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Uncertainty management (UM) in projects has been a point of attention for researchers for many years. Research on UM has mainly been aimed at uncertainty analyses in the front-end and managing uncertainty in the construction phase. In contrast, UM components in the design phase have received less attention. This research aims to improve knowledge about the key components of UM in the design phase of large road projects.

This study adopted a literature review and case study. The literature review was used to identify relevant criteria for UM. These criteria helped to design the interview guide. Multiple case study research was conducted, and data were collected through document study and interviews with project stakeholders in two road projects. Each case's owners, contractors and consultants were interviewed individually.

The data analysis obtained helpful information on the involved parties, process and exploit tools and techniques during the design phase. Johansen's (2015) framework [(a) human and organisation, (b) process and (c) tools and techniques)] was completed and developed by identifying relevant criteria (such as risk averse or risk-taker, culture and documentation level) for each component. These criteria help to measure UM performance. The authors found that owners and contractors are major formal UM actors, not consultants. Empirical data showed the effectiveness of Web-based tools in UM.

The studied cases were Norwegian, and this study focussed on uncertainties in the project's design phase. Relevant criteria did not cover all the criteria for evaluating the performance of UM. Qualitative evaluation of criteria allows further quantitative analysis in the future.

This paper gave project owners and managers a better understanding of relevant criteria for measuring UM in the owners and managers' projects. The paper provides policy-makers with a deeper understanding of creating rigorous project criteria for UM during the design phase. This paper also provides a guideline for UM in road projects.

This research gives a holistic evaluation of UM by noticing relevant criteria and criteria's interconnection in the design phase.

The purpose of the study is to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in higher education regarding distance learning system in Pakistan.

A mixed-method research design was used in this study. The population of the study was all the previous students of research work and all the teachers of these students working at MPhil and PhD level in AIOU in Pakistan. Stratified random sampling technique was used in this study. This study used the questionnaire and interview technique to collect data. Data of questionnaire was in numbers and data of interview was narrative. So it was the need of the study that a mixed-method approach, i.e. both quantitative and qualitative techniques should be used in this study.

The findings of the study show that AIOU has also strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in higher education related to distance education like all the formal and distance universities of Pakistan and World. This study reflected that AIOU is a great blessing for those who cannot acquire their education regularly because of financial/family problems or they are job holders. But this study also described that at higher level students are facing a lot of problems especially there is a delay in research process and provision of no scholarships to students. The teachers have a low salary package than the other public universities of Pakistan and a lot of responsibilities to attend meetings, seminars, conferences and workshops. So they have less time for research work. And AIOU provides them fewer opportunities to go abroad for further studies or to attend conferences/seminars. This study recommended that there should be adopted such policies in AIOU that students could get their study materials, assignments duration, workshops schedule and degrees in time, the teachers of the concerned departments should allow to take more in numbers the students under their supervision, the pay package for the teachers working at MPhil and PhD level should be raised and the opportunities for the faculty members to go.

This study is limited to analyze the higher education system especially the distance learning system in Pakistan.

This study has indicated the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in higher education which the AIOU is facing recently and the policymakers can develop plans/strategies to make better the distance learning system especially at higher level in Pakistan. This study can be helpful for the stakeholders who are interested in distance learning system. This study was conducted at higher level in the distance learning system but it can open the ways for the other researchers to conduct research in other disciplines related to distance education, i.e. at matric level, F.A/F.SC, B.Sc programs, Master level and M.Sc programs at AIOU.

Through this study, it can be acknowledged how the AIOU is providing the opportunity of education to a large number of people in the society who cannot study regularly in the formal institutions especially those who are job holders, some financial problems and women who have some family problems and above one million people are benefitting from AIOU in Pakistan and world.

This study is original in this respect because the data has been collected from the participants, i.e. students and teachers of AIOU. And it has also great value because this is the first SWOT analysis which has been conducted in this university to examine the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats facing AIOU at present time. This study can also become a base for the stakeholders', i.e. policymakers, administration and higher education depart. of Pakistan in developing strategies to improve and amend the distance learning system of Pakistan especially at higher level in AIOU.

This paper aims to explore the perspectives of university students on the learning management system (LMS) and determine factors that influence user experience and the outcomes of e-learning.

This paper employs a mixed-method approach. For qualitative data, 20 semi-structure interviews were conducted. Moreover, for quantitative data, a short survey was developed and distributed among the potential respondents.

The results showed that students, particularly in programs where courses are mainly offered online, are dependent on such learning platforms. Moreover, the use of modular object-oriented dynamic learning environment (Moodle) as an application of LMS was rated positively, and e-learning was considered as an effective sustainable learning solution in current conditions.

The authors have illustrated empirically how the notion of UX of the LMS provides a means of exploring both students' participation in e-learning and their intention towards using such learning platforms.

This paper aims to provide a multidisciplinary framework that allows an integrated understanding of reasons of success or failure in equity crowdfunding (ECF), a Fintech digital innovation of the traditional entrepreneurial finance, defining a future research agenda.

A systematic literature review (SLR) has been conducted on 127 documents extracted from two multidisciplinary repositories (Elsevier’s Scopus and Clarivate Analytics Web of Science) for the period between 2015 and early 2022. After a systematized series of inclusion and exclusion criteria, in line with the objectives and conceptual boundaries, a final list of 32 peer-reviewed articles written in English was analyzed by the authors through a meta-synthesis and thematic analysis to identify the key themes and dominant concepts.

Results show that the body of literature is recent and fast growing. The proposed integrative framework of existing research indicates that the outcome of an ECF campaign is related to signals conveyed by entrepreneurs in the form of hard information (firm characteristics, financial information, business characteristics and project description) and soft information (intellectual capital, human capital, social capital and social media network), catalyzed by digital media that facilitate also personal interactions between entrepreneurs and investors. Similarly, external factors (investors and campaign characteristics, with the fundamental role of ECF platform managers in building trust between entrepreneurs and investors) allow for the alleviation of information asymmetries. The present study sheds light on which signal mechanisms are decisive in improving the outcome, taking into consideration various disciplines which follow different but complementary perspectives.

Entrepreneurs should adapt to the transition toward the digital era, exploiting alternative financial instruments and learning effective signaling strategies, within a large variety of skills requested. Platform managers can obtain more focused information on selected entrepreneurial projects more efficiently.

Although it is fast-growing, the field of research is very recent, still fragmented and limited to the perspective/discipline followed. This SLR is, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the first multidisciplinary and integrative analysis of reasons that motivates success, or failure, of an equity-based crowdfunding campaign. The digital nature of ECF encourages future research to move toward more pioneering and unconventional theories and research methods. Hence, the authors add to the existing literature by proposing future patterns of research based on an integration of highly technological skills and behavioral/psychological approaches.

This paper outlines how Design for Lean Six Sigma methods aided a medical device manufacturing company in developing a new strategic space management and approval process for its manufacturing site.

The project demonstrates the application of the Design for Lean Six Sigma and structured Define, Measure, Analyse, Design, and Verify methodology in designing and implementing a process that enables the case study manufacturing site to improve its space utilisation and free up space.

The project was validated in one manufacturing department, and the Design for Lean Six Sigma methodology resulted in creating 15% new space for that area, with opportunities identified to free up 44.7% of the total manufacturing floor space and realise over €2.2 million cost savings as well as start to manufacture new products launched.

The manuscript highlights for the first time how the Design for Lean Six Sigma methodology can be utilised for space utilisation and can be leveraged by other manufacturers. The current study's limitations are that it is a single-site case study application. Future longitudinal case studies on Design for Lean Six Sigma application in more manufacturing space utilisation projects would be useful. This study has implications for identifying best practices for Design for Lean Six Sigma methodology application in the device industry, thus improving the state of the art for introducing new manufacturing lines.

This is the first published work to utilise Design for Lean Six Sigma methodology for space utilisation in a medical device company. This review will provide medical devices and other manufacturing organisations with recommendations on utilising Design for Lean Six Sigma and design for improved space utilisation to reduce costs.

This article advances a conceptual typology delineating the differences and similarities between business- and social-sector new venture creators. Our classification scheme differentiates business and social entrepreneurs, considering characteristics of social entrepreneurs in a larger entrepreneurial context.Within a conceptual 2x2 typology based on two dimensions: drive (passion vs. business) and desired return (financial ROI vs. social ROI), we identify and classify 80 examples of new venture creators into one of the quadrants of an enterprise model of entrepreneurs. Preliminary results reveal similarities between social and traditional entrepreneurs and differentiate social entrepreneurs in terms of traits, goals, tendencies, and motivational sources.

There is a gap in knowledge about the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) because most studies are undertaken in countries outside the Gulf region – such as China, India, the US and Taiwan. The stock market contains rich, valuable and considerable data, and these data need careful analysis for good decisions to be made that can lead to increases in the efficiency of a business. Data mining techniques offer data processing tools and applications used to enhance decision-maker decisions. This study aims to predict the Kuwait stock market by applying big data mining.

The methodology used is quantitative techniques, which are mathematical and statistical models that describe a various array of the relationships of variables. Quantitative methods used to predict the direction of the stock market returns by using four techniques were implemented: logistic regression, decision trees, support vector machine and random forest.

The results are all variables statistically significant at the 5% level except gold price and oil price. Also, the variables that do not have an influence on the direction of the rate of return of Boursa Kuwait are money supply and gold price, unlike the Kuwait index, which has the highest coefficient. Furthermore, the height score of the variable that affects the direction of the rate of return is the firms, and the accuracy of the overall performance of the four models is nearly 50%.

Some of the limitations identified for this study are as follows: (1) location limitation: Kuwait Stock Exchange; (2) time limitation: the amount of time available to accomplish the study, where the period was completed within the academic year 2019-2020 and the academic year 2020-2021. During 2020, the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19), which was a major obstacle, occurred during data collection and analysis; (3) data limitation: The Kuwait Stock Exchange data were collected from May 2019 to March 2020, while the factors affecting the stock exchange data were collected in July 2020 due to the corona pandemic.

The study used new titles, variables and techniques such as using data mining to predict the Kuwait stock market. There are no adequate studies that predict the stock market by data mining in the GCC, especially in Kuwait. There is a gap in knowledge in the GCC as most studies are in foreign countries, such as China, India, the US and Taiwan.

Mixed methods research is useful to enhance theoretical and practical research contributions. However, single methods have predominated much logistics and supply chain management (LSCM) research. This paper presents a review of mixed methods research across ten years in LSCM to determine their usage, identify benefits and inhibitors, and provide suggestions for LSCM researchers to realise the benefits from using mixed methods.

This paper adopts a mixed methods approach through a quantitative analysis of methods used in six leading LSCM journals, an e-mail survey of mixed methods article authors during the review period, and four published case studies that used mixed methods.

Only 144 (ten percent) of all empirical articles were published using mixed methods during the review period. A range of benefits and inhibitors regarding mixed methods adoption were found. Suggestions for LSCM authors include research training in mixed methods use and developing a project-specific research design due to the specificity and complexity associated with mixed methods research.

LSCM is at a critical juncture, shaped by new contexts, themes and challenges, and would benefit from different research approaches and methods. This paper contributes to the LSCM domain through analysing the current state, benefits and inhibitors of mixed methods research in LSCM journals to provide a renewed call to action and guidelines for mixed methods LSCM research, and suggesting research design adaptation to enable agile and resilient research when investigating rapidly changing and complex phenomena.