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The idea of implementing supply chain management (SCM) principles for the construction industry was embraced by construction stakeholders to enhance the sector's performance. The analysis from the literature revealed that the implementation of SCM in the construction industry enhances the industry's value in terms of cost-saving, time savings, material management, risk management and others. The construction supply chain (CSC) can be managed using the pull or push system. This chapter also discusses the origin and proliferation of SCM into the construction industry. The chapter revealed that the concept of SCM has passed through five different eras: the creation era, the use of ERP, globalisation stage, specialisation stage and electronic stage. The findings from the literature revealed that we are presently in the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) era. At this stage, the SCM witnesses the adoption of technologies and principles driven by the 4IR. This chapter also revealed that the practice of SCM in the construction industry is centred around integration, collaboration, communication and the structure of the supply chain (SC). The forms and challenges hindering the adoption of these practices were also discussed extensively in this chapter.

While there are a number of theoretical traditions that study the interactions of business and society, research in these spaces has failed to sufficiently engage across these traditions. This volume aims to bridge these domains, creating a conversation among scholars working at the nexus of stakeholder theory, non-market strategy, and social movement theory. In this introductory chapter to the volume, we review the historical context of these three theoretical areas and explore how they connect in current research. We follow this discussion with our recommendations for common themes that might further integrate these subfields. Finally, we conclude the chapter with a description of each paper in the volume, highlighting how each contributes to our understanding of the dynamics of business and society, as well as the integration of our three focal subfields.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a new conceptualization of the boundaryless career – a widely acknowledged contemporary career concept – that reflects its original description more fully than previous literature has done, and to apply this conceptualization in an empirical investigation of career behavior and intentions of a large sample of European information technology (IT) professionals.

As part of a large study of IT professionals in Europe (N=1,350), the paper had three research objectives. First, the paper developed and empirically tested a new operationalization of a person’s boundaryless career orientation (BCO) that reflects the originally proposed boundaryless career meanings more closely than existing approaches. Second, the paper used this to identify in a holistic manner different patterns of BCO. Third, the paper examined the nature and extent of links between BCO and self-reported career behavior and intentions.

The paper identified five BCO factors that differentiate individuals into three distinct clusters. Although organizational boundaries appeared to be salient for most individuals, they did not differentiate the clusters. Instead, geographical mobility preference and rejection of career opportunities emerged as highly differentiating but hitherto rarely examined types of career boundaries.

The findings can help HR managers to gain a better understanding of different mobility preferences among different groups of employees, which could lead to the development and implementation of more refined reward schemes and career development practices in organizations.

This study provides a new operationalization of the BCO that is grounded in its original definition and offers a new empirically tested 15-item BCO measure. It contributes to career research with scarce empirical findings regarding the components of the BCO, their salience for individuals, and the connections between BCO and behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of protean-related traits and attitudes in the development of international mobility (expatriation) and entrepreneurial intentions among early career professionals. Career mobility is of increasing relevance to achieving career success in the era of protean and boundaryless careers, and in the present day highly globalized labor market. International mobility provides opportunities for work in organizations (corporate expatriation) as well as in entrepreneurship (expat entrepreneurship).

This paper reports two studies examining the role of “protean career personality,” conceptualized as consisting of personal initiative and flexibility on entrepreneurial and expatriation intention, looking at career orientation attitude as the mediating mechanism. In study 1, the impact of personal initiative and flexibility on the two career mobility paths is explored using a sample of 442 German undergraduate students. Study 2 replicates these relationships among a sample of 100 early career professionals who graduated with a diploma in psychology.

Results indicate that for the sample of undergraduate students, flexibility and career orientation were positively related to expatriation intention. However, the mediation path was non-significant. On the other hand, personal initiative and career orientation were essential for entrepreneurial intentions, with a significant mediation path. For the early career professionals in contrast, only flexibility turned out to be resourceful for both expatriation and entrepreneurial intentions.

Suggestions for supporting early career professionals to develop interest in working abroad or in entrepreneurship are provided. Particularly, the results indicate that protean traits affect mobility intentions differently. To strengthen intentions for expatriation work, attention should be paid enhancing the ability for staying flexible when it comes to career choices. This applies to both undergraduate students and early career professionals. However, a strong career orientation is also essential to the development of expatriation intention among current students. On the other hand, enhancing proactivity could strengthen entrepreneurial intention among undergraduate students.

This study applies protean-related traits and attitudes; and how they work together in the development of mobility intentions among undergraduate students and early career professionals. The study reveals differential roles of these traits and attitudes among these groups, with regard to expatriation and entrepreneurship. This is important for career guidance.

Whilst performance management (PM) is one human resource practice that is of importance for the company, research in international setting is still in its infancy. This paper focuses on global PM (GPM) in multinational enterprises. The aim is to present advances in the PM research framework, give managerial suggestions and find out future needs and trends for research.

The approach is to analyze the literature in the research field. Will the transfer of PM be localized or standardized? Diffusion deals with how social institutions are spread from one society to another through certain channels over time and among members of a social system. In this paper, the framework is drawn on institutional theory, the institutional impact of the degree of success or barriers to GPM.

In the findings of GPM research, the following perspectives were found: tool and process perspective, expatriates (a specific target group perspective), cultural perspective, standardization perspective and comparative perspective.

GPM enables the evaluation and development of the individual as well as organizational effectiveness for multinational companies. Balance between local responsiveness and global integration in subsidiaries is needed.

There is a need to study GPM further. The PM process is similar for domestic and international market, but the difference is in the implementation because it is far more complex in global companies with more issues to consider.

The assumption of wealth creation as the dominant motive underlying entrepreneurial efforts has been challenged in recent work on entrepreneurship. Taking the perspective that entrepreneurship involves emancipatory efforts by social actors to escape ideological and material constraints in their environments (Rindova, Barry, & Ketchen, 2009), researchers have sought to explain a range of entrepreneurial activities in contexts that have traditionally been excluded from entrepreneurship research. We seek to extend this research by proposing that entrepreneurial acts toward emancipation can be guided by different notions of the common good underlying varying conceptions of worth, beyond those emphasized in the view of entrepreneurial activity as driven by economic wealth creation. These alternative conceptions of worth are associated with specific subjectivities of entrepreneurial self and relevant others, and distinct legitimate bases for actions and coordination, enabling emancipation by operating from alternative value system perspectives. Drawing on Boltanski and Thévenot’s (2006) work on multiple orders of worth (OOWs), we describe how emancipatory entrepreneurship is framed within – and limited by – the dominant view, which is rooted in a market OOW. As alternatives to this view, we theorize how the civic and inspired OOWs point to alternate emancipatory ends and means through which entrepreneurs break free from material and ideological constraints. We describe factors that enable and constrain emancipatory entrepreneurship efforts within each of these OOWs, and discuss the implications of our theoretical ideas for how entrepreneurs can choose among different OOWs as perspectives and for the competencies required for engaging with pluralistic value perspectives.

In this paper, a 3D DEM program TRUBAL, which is capable of calculating the contact between particles considering friction and local plastic deformation, is employed to study the evolution of internal structure of particle assemblies during the consolidation process. Uniaxial powder compaction process is simulated in a cubic periodic unit cell by applying the strain rate to the individual particles. The selection of the proper time steps in DEM for quasi‐static case is discussed. Results in particle scale (microscopic) are obtained and correlated to the statistical bulk response of the assembly. The effects of the microscopic properties of particles (such as friction, plastic contact) on the bulk mechanical response are examined by numerical tests. Correlations between the microscopic properties of particles and the macroscopic continuum behaviours of compacts are discussed. These discussions make it possible to fit DEM results at a macroscopic scale to the experimental measurements by adjusting the particle properties in DEM calculation. An example test is carried out to demonstrate that DEM results could be fitted properly to the experimental results, in the mean time, also provide some microscopic results which are hard to be measured. DEM has the potential to incorporate the microscopic properties of particles into a proper continuum model to perform combined macro and micro study of the powder compaction process.

We explore the simultaneous influence of activist organizations and corporations on institutional change. Focusing on protests, campaign contributions, and lobbyists as the strategies used by activist organizations and corporations to influence institutional change, we study the dynamics between movements and counter-movements and their influence on the probability of institutional change. In the context of the US tobacco industry, the results shed light on the effectiveness of these strategies and uncover potential moderators of this relationship. Overall, we demonstrate the simultaneous and asymmetric effects of activist organizations and corporations that use conspicuous and inconspicuous strategies to change institutions.