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As a strand in industrialization movement in architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry, prefabricated construction (PC) has gained widespread popularity due to high efficiency, energy saving, low environmental impacts, safety and other advantages of PC. Well-managed supply chain can further leverage the advantages of PC. However, there is a lack of more systematically overview of the prefabricated construction supply chain (PCSC). This paper aims to comb the current status and look into the future direction of PCSC by reviewing the existing research.

In total, 131 articles related to prefabricated construction supply chain management (PCSCM) from 2000 to 2022 have been collated to (1) conduct a bibliometric analysis by using VOSviewer, including the literature sources, keywords co-occurrence, co-authorships, authorship citation and country active in the field of PCSCM; (2) classify and summarize the status of research in PCSCM through qualitative discussion and (3) point out the future research directions.

In total, 131 articles are carried out for bibliometric analysis and in-depth qualitative discussion, the visualization maps and the main research themes in the field of PCSCM are obtained. The results show that supply chain intelligentization and informatization are hot topics. Finally, future research directions that should be paid attention to in the field of PCSCM are pointed out.

This study can help project managers understand the current status and problems of PCSC operations and provide a basis for future management decisions.

Compared with previous studies, this study adds the dimension of “article authorship” to the quantitative analysis and discusses the research themes in the field of PCSCM in a comprehensive manner. In addition, this paper deeply discusses the main research topics from both the specific contents and research methods adopted.

Entrepreneurship is a prominent area of inquiry which is enriched by an ample literature base and challenged by definitional deficiencies. Over the years, multiple perspectives of entrepreneurship have emerged and a holistic approach to entrepreneurship has been proposed. This can facilitate the continued enlargement of the entrepreneurship field and allow for interdisciplinary research within the African region. This chapter contributes to the literature on entrepreneurship in developing economies by providing an extensive review of the various approaches that entrepreneurship has been conceptualised. Nine themes are explored: the great person, economic perspective, psychological perspective, sociological perspective, behavioural perspective, management, intrapreneurship, cognitive perspective and leadership perspective. This is followed by an examination of entrepreneurship as a process, as a new venture creation and as an art of opportunity recognition and exploitation. In the last section of this chapter, a clarion call is made for more African scholarship and research in the field of entrepreneurship.

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) in the agri-food sector are continuously transforming their global value chains (GVCs) to address sustainable development challenges of food security (SDG2) and climate change (SDG13). However, the central role of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in (re)creating GVCs across multilevel stakeholders through innovative approaches to solve sustainability challenges remains under investigated. This explorative study investigates how international NGOs influence the transformation of large-scale industrial animal agriculture to a more sustainable (cell-based) agri-food GVC. The authors conducted a case study on the Good Food Institute (GFI), an international NGO, that has been an active player in the transition to alternative sources of protein to solve animal-based agriculture sustainability issues. The results show that an international NGO can contribute to the transition to a more sustainable GVC and can enhance the GVC’s innovation capabilities.

What is the impact of workers' tattoos and piercings on hospitality work? While body-art is prohibited in some hotels, it is encouraged in others. Also, an even more ambiguous situation arises when body-art is neither accepted nor prohibited, depending on labour market conditions and managers' individualistic preferences. In this chapter, we explore how this ambiguity imposes challenges on employment and career planning. We first seek to understand how managers' perceptions and decisions concerning worker body-art change in different hotel categories. To do so, we draw on interviews with 25 General and Human Resource Managers in 18 upper market hotels, three lifestyle boutique-hotels and four luxury hotels. Then, we offer pragmatic suggestions on career planning.

Although there has been a surge in the adoption of building information modelling (BIM) in the construction industry, the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are still struggling and perceive its adoption as risky. The SMEs in developing economies are especially on the disadvantaged side of the digital divide. Extant studies have focused on large firms and there are scanty studies on the influence of the external environments on BIM adoption in SMEs. Thus, this study espouses institutional theory (INT) to examine the influence of coercive, mimetic, and normative pressures on BIM awareness and adoption in SMEs.

A quantitative approach was employed, and data were collected from the Nigerian construction SMEs via an empirical questionnaire survey using a sequential stratified and convenient sampling method. Hypothesized relationships between the coercive, mimetic, and normative pressure and BIM in SMEs were empirically tested using the partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) technique and the model was validated with the “PLSpredict” procedure.

The results revealed that coercive and mimetic pressures significantly influence BIM adoption in SMEs while normative pressures have the strongest influence on BIM in SMEs. Also, BIM awareness is an important predictor of BIM adoption. The findings also shed light on the influence of firmographics on BIM awareness and adoption in Nigerian SMEs.

The study empirically validates the applicability of INT and highlights that BIM adoption is not only influenced by internal responses to the need for efficiency but also by external pressures. It implies a clear need for intentional isomorphic pressures in driving BIM adoption in SMEs. The study employs the INT to explain a phenomenon that has not been theoretically explored in the context of SMEs in developing economies. Lastly, the study provided valuable insights into driving BIM adoption, together with the effective practical implications for implementation and potential research areas for further studies.

Entrepreneurial education is gaining traction in Ghana. The purpose of this chapter was to assess the influences of social enterprises in promoting entrepreneurial education, using Ghanaian social enterprises as a case study. The study adopted a qualitative research approach. A multiple case study analysis examined the influences of social enterprises in Ghana. Four in-depth qualitative case studies offer insight into social enterprise practices. Sustainability, innovation, control and employment issues stand out as key effects of Ghanaian social enterprise practices. The social practice theory framework is used to draw the linkages of the structure and agency relationships. Sustainability emerges as the most dominant impact of social enterprise practice followed by innovation, control and employment. These four descriptive terms summarise the universal effects of Ghanaian social enterprises' practices. The study identifies and assesses the role of social enterprises in social entrepreneurial education in addressing social ills and environmental challenges facing Ghana. The emphasis placed on each of the identified four constructs describes the plausible roles of Ghana's social enterprises in achieving productive entrepreneurship through entrepreneurship education. The result shows the pursuit of multiple practices is a common feature of social enterprises. The limitations of the study stem from methodological approach as it is qualitative approach bias and a single country case. Likewise, the subjectivities of the samples direct the results of the study. The study draws the attention of stakeholders and policymakers to the goodwill of social entrepreneurship education in Ghana. Many studies have been conducted on entrepreneurial education in the contextual setting of this study. This present study focused on the practices of social enterprises in Ghana that influences entrepreneurial education.

University students are a unique population with great potential to adopt eating habits that promote positive human and planetary health outcomes. The purpose of this study is to illustrate the current perceptions of sustainable eating behaviours among the students and to examine the determinants of sustainable eating behaviours.

Data were collected from December 2020 to May 2021 through focus group discussions among university students in Ontario, facilitated through synchronous online sessions. There were 21 student participants during the course of five focus group sessions (4–5 participants per session) from various departments within the university. The discussions were transcribed and analyzed for main themes and concepts using open coding; deductive coding based on the framework by Deliens et al. as well as the literature; and inductive coding for emerging themes.

The students had different perceptions about what constituted sustainable eating behaviours, some of which were not based on fact. A variety of individual, environmental (macro, micro and social) and university characteristics were mentioned as factors influencing sustainable food choices, with “food literacy” and “campus food” being the top two factors.

This study presents a novel and holistic overview of how sustainable eating behaviours and sustainable foods are perceived among university students and identifies the perceived determinants of adopting sustainable eating behaviours. This study helps with identifying opportunities to promote sustainable eating behaviours among university students and the design/implementation of informed interventions and policies aimed at improving eating behaviours.

In developing countries, construction organizations are seeking to effectively implement green innovation strategies. Thus, this study aims to assess the importance of green innovation practices and develop a measurement model for quantifying the green innovation degrees of construction firms.

A mixed-methods research approach is adopted. First, an extensive literature review is performed to identify potential green innovation items, which are then used to design a preliminary questionnaire. Next, expert interviews are conducted to pilot-test this questionnaire. Subsequently, by using a convenience non-probability sampling method, 88 valid responses are collected from construction firms in Vietnam. Then, one-sample and independent-samples t tests are employed to assess the importance of green innovation practices. Fuzzy synthetic evaluation (FSE) is also applied to quantitatively compare such practices. Finally, green innovation level (GIL) is proposed to measure the green innovation indexes and validated by a case study of seven construction firms.

This study identifies 13 green innovation variables, of which several key practices are highlighted for small/medium and large construction firms. The results of FSE analysis indicate that green process innovation is the most vital green category in construction firms, followed by green product and management innovations, respectively. As a quantitative measure, GIL could allow construction firms to frequently evaluate their green innovation indexes, thereby promoting green innovation practices comprehensively. Hence, construction firms would significantly enhance green competitive advantages and increasingly contribute to green and sustainable construction developments.

This research is one of the first attempts to integrate various green innovation practices into a comprehensive formulation. The established indexes offer detailed green innovation evaluations, which could be considered as valuable references for construction practitioners. Furthermore, a reliable and practical tool (i.e. GIL) is proposed to measure the GILs of construction firms in developing countries.

First-generation college students in the United States are a unique demographic that is often characterized by the institutions that serve them with a risk-laden and deficit-based model. However, our analysis of the transcripts of open-ended, semi-structured interviews with 22 “first-gen” respondents suggests they are actively deft, agentic, self-determining parties to processes of identity construction that are both externally imposed and potentially stigmatizing, as well as exemplars of survivance and determination. We deploy a grounded theory approach to an open-coding process, modeled after the extended case method, while viewing our data through a novel synthesis of the dual theoretical lenses of structural and radical/structural symbolic interactionism and intersectional/standpoint feminist traditions, in order to reveal the complex, unfolding, active strategies students used to make sense of their obstacles, successes, co-created identities, and distinctive institutional encounters. We find that contrary to the dictates of prevailing paradigms, identity-building among first-gens is an incremental and bidirectional process through which students actively perceive and engage existing power structures to persist and even thrive amid incredibly trying, challenging, distressing, and even traumatic circumstances. Our findings suggest that successful institutional interventional strategies designed to serve this functionally unique student population (and particularly those tailored to the COVID-moment) would do well to listen deeply to their voices, consider the secondary consequences of “protectionary” policies as potentially more harmful than helpful, and fundamentally, to reexamine the presumption that such students present just institutional risk and vulnerability, but also present a valuable addition to university environments, due to the unique perspective and broader scale of vision their experiences afford them.

Designing and developing safe systems has been a persistent challenge in health care, and in surgical settings in particular. In efforts to promote safety, safety culture, i.e., shared values regarding safety management, is considered a key driver of high-quality, safe healthcare delivery. However, changing organizational culture so that it emphasizes and promotes safety is often an elusive goal. The Safe Surgery Checklist is an innovative tool for improving safety culture and surgical care safety, but evidence about Safe Surgery Checklist effectiveness is mixed. We examined the relationship between changes in management practices and changes in perceived safety culture during implementation of safe surgery checklists. Using a pre-posttest design and survey methods, we evaluated Safe Surgery Checklist implementation in a national sample of 42 general acute care hospitals in a leading hospital network. We measured perceived management practices among managers (n = 99) using the World Management Survey. We measured perceived preoperative safety and safety culture among clinical operating room personnel (N = 2,380 (2016); N = 1,433 (2017)) using the Safe Surgical Practice Survey. We collected data in two consecutive years. Multivariable linear regression analysis demonstrated a significant relationship between changes in management practices and overall safety culture and perceived teamwork following Safe Surgery Checklist implementation.