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Outlines and discusses the implementation plan and associated training programme for establishing TQM in one of the hospitals in Hong Kong. Gives examples of the training programme and outlines quality management plans.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the medical incident responses from two public hospitals in Hong Kong, namely, Kowloon Hospital and Caritas Medical Centre, in order to improve the strategic preparation for crisis management in hospitals.

The paper analyses two medical incidents using Situational Crisis Communication Theory by Coombs (2007). The two case studies presented herein demonstrate the importance of consistency in terms of crisis responses.

For the first case, the crisis responses from different parties after the incident, including Hospital Authority, the doctor and the nurses from Kowloon Hospital, are contradicting to each other. First, Hospital Authority confirmed that the incident is solely an accident which is a denial response. Second, the doctor passed the responsibility to the nurses which is a scapegoating response. Third, the nurses tend to reduce the responsibility for the death of patient by excusing strategy. As a whole, their responses are inconsistent to each other. For the second case, Caritas had initially denied the responsibilities, but finally had given partial apology under public pressure. That makes people think that Caritas does not really regret.

Rebuilding posture should be used instead of denial and diminishment posture. However, public organization and civil servants are reluctant to use a full apology due to possible legal consequences. The apology ordinance would ease the pressure to express regret and sympathy.

Older workers represent an increasingly important source of labour for organisations. Irrespective of age, a worker needs the appropriate skills and knowledge to be productive and to help the organisation achieve its strategic objectives. However, in many organisations, older workers are less likely to be offered training opportunities than their younger compatriots. This is due, in part, to negative stereotypical assumptions about older workers by managers. Learning and training are influenced by an individual’s career span and motivation. As a person ages, their work-related needs will change. There is a shift from growing and developing their career to a focus on security, maintenance, emotional satisfaction and mastery. Cognitive change takes place during a person’s life, and a gradual decline in primary mental abilities can be expected, but the notions of general decline are simplistic and misleading. A person is able to learn at any age and the older worker is capable of adjusting to changes in work. Many people assume that older workers are homogeneous but this is not the case. There are significant differences between older workers and these differences need to be acknowledged and understood. The organisational culture will affect learning and training opportunities for older workers, as will the attitudes of managers to older employees. Learning and training for older workers will also be influenced by the national culture and, in this chapter, selected Asian countries are discussed. The chapter concludes by offering recommendations regarding learning and training for older workers in organisations.

Active participation is critical to the survival and development of the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game community. However, this issue has not received much attention in the information systems literature. To address this issue, we develop a tripartite model that accounts for the roles of behavioral dedication, constraint, obligation mechanisms on active participation in the MOBA community.

The research model is empirically validated by online survey data among 971 users of a popular MOBA community.

The results show that perceived enjoyment, perceived escapism, and affective commitment are key behavioral dedication factors, which further promote active participation in the MOBA community. In addition, past investment, self-efficacy for change, and calculative commitment are important behavioral constraint factors, which ultimately influence active participation in the MOBA community. Finally, subjective norm, group norm, social identity, and normative commitment are influential behavioral obligation factors, which in turn facilitate active participation in the MOBA community.

This study contributes to the theoretical understanding of active participation in the MOBA community and offers practical guidance for promoting active participation in the community.

Project delays and cost over-runs are few common major problems arising from conventional contracts. To overcome these issues, the Hong Kong Government has been practicing the use of the New Engineering Contract (NEC) forms in several public works projects. However, despite the successful outcomes and the positive signs of adopting NEC, it appears that NEC forms of contracts are not widely adopted in the Hong Kong construction industry even after 25 years of their first introduction. The purpose of this paper is to identify the challenges and barriers for not implementing NEC widely in Hong Kong.

Based on a questionnaire survey data collected from 45 senior industry professionals, and six semi-structured interviews, the study evaluated the perceptions of construction professionals as to why NEC is still not popular in the industry and reported the relative importance of challenges in the implementation of NEC in Hong Kong.

The results reveal that “People are not willing to change,” “Limited number of trained professionals” and “Insufficient case law and adjudication experience” are the most significant challenges and barriers in adopting NEC. These findings are also supported by the opinions of construction professionals through semi-structured interviews.

The findings are relevant and would benefit to the industry stakeholders for adopting NEC contracts by informing them of the most significant challenges so that proper strategies may be devised to overcoming them for early contractors’ involvement, controlling cost and time overruns in infrastructure projects.

The empirical evidence of the study provides an insight into the challenges faced by the construction industry of Hong Kong. NEC form of contract is the way forward in order to create a better working environment conducive for all the parties that would result in better construction project performance and productivity.