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This paper aims to evaluate the risk factors and determines the overall risk level (ORL) of public-private-partnership (PPP) power projects in Ghana using fuzzy synthetic evaluation methodology (FSEM).

In this paper review of literature led to the development of a 67-factor risk list which was ranked by experts and industry practitioners through a questionnaire survey.

These factors were grouped into principal risk factors (PRFs) using component analysis and they served as the input variables for fuzzy analysis. The seven components were: Contract and Payment risks, Environmental risks, Financial and Cost risks, Legal and Guarantee risks, Operation risks, Socio-Political and Performance risks (SPR) and Tender and Negotiation risks. Study showed that the ORL of Ghanaian PPP power projects is high implying they are risky to both the public and private sectors. Fuzzy analysis also confirmed SPR as the most critical principal factor.

This study is significant and demonstrates that fuzzy methodology can be used as a useful risk evaluation tool and risk assessment framework for private investors, policy makers and public sector.

Spatial olfactory design in the library appears to be a practical approach to enhance the coordination between architectural spaces and user behaviors, shape immersive activity experiences and shape immersive activity experiences. Therefore, this study aims to explore the association between the olfactory elements of library space and users’ olfactory perception, providing a foundation for the practical design of olfactory space in libraries.

Using the olfactory perception semantic differential experiment method, this study collected feedback on the emotional experience of olfactory stimuli from 56 participants in an academic library. From the perspective of environmental psychology, the dimensions of pleasure, control and arousal of users’ olfactory perception in the academic library environment were semantically and emotionally described. In addition, the impact of fatigue state on users’ olfactory perception was analyzed through statistical methods to explore the impact path of individual physical differences on olfactory perception.

It was found that users’ olfactory perception in the academic library environment is likely semantically described from the dimensions of pleasure, arousal and control. These dimensions mutually influence users’ satisfaction with olfactory elements. Moreover, there is a close correlation between pleasure and satisfaction. In addition, fatigue states may impact users’ olfactory perception. Furthermore, users in a high-fatigue state may be more sensitive to the arousal of olfactory perception.

This article is an empirical exploration of users’ perception of the environmental odors in libraries. The experimental results of this paper may have practical implications for the construction of olfactory space in academic libraries.

This paper aims to conduct a comprehensive analysis to evaluate the current situation of journals, examine the factors that influence their development, and establish an evaluation index system and model. The objective is to enhance the theory and methodologies used for journal evaluation and provide guidance for their positive development.

This study uses empirical data from economics journals to analyse their evaluation dimensions, methods, index system and evaluation framework. This study then assigns weights to journal data using single and combined evaluations in three dimensions: influence, communication and novelty. It calculates several evaluation metrics, including the explanation rate, information entropy value, difference coefficient and novelty degree. Finally, this study applies the concept of fuzzy mathematics to measure the final results.

The use of affiliation degree and fuzzy Borda number can synthesize ranking and score differences among evaluation methods. It combines internal objective information and improves model accuracy. The novelty of journal topics positively correlates with both the journal impact factor and social media mentions. In addition, journal communication power indicators compensate for the shortcomings of traditional citation analysis. Finally, the three-dimensional representative evaluation index serves as a reminder to academic journals to avoid the vortex of the Matthew effect.

This paper proposes a journal evaluation model comprising academic influence, communication power and novelty dimensions. It uses fuzzy Borda evaluation to address issues related to the weighing of single evaluation methods. This study also analyses the relationship of the three dimensions and offers insights for journal development in the new media era.

Technological advancements in games increased the popularity of online gaming. The rapid expansion of the eSports market may largely be attributed to the ever-increasing popularity amongst Generation Y amateur gamers. The primary objective of this study is to determine the factors influencing Generation Y amateur gamers' ongoing eSports gameplay intentions.

This study used the extended unified theory of acceptance as the theoretical framework. Data analysis included exploratory principal component analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis.

The results of the confirmatory factor analysis suggest that Generation Y amateur gamers' ongoing eSports gameplay intentions is an eight-factor model that is reliable, valid and has acceptable model fit. The results of the path analysis indicate that habit, price-value, flow, effort expectancy and facilitating conditions have a statistically significant positive influence on amateur gamers' ongoing eSports gameplay intentions, whilst social influence and hedonic motivation have a negative but non-significant influence on those intentions.

The sample was formed using only amateur eSports gamers. In this regard, the opportunity exists to research professional eSports gamers. This study only focussed on Generation Y members between 18 and 36 years old. As a result, there is an opportunity for researchers to research the different generations of South African eSports gamers to determine whether there are any differences or similarities between generational segments.

The results of this study clearly indicate that flow, together with habit are salient contributors to ongoing gameplay intentions amongst amateur eSports gamers in South Africa. A reasonable assumption that can be made here is that flow is also instrumental in encouraging habitual gaming, which increases the importance of flow in overall ongoing gameplay intentions. This suggests that R&D expenditure should be directed at enhancing user engagement by building increased levels of flow into eSports games.

eSports game developers can also achieve a desired state of flow by creating daily challenges that reward players when the players achieve specific objectives, which will encourage gamers to enter a state of flow when provided with challenges to complete. However, these in-game challenges should have a variety of levels regarding difficulty, ranging from beginner, intermediate and advanced levels so as not to exceed the effort expectancy of different groups of players. Game developers should provide regularly updated challenges to gamers to ensure that eSports games remain enjoyable and does not become predictable.

Given the nascence of research on eSports behaviour, the results of this study provide a novel addition to the knowledge pool, particularly in terms of amateur eSports behavioural intentions. Interestingly, hedonic motivation and social influence were non-significant negative predictors of Generation Y amateur gamers' ongoing eSports gameplay intentions. The recommendations provide various marketing strategies and opportunities for eSports business expansion.

Business-to-government corruption has destroyed many businesses and debilitated numerous countries. The paradox of plenty, or the curse of resources, is exacerbated in emerging oil and gas economies, where corruption is rampant. Corruption most frequently occurs within the tendering stage of construction projects and the current debate fails to arrest this ubiquitous boundless construct in small island developing states (SIDSs). The purpose of this study is to explain how the unique features of SIDS contributes to an understanding of B2G corruption during construction tendering.

This study elucidates corruption in the tendering process through the lens of collective action and principal–agent theories. Interviews with three experts and a questionnaire survey with 115 practitioners evaluated corruption in Trinidad’s construction industry. Principal component analysis reduced 33 corruption variables to 5 primary causes. In addition, the relative importance of potential solutions for curtailing corruption was assessed.

The derived factors highlight that governance within SID oil and gas economies, inadequate tender procedures and practices, reprehensible business growth strategies, unethical misconduct and the social networking context characterise public infrastructure tendering. The recommendations for minimising corruption in tendering are grounded in behaviour and deterrence theories and infused with technological advances.

Using surveys and interviews circumvents the limitation of the inability to measure corruption because of the confines of respondents’ recall triggers. However, corruption is mediated by cultural norms, which limits the generalisation of the findings.

The study concludes that corruption results from a lack of transparency in the construction supply chain. It leads to an awareness gap between project stakeholders, which is a major risk factor and source of mistrust. The result is a lack of traceable processes and coordination among stakeholders. Consequently, the study fills the gap in responsible socio-economic consumption in SIDSs.

With the recognition that knowledge is ingrained within certain social groups and settings, more recent literature in this field is now spotlighting this human focused or “social dimension” of knowledge management. However, this learning approach faces some constraints, especially, in project context. While the existing body of knowledge has focused on emphasizing the importance of the social processes and practices involved in this approach, there is glaring neglect of the intricacies involved when executing learning through this agency, especially in project settings. Hence, the purpose of this study is to identify and evaluate the systemic obstacles in personalizing knowledge flows within and across projects.

This study adopted a positivist philosophical stance couched within a deductive approach. A structured questionnaire was used to gather data from 203 construction professionals with “hands-on” experience in managing projects in the Ghanaian construction industry.

A mean score analysis showed that all the identified obstacles are significant factors that hinder the personalization of knowledge flows within and across projects. A structure detection analysis generated four principal obstacle components (POCs), explaining about 67.897% of the total variance of the obstacles in personalizing knowledge flows in temporary organizations. The complex web of obstacles was broken out into four broad thematic categories or POCs: obstacles at the individual level, obstacles at the team level, obstacles at the structural level and the limitations of project operations. A fuzzy synthetic evaluation modeling of the four POCs generated criticality indices for each POC exceeding 3.50 on a five-point rating scale, indicating that, all the four POCs as significant obstacles to personalizing knowledge flows within and across projects.

Implications are provided for project managers on the social dynamics of learning in project teams.

The research findings expand existing frontiers of knowledge by addressing the gap in the literature on the complexity of the personalization strategy within projects. The findings would also spark a broader discussion about the importance of developing integrated ways to structure learning in project environments. The culmination of the research will serve as a solid foundation for the development of a future project learning frameworks.

The purpose is to increase knowledge of rent negotiations by investigating differences in beliefs held by property landlords and retailers on factors that they deem important in rent negotiation.

This study investigates differences in subjective beliefs held by landlords and retail trade tenants on factors that affect rent levels during the rent negotiation process using a factor analysis approach. Semi-structured interviews were made with seven large real estate owners/landlords and retailers and eight experts in negotiating retail rent to elicit variables that have an impact on retail rent. Thereafter, a web-based survey was sent to 421 respondents who had experience in rent negotiation. Several factors were extracted using factor analysis. The data collection was made in Sweden during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in late spring 2021

Significant differences are found in beliefs held by landlords and retail trade tenants in four out of seven-factor: regional growth, e-commerce, customer focus and trust. Landlords rate these factors higher than retailers do. There are also systematic differences between landlords and retailers depending on their education levels on the following factors: rent and vacancies, e-commerce and customer focus. The number of years of experience did not prove to be significant instead differences are found to exist in factors

Not only do traditional factors of importance, such as lease structure, the effect of location, size and anchor or non-anchor tenants, have an effect on negotiated rent levels. Differences in other factors also exist, such as regional growth, e-commerce, customer focus and trust factors that may play an important role in the negation of retail rent.

The findings provide new insights into the different views on factors that affect rent negotiations between landlords and retail tenants. Knowledge of such differences may increase the overall transparency in the negotiation process. Transparency may be increased by putting forward information on these factors before a negotiation takes place, in order to smooth differences in their beliefs.

If transparency in the negotiation process of retail rent increases, time to reach an agreement, stress and anxiety can be reduced by putting forward information on factors where differences exist between landlords and retailers

New insights on retail rent negotiation have been put forward in this research paper. Not only do traditional factors such as lease structure matters, but subjective beliefs on factors such as regional growth and the level of education are also important, as this study has shown using a factors analysis approach.

The architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry encounter substantial risks and challenges in its evolution towards sustainable development. International businesses, multinational AEC organisations, technical professionals, project and portfolio management organisations face global connectivity challenges between business units, especially during the outbreak of novel coronavirus pandemic, to manage construction megaprojects (CMPs). That raises the need to manage global connectivity as a main strategic goal of global organisations. This paper aims to investigate barriers to integrating lean construction (LC) practices and integrated project delivery (IPD) on CMPs towards the global integrated delivery (GID) transformative initiatives and develop future of work (FOW) global initiatives in contemporary multinational AEC organisations.

A two-stage quantitative and qualitative research approach is adopted. The qualitative research methodology consists of a literature review to appraise barriers to integrating LeanIPD&GID on CMPs. Barriers are arranged into six-factor clusters (FCs), with a conceptualisation of LeanIPD&GID, GID strategy placements and FOW global initiatives with multiple validations. This analysis also involved semi-structured interviews and focus group techniques. Stage two consisted of an empirical questionnaire survey that shaped the foundation of analysis and findings of 230 respondents from 23 countries with extensive cosmopolitan experience in the construction of megaprojects. The survey examined a set of 28 barriers to integrating LeanIPD&GID on CMPs resulting from a detailed analysis of extant literature after validation. Descriptive and inferential statistical tests were exploited for data analysis, percentage scoring analysis, principal component analysis (PCA) and eigenvalues were used to elaborate on clustered factors.

The research conceptualised LeanIPD&GID principles and proposed GID strategy placements for LeanIPD&GID transformative initiatives and FOW global initiatives. It concluded that the most significant barriers to integration of LeanIPD&GID on CMPs are “lack of mandatory building information modelling (BIM) and LC industry standards and regulations by governments”, “lack of involvement and support of governments”, “high costs of BIM software licenses”, “resistance of industry to change from traditional working practices” and “high initial investment in staff training costs of BIM”. PCA revealed the most significant FCs are “education and knowledge-related barriers”, “project objectives-related barriers” and “attitude-related barriers”. Awareness of BIM in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is higher than LC and LC awareness is higher than IPD knowledge. Whilst BIM adoption in the MENA region is higher than LC; the second is still taking its first steps, whilst IPD has little implementation. LeanBIM is slightly integrated, whilst LeanIPD integration is almost not present.

The research findings, conclusion and recommendation and proposed GID strategy placements for LeanIPD&GID transformative initiatives to integrating LeanIPD&GID on CMPs. This will allow project key stakeholders to place emphasis on tackling LeanIPD&GID barriers identified in this research and commence GID strategies. The study has provided effective practical strategies for enhancing the integration of LeanIPD&GID transformative initiatives on CMPs.

Voluntary participation (VP) has been identified as one of the characterizing features of mediation. This study aims to examine the value of VP in construction dispute mediation from two perspectives. Firstly, is VP a prerequisite of successful construction mediation. Secondly, does power asymmetry (PA) between the contracting parties marginalize the value of VP in fostering the use of mediation to resolve construction disputes.

Constructs of VP, PA and prerequisites of successful mediation were first developed. Principal component factor analysis was performed on data collected from the construction dispute resolution community to explore the underlying structure of the constructs. The relationships between the constructs were tested by structural equation modelling.

VP is found to be an important attribute of successful mediation. PA is also found to be inherent in construction contracting. This study identified three forms of PA: Resource, Information and Expectation. Moreover, this study found no conclusive empirical evidence to support that PA would marginalize the value of VP in fostering an attempt to construction dispute mediation. It is suggested that VP shall remain one of characterizing features of mediation.

The users, mediators and the judiciary should be aware of the importance of VP in mediation, irrespective of the use of mediation is contractual or court-encouraged. Although the presence of PA between the disputing parties, through participating voluntarily and ensuring the mediation process is flexible and fair, the chance of achieving a settlement would be enhanced.

VP has been viewed as one of the fundamentals of mediation. This study empirically supported this design concept. Furthermore, PA in construction contracting can be expressed as disparities in resource, information and expectation. Their existence presents no significant barrier to attempt of mediation. The flexible approach of mediation has been instrumental in overcoming the paradox between VP and PA. This study affirms the positive value of VP in fostering the use of construction dispute mediation.

Every community with the potential to organize a festival aims to actualize increased participation to transform the community image and socio-cultural cohesion. Hence, this study aims to investigate the motivational factors influencing festival participation of Eyo and Ojude Oba in southwestern Nigeria, using the push and pull and activity theories as theoretical footing.

Primary data was collected through questionnaire administration on members of the host communities. Geospatial data was collected on the number of buildings through high-resolution satellite imagery and maps sourced from the Cooperative Information Network (COPINE) of the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA). Systematic sampling procedure was adopted to select 3% of the estimated 5231 and 4,934 buildings within the designated zones in Lagos Island and Ijebu Ode, respectively. In this case, 314 and 148 respondents were sampled in Lagos Island and Ijebu-Ode, respectively. Data collected were analyzed using mean index and factor analysis (principal component analysis).

This study revealed that the factors influencing participation of Eyo and Ojude Oba festivals comprise six and three factors, respectively, with varying contributions. Eyo festival explained 75.34% variance with varying factors extracted which are psychosocial (22.9%), proximity/mobility (9.93%), facility (13.41%), environmental/cultural (12.2%), demographic (10.65%) and health/safety factors (6.25%). While factors influencing Ojude-Oba festival comprises of sociocultural/psychological (35.44%), facilities/mobility (28.00%) and demographic factor (8.51%), thereby explaining 71.95% variation of factors influencing its participation. The study therefore, prove policy response in enhancing the destination receptors based on the influencing factors to promote positive words of mouth and encourage visitors’ intention to revisit.

This study focused on two distinguished festivals with internal homogenous and external heterogeneous features (Eyo and Ojude-Oba festivals). Ojude-Oba is an annual festival of class, whereas Eyo is non-annual traditional festival. Both festivals are mega, with similarities in the activities engaged in by the visitors and members of the communities, inform of colorful display of costumes, dances, chanting of songs and group parades among other activities.