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Although adolescents and older adults are often targets for nutritional change interventions, little has been done to explore how people in these transitional life phases perceive the matter themselves. The aim of this paper is to explore and compare adolescents' and older adults' own perceptions of the barriers and facilitators of a change towards healthier eating.

This study design consisted of four focus groups that were conducted with adolescents and older adults to identify their health orientations, and their expected and experienced outcomes and self-efficacies in implementing approach and avoidance behaviours in relation to healthy eating, i.e. increasing consumption of fruit and vegetables and decreasing consumption of soft drinks and red meat.

The study resulted in a number of interesting insights, e.g. that older and younger participants alike: were keen not to seem “overly healthy” to their important others, had a demonstratively detached orientation towards healthy eating and felt that their diets were generally healthy (although this was generally disproved by their self-reported intake data).

The study and findings reported in this article contribute by providing the first steps towards a better understanding of how social cognition and self-efficacy perceptions related to healthy eating develop in the transitional phases of adolescence and older adulthood. In order to complement and validate the findings of the study; and with the aim of facilitating efficient nutritional change interventions directed at adolescents and older people, further studies should be conducted.

Using the Social Network Analysis(SNA) method, this paper examines inter-country relationships between countries that may be part of the New Silk Road. Based on bilateral-trade data from more than 70 countries, the paper provides a more vivid understanding of overall features and effects of the New Silk Road policy. According to the results, India, Turkey, and Russia have the highest degree centrality, indicating that the success of the New Silk Road policy depends mainly on the ability of the Chinese government to incorporate these countries. Among European countries, only Germany can be successfully incorporated into the New Silk Road network. In addition, Central Asian countries such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan show no potential as hubs in the network. Most importantly, China has a dominant position in the New Silk Road network. China's focal and dominating status is also supported by the fact that there is no change in the clustering coefficient in the network, which implies that the Chinese government has to absorb into the system those countries that are less likely to benefit from the policy.

This paper specifies how to construct and validate an instrument based on multi‐item scales for the cataloguing and measurement of managerial and organizational capabilities on the basis of management perceptions. The construction and reduction of the scales have been reinforced by the Delphi and retesting techniques. The use of this methodology was illustrated in a sample of Spanish industrial firms. The paper enhances the value of the instruments for a resource‐based view with regard to the faithful and rigorous measurement of its key concept, distinctive competences. The scales created provide consistent empirical evidence to remove doubts surrounding managerial self‐evaluation, including those arising from problems of self‐esteem and reinforcement effects. In addition, the paper provides empirical evidence to support the predictive ability of distinctive competences on current and long‐term performance variability.

Examines a study carried out on three large Swedish firms examining the effects of education, experience and the environment on ways in which decisions are made. Studies, in particular, purchasing behaviour in an international context with the central theme and analysis of how purchasers evaluate suppliers located in different countries. Acknowledges, surprisingly, both knowledge of foreign language and experience of foreign countries seemed to be unimportant. Concludes that the results are on a tentative level requiring further research.

The purpose of this paper is to report on the content of local policies on engagement and observation written by National Health Service (NHS) organisations in England and Wales.

Engagement and observation policies were obtained from all (n = 61) NHS mental health trusts in England and health boards in Wales via a Freedom of Information Act 2000 request. Data were analysed using content analysis.

All organisations had a specific policy referring to either “observation and engagement” or “observation”. The policies varied considerably in quality, length, breadth and depth of the information provided. Significant variations existed in the terminology used to describe the different types of enhanced observation. Inconsistencies were also noted between organisations regarding: which members of the clinical team could initiate, increase, decrease and terminate observation; who could undertake the intervention (for example students); and the reasons for using it. Finally, despite rhetoric to the contrary, the emphasis of policies was on observation and not engagement.

This research has demonstrated the value of examining local policies for identifying inconsistencies in guidance given to practitioners on the implementation of engagement and observation. Further research should be undertaken to explore the impact of local policies on practice.

Local policies remain variable in content and quality and do not reflect contemporary research. There is a need to produce evidence-based national standards that organisations are required to comply with.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first research in 20 years examining the local policy framework for the implementation of engagement and observation.

Labour efficiency is the key component for the long-term sustainability of construction firms. Recent studies show that modernising organisational/managerial processes is necessary to raise labour efficiency in many emerging nations. Construction supervision is a crucial element in organisational/managerial practices, which provide blood circulation to the project operations by directing labour. Accordingly, this study aims to quantify the impacts of crucial organisational/managerial elements on the efficiency of labour in building construction projects based on the viewpoint of construction supervisors.

A total of 28 factors were determined as critical, where lack of labour motivation, poor labour training facilities, poor performance evaluation practices, no labour rewarding mechanism and poor communication/cooperation between parties were judged to be the top five key issues in the list. The validity and reliability of the study findings were ensured through statistical tests and the experts' discussion outcomes. In view of the evolving challenges facing the industry, the results indicate that the organisational policies of construction enterprises in place addressing financial procedures, communication strategies, resource management and performance management practices must be enhanced.

The study findings will make a substantial contribution to reducing the disparity between organisation/management policies and labour practices towards changing how the sector operates to increase labour efficiency in construction projects.

This study contributes to addressing the knowledge gap in the industry associated with the organisational protocols, especially to understand/predict how such elements are significant, how much they influence the efficiency of construction practices and what steps can be made to limit their effects on labour efficiency in construction. These could be crucial in modernising organisational policies and procedures for construction management.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate critical barriers hindering the adoption of green supply chain management (GSCM) and the opportunities that can be exploited with such an implementation in the construction industry of developing countries. It also devises strategies to avoid critical barriers in implementation and exploit opportunities for a better overall environmental performance of the construction industry.

This research relies upon an extensive literature review; data are collected from 163 professionals and 15 interviews of field professionals from 11 developing countries are conducted. The barriers and opportunities are synthesized through literature review and then data are collected over their significance from the construction professionals through an online survey. To highlight the interconnectedness of the critical barriers and opportunities, a causal loop framework is developed. Furthermore, expert opinion is sought to develop the strategies.

This research integrates information from different sources and provides a holistic view of the current situation of GSCM in developing countries. In total, 34 barriers and 23 opportunities are extracted from literature. The top 4 barriers fall under the “involvement and support” category, whereas the top four opportunities fall under the “environmental” category. Furthermore, the strategies to implement GSCM include suitable policies by top management to incorporate practices such as innovative green design, green procurement, green packaging, green distribution and even end-of-life management, which play a vital role in emission reduction.

This research is a first attempt at evaluating the barriers and opportunities facing GSCM in the construction sector of the developing countries. The findings encourage the stakeholders in adopting GSCM practices by presenting a clear picture of the potential benefits that can be exploited by implementing the proposed strategies to eliminate critical barriers in the construction industry.

Safety in construction projects is essential and requires more attention towards minimizing the accident rate. Problems concerning awareness of safety risks, procedures and practices still exist in the industry, which indicate a shortfall in diffusion of safety-related knowledge in construction industry. Also, there is dearth of studies on knowledge management strategies to prevent reoccurrence of accidents and thereby improve safety culture in construction industry. This study attempts to unveil aspects of knowledge management that are ignored in considering safety culture and discern the differences in the perception of key stakeholders of construction industry. Therefore, the objective of this study is to identify and measure knowledge-based safety culture elements.

In this paper, the focus is on the application of a reliable, valid and sensitive knowledge-based safety culture assessment tool on key stakeholders operational in construction industry. Research method adopted is a questionnaire-based survey to seek responses from industry professionals. A total of 199 responses were obtained from 106 different companies operational in Indian construction industry. Statistical analyses including ranking analysis, t-test, correlation analysis, and ANOVA test are utilized for comparing and identifying the differences in view of stakeholder's perceptions concerning workplace safety.

This study helps to identify and rank critical knowledge-based safety culture elements from the perspective of key stakeholders of construction industry. This contributes in identifying the most critical and neglected variables among the key stakeholders regarding aspects of safety culture. Also, the study shows the importance of knowledge dimension in developing overall safety culture in construction industry.

Results of this study offer valuable insight in enabling key stakeholders of construction industry to examine and enhance their safety performance. The implications of this study contribute new knowledge in assessing conditions that will improve worker safety in the construction industry. The paper should be of interest to researchers and practitioners in the area of occupational health and safety management.