Search results

Built asset management processes require a long transition period to collect, edit and update asset conditions information from existing data sets. This paper aims to explore and explain whether and how digital technologies, including asset information model (AIM), Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain, can enhance asset conditions assessment and lead to better asset management.

Mixed methods are applied to achieve the research objective with a focus in universities. The questionnaire aims to test whether the integration of AIM, IoT and blockchain can enhance asset condition assessment (ACA). Descriptive statistical analysis was applied to the quantitative data. The mean, median, mode, standard deviation, variance, skewness and range of the data group were calculated. Semi-structured interviews were designed to answer how the integration of AIM, IoT and blockchain can enhance the ACA. Quantitative data was analysed to define and explain the essential factors for each sub-hypothesis. Meanwhile, to strengthen the evaluation of the research hypothesis, the researcher also obtained secondary data from the literature review.

The research shows that the integration of AIM, IoT and blockchain strongly influences asset conditions assessment. The integration of AIM, IoT and blockchain can improve the asset monitoring and diagnostics through its life cycle and in different aspects, including financial, physical, functional and sustainability. Moreover, the integration of AIM, IoT and blockchain can enhance cross-functional collaboration to avoid misunderstandings, various barriers and enhance trust, communication and collaboration between the team members. Finally, costs and risk could be reduced, and performance could be increased during the ACA.

The contribution of this study indicated that the integration of AIM, IoT and blockchain application in asset assessment could increase the efficiency, accuracy, stability and flexibility of asset assessment to ensure the reliability of assets and lead to a high-efficiency working environment. More importantly, a key performance indicator for ACA based on the asset information, technology and people experience could be developed gradually.

This study can break the gap between transdisciplinary knowledge to improve the integration of people, technology (AIM, IoT and blockchain) and process value-based ACA in built asset management within universities.

This study aims to explore how not-for-profit organisations (NFPs) adopt service innovation and improve their employee resilience capabilities as a response to environmental changes arising from marketisation of public services.

Using a multiple case-study research design, this study involved 32 interviews with frontline employees working in a not-for-profit care-providing organisation.

This study finds that the development of absorptive capacity can facilitate service innovation adoption in NFPs and improve employee resilience in times of transition.

This study offers theoretical insights on service innovation, absorptive capacity and employee resilience in NFPs. It makes practical recommendations that will enable NFPs to help frontline employees better adopt service innovation practices in business models endorsed by the private sector.

The purpose of this study is to examine various data sources to identify trends and themes in humanitarian supply chain management (HSCM) in the digital age.

In this study, various data sources such as published literature and social media content from Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs and forums are used to identify trending topics and themes on HSCM using topic modelling.

The study examined 33 published literature and more than 94,000 documents, including tweets and expert opinions, and identified eight themes related to HSCM in the digital age namely “Digital technology enabled global partnerships”, “Digital tech enabled sustainability”, “Digital tech enabled risk reduction for climate changes and uncertainties”, “Digital tech enabled preparedness, response and resilience”, “Digital tech enabled health system enhancement”, “Digital tech enabled food system enhancement”, “Digital tech enabled ethical process and systems” and “Digital tech enabled humanitarian logistics”. The study also proposed a framework of drivers, processes and impacts for each theme and directions for future research.

Previous research has predominantly relied on published literature to identify emerging themes and trends on a particular topic. This study is unique because it examines the ability of social media sources such as blogs, websites, forums and published literature to reveal evolving patterns and trends in HSCM in the digital age.

The purpose of this research is to explore the effect of goal type of user-generated content (UGC) on consumers' intention of within-domain and across-domain compensatory consumption in closed social media platforms, the mediating effect of self-threat, self-enhancement and self-protection motivation and the moderating effect of self-efficacy.

Four between-subject experiments were conducted to verify the hypotheses presented in this research. Study 1a had a sample size of 60 respondents and examined the effect of goal type of UGC on compensatory consumption. Study1b replicated the effect by using a sample size of 60 respondents. Study 2 had a sample size of 70 respondents and verified the mediating role of self-threat, self-enhancement motivation and self-protection motivation. Study 3 examined self-efficacy as a critical moderator by using a sample of 255 participants.

Study 1a and Study 1b demonstrate that UGC with an attainment goal (vs maintenance goal) is more easily produced within-domain and across-domain compensatory consumption. Study 2 verifies that the effect of goal type of UGC on within-domain compensatory consumption is serially mediated by self-threat and self-enhancement motivation, and the effect of goal type of UGC on across-domain compensatory consumption is serially mediated by self-threat and self-protection motivation. Study 3 demonstrates that self-efficacy not only moderates the effects of self-threat on within-domain or across-domain compensatory consumption respectively, but also moderates the whole mediating path structure.

This research extends the understanding of UGC and addresses the inconclusive evidence of the impact of goal type of UGC on consumer compensatory behavior in the context of closed social media platforms. The authors identify the moderating role of self-efficacy, which explains why consumers adopt different compensatory strategies.

This study aims to explore the relationship between the degree of state-owned enterprises’ (SOEs) mixed reform and the environmental response of enterprises, against the background of actively promoting the reform of mixed ownership in China.

The study is conducted on a sample of A-share listed manufacturing companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen of China, investigated for the period 2015 to 2020. The baseline regression results are robust to a series of robustness and endogeneity tests. To deal with the issue of endogeneity, the technique of instrumental variable method has been applied.

The study confirms the U-shaped effect of the depth and restriction of mixed ownership on SOEs’ environmentally responsive behaviour in the manufacturing industry, especially for lower environmental regulation and higher level of risk-taking firms. The findings indicate that the government, shareholders and other stakeholders of enterprises should not simply consider that the mixed reform is directly promoting or reducing the environmental response behaviour of enterprises.

SOEs should improve their shareholding structures to undermine performance enhancement at the expense of the environment and increase environmentally beneficial behaviours. Regulators and governments should improve the institutional mechanism of environmental regulation and make efforts to promote corporate awareness of the environment.

Although the adoption and implementation of environmentally friendly policies are costly, improved environmental response and other social responsibilities are helpful to corporate long-term growth and reputation and obtain more capital market attention. Therefore, firms would benefit from improving their environmental response to protect nature, as well as to enjoy the economic and social benefits of a better environmental response.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is a lack of studies focussing on the environmental behaviour of SOEs of mixed reform. As the mixed reform in China has come to a climax phase in recent several years, SOEs of mixed reform is an ideal environment for research. The study focusses on manufacturing firms as these firms are more susceptible to contribute to environmental pollution, exploitation of natural resources and labour concerns.

The importance of lean and sustainability integration in sustainable construction (SC) has been extensively studied. However, a practical and thorough implementation methodology addressing the project life cycle phases is still inadequate. The present study has developed a novel phase-wise sustainable–lean implementation methodology for high-rise residential projects.

The current study has identified the 50 direct conceptual interactions between 11 lean principles and 11 sustainability criteria encompassing 44 different attributes covering 174 sustainability actions. A panel of nine experts validated these interactions, and 50 integration vectors were proposed addressing different phases of the project life cycle of high-rise residential buildings. The experts also analysed the identified integration vectors for their current and likely future implementation in high-rise residential projects.

The interactions between lean and sustainability principles led to the development of a phase-wise implementation methodology. The experts' survey responses on the current level of implementation revealed that 40, 32 and 28% of integration vectors were implemented rarely, sometimes, and frequently, respectively. For likely future implementation, 28 and 72% integration vectors were reported as very likely and extremely likely to implement, respectively. This survey response highlighted the usefulness of identified integration vectors for enhancing the sustainability of high-rise residential projects.

The proposed sustainable–lean implementation methodology acts as a comprehensive guideline for implementing a lean approach to achieve the objectives of SC in high-rise residential projects. This may facilitate the transition from conventional to sustainable building practices using a lean approach.

This study explores the linkages between various attributes, consequences and values of casino restaurants and the differences in the hierarchical value maps between female and male customers and between casino players and non-casino players.

This study was conducted using the means-end chain (MEC) theory. The data were collected using the hard-laddering method. Two hundred forty-one responses were analyzed.

Attributes such as “taste,” “reasonable prices,” and “discounts” were associated with the values “personal happiness,” “considered,” “life satisfaction,” and “life-quality enhancement” at casino restaurants. Males were found to hold “prompt services” as important when dining at casino restaurants, while females held a “spacious environment” to be critical. Furthermore, “use of casino complimentary credits” was important to casino players, while “free parking” and “comfortable seats” mattered for non-casino players.

It is suggested that casinos add more Asian cuisines in their casino restaurants in Macao to attract customers who value culinary and cultural exploration while simultaneously satisfying tourists from neighboring regions who wish to enjoy familiar foods when they visit Macao. In addition, the authors recommend that casinos develop menu items that can be served quickly to casino players.

This study is based on the MEC theory and broadens the range of studies on casino restaurants. Furthermore, it provides useful information to guide casino restauranteurs in developing their marketing and operational strategies for different customer segments.

The proliferation of non-fungible token (NFT)-based crypto-art platforms has transformed how creators manage, own and earn money through the creation, assets and identity of their digital works. Despite this, no studies have examined the drivers of continuous content contribution behavior (CCCB) toward NFTs. Hence, this study draws on the theory of relational bonds to examine how various relational bonds affect feelings of psychological ownership, which, in turn, affects CCCB on metaverse platforms.

Using structural equation modeling and importance-performance matrix analysis, an online survey of 434 content creators from prominent NFT platforms empirically validated the research hypotheses.

Financial, structural, and social bonds positively affect psychological ownership, which in turn encourages CCCBs. The results of the importance-performance matrix analysis reveal that male content creators prioritized virtual reputation and social enhancement, whereas female content creators prioritized personalization and monetary gains.

We examine Web 3.0 and the NFT creators’ network that characterizes the governance practices of the metaverse. Consequently, the findings facilitate a better understanding of creator economy and meta-verse commerce.

In many of today’s manufacturing industries, such as automobile, aerospace, defence, die and mould making, medical and electrical discharge machining (EDM) has emerged as an effective material removal process. In this process, a series of discontinuous electric discharges is used for removing material from the workpiece in the form of craters generating a replica of the tool into the workpiece in a dielectric environment. Appropriate selection of the tool electrode material and combination of input parameters is an important requirement for performance enhancement of an EDM process. This paper aims to optimize an EDM process using single-valued neutrosophic grey relational analysis using Cu-multi-walled carbon nanotube (Cu-MWCNT) composite tool electrode.

This paper proposes the application of grey relational analysis (GRA) in a single-valued neutrosophic fuzzy environment to identify the optimal parametric intermix of an EDM process while considering Cu-MWCNT composite as the tool electrode material. Based on Taguchi’s L9 orthogonal array, nine experiments are conducted at varying combinations of four EDM parameters, i.e. pulse-on time, duty factor, discharge current and gap voltage, with subsequent measurement of two responses, i.e. material removal rate (MRR) and tool wear rate (TWR). The electrodeposition process is used to fabricate the Cu-MWCNT composite tool.

It is noticed that both the responses would be simultaneously optimized at higher levels of pulse-on time (38 µs) and duty factor (8), moderate level of discharge current (5 A) and lower level of gap voltage (30 V). During bi-objective optimization (maximization of MRR and minimization of TWR) of the said EDM process, the achieved values of MRR and TWR are 243.74 mm³/min and 0.001034 g/min, respectively.

Keeping in mind the type of response under consideration, their measured values for each of the EDM experiments are expressed in terms of linguistic variables which are subsequently converted into single-valued neutrosophic numbers. Integration of GRA with single-valued neutrosophic sets would help in optimizing the said EDM process with the Cu-MWCNT composite tool while simultaneously considering truth-membership, indeterminacy membership and falsity-membership degrees in a human-centric uncertain decision-making environment.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between management support, quality infrastructure, staff training and the effectiveness of quality enhancement cells (QECs) established in higher education institutions.

Data were acquired via a structured questionnaire dispatched to faculty members across 12 public and private universities, primarily situated in Punjab, Pakistan. Among the 200 questionnaires distributed, 180 were retrieved and 140 were deemed valid. The proposed relationships were examined using SPSS–25 and PLS–SEM.

The results show a positive and significant relationship between management support, quality infrastructure and staff training with QECs' effectiveness. The study also highlights that the effectiveness of QECs is “Good” in only two of the 12 universities, while in most universities it is “Barely Acceptable”. Furthermore, QECs' effectiveness is slightly better in public universities compared to private institutions.

The study employs convenience sampling and a cross-sectional approach, focusing on faculty members from 12 universities, primarily in Punjab, Pakistan. To enhance future research, larger samples and probability-based sampling should be considered, while involving quality managers and students for a broader perspective.

The research suggests policymakers and university leaders should strengthen their support by providing resources, quality infrastructure and training for academic and administrative staff. This would enhance the effectiveness of QECs and improve the overall quality of education in both public and private universities.

This study contributes to the literature on quality assurance in higher education by emphasizing the significance of QECs concerning management support, quality infrastructure and staff training – areas that are often overlooked in Pakistani universities.