Search results

Although the overall impacts of innovation and innovative practices have been emphasized in recent years, the effect on the growth of firms in Nigeria have not been proven. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the effect of innovative practices on the growth of quantity surveying firms (QSFs) in Nigeria.

The study adopted the quantitative correlational research design in which a well-structured questionnaire was used to collect data from QSFs in South-West, Nigeria. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis to investigate the effect of innovative practices on the growth of QSFs.

The study reveals that there is a significant increase in the growth indices used for assessing QSFs, while all the innovation variables were found to be reliable. Based on the result of multiple regression analysis, the relationships were identified as follows: quantity surveying (QS) software influenced the size growth of QSFs; QS software and services affected client growth and profit growth; and all innovation practices impacted asset growth of QSFs.

Although the use of software tools has been found to negatively affect the size of QSFs and other growth indices, there is need for them to embrace innovative software applications for more quality service delivery. In addition, QSFs should formulate strategic objectives that will guide them in taking informed decisions for diversification.

The outcome of this study provides information and direction for innovation practices required to bring about the growth of QSFs.

This research investigated the impacts of COVID-19 on construction enterprises and good practices adopted by the enterprises in reducing COVID-19 risks. The Sendai Framework (TSF) is widely accepted as a strategic roadmap to reduce disaster risks throughout the life cycle of a disaster. As such, with the aim of enhancing the resilience of Australian construction enterprises, the identified good practices were mapped with TSF priorities to consolidate COVID-19 risk reduction practices that can be adopted by Australian construction enterprises.

Case study research approach was used, and three case studies were conducted with small, medium and large construction enterprises. Small, medium and large enterprises were selected based on the Australian Bureau of Statistics classification of the business size. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews conducted with three executive members from the three enterprises. Data were analysed using content analysis.

The study found that construction enterprises faced demand and supply side impacts. Infrastructure projects, funded by public sector clients and larger enterprises were least affected. Investments and demand for residential and other building projects were reduced by private sector clients, affecting small and medium enterprises. Findings also show that the construction enterprises adopted good practices in identifying, managing, investing on resilience and recovery that align with TSF priorities. All three enterprises agreed on some common good practices on risk identification, risk management and effective recovery. Different views were shared on investments related to disaster resilience.

This study contributes to mitigate the COVID-19 impacts on construction enterprises and subsequent economic and social impacts.

This research found how Australian construction enterprises survived during COVID-19. The study adopted TSF to construction and COVID-19 context while consolidating COVID-19 risk reduction practices.

This study aims to identify the propensity for clients (legal and natural persons) to adopt peer-to-peer (P2P) short-term insurance policies as opposed to traditional and/or centralized short-term.

In this paper data was collected through a survey of 102 sampled short-term insurance clients using convenience sampling. The TAM2 questionnaire was adapted to evaluate the intention to adopt a P2P insurance policy.

The findings of this study shed light on the factors influencing the adoption and (dis)continuation of short-term insurance products, both traditional and digital, among South African consumers. The results demonstrate that perceived usefulness, ease of use, trust, risk perception and subjective norm play crucial roles in individuals' intention to use or (dis)continue the use of these insurance products.

The study's findings provide actionable insights for practitioners in the short-term insurance sector, with a focus on marketers and e-commerce professionals. These insights emphasize the need to prioritize user-friendly design and trust-building measures in the development of P2P insurance systems. Additionally, practitioners should consider harnessing the power of social influence and carefully balancing innovative features with familiarity in their marketing efforts. These strategies are poised to enhance the adoption and competitive positioning of P2P insurance solutions amidst the evolving landscape of digital transformation.

This study makes a substantial contribution by employing the technology acceptance model (TAM) in a novel and unconventional manner. It not only explicates the intricate dynamics governing the adoption and discontinuation of short-term insurance products, encompassing both conventional and digital alternatives, within the South African consumer milieu but also extends its purview to infer the reasons behind the limited widespread adoption of the digital counterpart, despite its superior value proposition compared to the traditional offering. The findings elucidate the critical determinants shaping individuals' decisions in this dynamic market segment. This research enhances the global discourse on insurance adoption with a unique South African perspective and furnishes insurers and marketers with empirically grounded insights to optimize their strategies and cultivate substantive connections with their target demographic.

The purpose of this paper is to report on an interprofessional (IPE) student training scheme recently conducted in three care homes across the Northwest of England. The intervention was designed as a feasibility study to explore the impacts such schemes have on residents, students and care home staff. Additional lessons emerged that contribute to the design and direction of future IPE initiatives in other care homes and care settings.

This case study outlines how the intervention was designed and implemented and the findings from its evaluation. This paper uses Biggs’ (1993) presage–process–product framework to evaluate the process of setting up care homes as a site of collaborative learning.

Collaborative working between stakeholders is necessary for the successful implementation of IPE in care home settings. The process is complex and requires communication and commitment across all levels of engagement. For this model to grow and have a beneficial impact on older people’s lives, there are layered factors to consider, such as the socio-political context, the characteristics of the individuals who participate and diverse approaches to learning.

This case study reports the subjective views of the research collaborators. While this raises the potential for bias, it presents an “insider” perspective of the research process and offers learning that might be beneficial in efforts to run future IPE training schemes.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no other research studies or published interventions have been identified that explicitly address the experiences of implementing an IPE training scheme in UK care home settings. This paper will therefore be useful to academic researchers, individuals managing student placements and to health and social care staff who wish to learn about of the value of IPE learning schemes.

The paper’s purpose is to consider, using a transaction cost economics (TCE) framework, the mechanisms used by space agencies to encourage private investment in the commercial spaceflight sector.

The authors conducted a content analysis of 554 pages of news articles, relating to issues pertaining to partnerships between national government-based space agencies and private space travel providers, published over a 20-year period. Leximancer was used to initially screen the data and then the authors manually analysed the content to identify themes.

The data analysis revealed three themes, relating to: the uncertainty of space travel; National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) stimulating innovation in the private sector; and risk, insurance and regulation. These themes informed by TCE reveal the “hierarchical” organisational forms used to achieve human spaceflight and then the “hybrids”, insurance and regulations used to stimulate private sector investment and innovation.

This paper contributes to the accounting literature by answering the calls of Alewine (2020) and Tucker and Alewine (2022a, b) for more research into accounting in the space context. Specifically, the paper contributes by identifying mechanisms used by NASA to stimulate private investment in the space travel sector, as well as issues that have affected the implementation of these mechanisms. The paper also contributes to the literature by, based on the analysis, identifying a series of reflections designed to stimulate further management accounting research in the space context.

Numerical literature shows that agricultural insurance can affect pesticide investments, but few of them are devoted to explain how agricultural insurance affects farmers’ selection on green or traditional pesticides. This paper aims to develop a theoretical model about how agricultural insurance influences on green pesticides selections and tests our conclusions by using the data from China land economic survey (CLES) from 2020 to 2021.

We employ probit model to capture the effects of agricultural insurance on green pesticides adoption.

We indicate that green pesticides have a stronger effect on stabilizing yield and increasing income than traditional pesticides, but there are still risks disturbing farmers’ decisions on green pesticides usage. By providing premium subsidies after the farmers are affected by natural risk, agricultural insurance improves the farmers’ expected income and encourages farmers to use green pesticides. Further, we further confirm these conclusions by considering different scenarios such as climate risks, farmers’ entrepreneurship and credit constraints. We find that the effects are more salient if croplands are under higher natural risks and, farmers are equipped with entrepreneurship and formal credit. This paper implies that the agricultural insurance decoupled with green technologies also have salient positive effects on agricultural pollution control.

The potential contributions of this paper can be outlined in three aspects in detail. Firstly, this paper aims to revel the effects of agricultural insurance on pesticide selection by structuring a general theoretical model. By using the CLES data from 2020 to 2021, we confirm that agricultural insurance increases the probability for adopting green pesticides. Secondly, this paper discusses the effects of farmers’ characteristics on the results and finds that if farmers have entrepreneurship, the effects of agricultural insurance on green pesticide usage will be more salient. Thirdly, it uncovers some practices in China, which will supply experiences for other developing countries. For example, this paper further demonstrates that “insurance + credit” plan the present Chinese government carried out will be an important measure for strengthening effects of agricultural insurance on green pesticides usage. Moreover, it shows that decouple agricultural policies will also guide farmers to use green technologies eventually if the technologies are reliable and farmers can afford.

This study aims to examine the research output on cyber insurance from 2002 to 2021 through an extensive bibliometric analysis. It examines the cyber insurance resources and how the process of cyber insurance works.

This paper uses Scopus and VOSviewer to analyze cyber insurance papers. Using 503 papers from Scopus, this paper enhances the understanding of cyber insurance through collaborative network maps of experts and researchers.

The study comprehensively evaluates the development of cyber research. The results show that the number of research articles on cyber insurance has significantly increased since 2009.

The study's results offer practical implications for researchers to gain knowledge on the latest trends and developments in the domain. In addition, the study highlights the significance of cyber insurance in mitigating financial risks linked to cyberattacks, potentially boosting the investment of more organizations in such policies. Furthermore, practitioners can enhance their understanding of the various types of cyber insurance policies and their coverage.

Our results are likely to encourage practitioners, computer scientists, auditors, accountants and lawyers to contribute further to corporate strategies, data analytics and business operations to mitigate cyber risk consequences. In addition, understanding regarding the cyber insurance concept formed between experts and researchers is limited. This paper fills this gap by evaluating and identifying the development of cyber insurance literature.