshold intervention) and bridges probability of failure.

Design/Methodology/Approach – The numerical procedure using MATLAB program is developed to compute the probability failure of a bridge. First, the importance and characteristics of life-cycle analysis is described. Then, model for damage accumulation and life cycle as a result of heavy vehicle impacts is discussed. Finally, the probability of failure of a bridge subjected to vehicle impacts as a result of change in life-cycle parameters is presented.

Findings – The results of study show that damage size caused by both vehicle impacts and loss of initial structural capacity have a great impact on the long-term safety of bridges. In addition, the probability of failure of a bridge under different threshold limits indicates that the structural intervention (e.g., repair or maintenance) should be undertaken to extend the service life of a bridge.

Research Limitations/Implications – The damage sizes caused by heavy vehicle impacts are based on simple assumptions. It is suggested that there would be a further study to estimate the magnitude of bridge damage as a result of vehicle impact using the full-scale impact test or computational simulation.

Practical Implications – This will allow much better predictions for residual life of bridges which could potentially be used to support decisions on health and maintenance of bridges.

Originality/Value – The life-cycle performance for assessing the time-dependent probability of failure of bridges subjected to multiple vehicle impact has not been fully discussed so far.

The architecture, engineering and construction industry faces several challenges when performing life-cycle cost calculations. On the basis of activity theory, this study aims at improving our understanding of the current cost calculation in design practices as an activity system with a number of built-in contradictions.

Drawing on one of the authors’ practical experience from a design office, the research design comprises a paradigmatic case study of a Danish architecture firm, in which data are gathered through documents, observations, interviews and physical artefacts. Moreover, this paper applies a literature review on barriers for adopting life-cycle costing.

The paper identifies a number of primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary contradictions between practices of design, cost calculations and data management. Thus, hypotheses are formulated on how and to what extent these different contradictions shape cost calculations in design practices to obstruct or support the application of life cycle costing principles in design.

This study is part of an ongoing research project. Thus, additional analysis is required before the authors may conclude on final results.

This paper identifies a number of factors that obstruct or support the implementation of life cycle costing in current design practices.

This paper provides new insights into the various contradictions that shape data management in architectural offices as a prerequisite for improving life cycle design practices.

The real estate industry has experienced frequent changes in corporate executives in recent years. A total of 147 A-share listed firms witnessed a total of 191 corporate executives' departure. This wave of corporate executive departures is significantly different from previous waves. This study aims to examine whether industry evolution influence the characteristics of corporate executives? If so, then how?

Drawing on upper echelons theory, this study analyzed the effects of industry life cycle on the characteristics of corporate executives. The data of A-share listed companies in the textile, real estate and computer industries in China from 1992 to 2014 were collected.

There are significant differences in the characteristics of corporate executives that match the life cycles of different industries. Companies at the growth stage in the life cycle of an industry were more likely to select and appoint younger corporate executives with political capital, peripheral functions and output functions, whereas companies at the maturity stage were more likely to select and appoint older corporate executives with throughput functions.

By using the upper echelons theory as a starting point, this study analyzed the effects of industry life cycle on corporate executive's characteristics. The research findings offer theoretical implications for the upper echelons theory and provide managerial implications.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the value relevance of Research and development (R&D) and free cash flow (FCF) in an efficient investment setup. Most importantly, this paper examines whether the value relevance of R&D and FCF is associated with life cycle stages. Furthermore, this paper reports whether the market response to R&D and FCF is different in competitive market as compared to the concentrated market.

The analysis is based on the Ohlson (1995) model for the determination of value relevance of earnings and book value. Capitalized R&D and FCF data comprising of the Chinese A-listed firms from the year 2008 to 2016 are selected for this study. Following Anthony and Ramesh (1992), the authors divided the firm life cycle into different stages. HHI index is used to measure the product market competition.

The main result shows that R&D and FCF are value relevant in Chinese A-listed firms. The impact of R&D and FCF on the value relevance of earnings and book value is also positive and significant. The findings of the effect of R&D and FCF on the value relevance of accounting information signify that the information content (R²=0.46) of the mature stage is higher than that of the growth and stagnant stage. The explanatory power measured by R² value for competitive industries (0.47) is much higher than the concentrated industries (0.33).

Despite taking into account all the possible available variables, there are few limitations of the study. This study only studies the effect of EPS, BPS, R&D and FCF on the value relevance of accounting information. Other determinant such as size, growth, leverage and firm age is ignored. Since the R&D expenditure is discretionary, therefore the findings cannot be generalized to all the sectors. A sector wise comparative study can be done in future, to understand the differences in the information contents of R&D and FCF. Also, the tax effect of R&D is ignored in this study. For future call, the value relevance of tax effect on R&D can be explored.

The investors can now determine the present value of all the future cash flows of investing activities. The results of the study are significant for the Chinese investors who should incorporate the R&D and FCF along with investment efficiency. The investors should keep in mind the life cycle stage while investing in a certain stock. The competitive markets have more information content than the concentrated markets. The corporate managers can benefit from this study while issuing new shares. The market responds positively to the stock having investment efficient R&D and FCF investment. For the policy implication perspective, the security market regulator should devise the effective pro-effective product market regulations.

The contribution of this study is manifold. First, according to the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that incorporates investment efficiency with R&D and FCF and explores its effect on the value relevance of accounting information. Second, the impact of R&D on the value relevance is studied by numerous researchers (Lev and Sougiannis, 1996; Han and Manry, 2004). Similarly, FCF-agency cost effect has also been investigated by (Rahman and Mohd-Saleh, 2008; Chen et al., 2012) but the value relevance of R&D and FCF during different life cycle stages still needs to be answered. Finally, this study also tries to answers the question if the market response to R&D and FCF is different in a competitive market as compared to the concentrated market.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the production cycle of glazed porcelain stoneware, from the extraction of raw materials to the packaging of the finished product, with the aim of verifying the effects of integrating an environmental impact assessment into the decision-making process for managing the life cycle, to make it economically and ecologically sustainable, in a holistic approach along the supply-chain.

The research is performed using the life cycle assessment and life cycle costing methodologies, to identify environmental impacts and costs, that occur during extraction of raw materials, transportation, ceramic tiles production, material handling, distribution and end-of-life stages within a cradle to grave perspective.

Through the use of a comprehensive analysis of the environmental impact assessment and related externalities, three possible strategic options to improve the environmental performance and costs of ceramic tile production were formulated, leveraging sustainability as a competitive advantage.

This exploratory research opens future lines of investigation, the first of which is to confirm the technological feasibility and market responsiveness to the three strategic solutions hypothesised thanks to the use of an innovative eco-design technique.

The research has allowed testing and validating the tools of environmental impact assessment (life cycle assessment) and economic impact assessment (life cycle costing as structured methodologies in a life cycle management framework, to help companies implement competitive strategies based on sustainability.