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Green building (GB) has been actively promoted in many countries, but it has not become the mainstream in Chinese construction industry due to various reasons. This paper aims to investigate the major driving factors for the development of GB with reference of the Chinese construction market. Twenty-one factors influencing the development of GB were identified through a literature review, questionnaire survey, and face-to-face interview with professionals in the construction industry. Structural equation model was established to identify the critical driving path and three critical factors hierarchies. The result of model analysis also verifies the theoretical hypotheses that government body is the biggest motivation for the development of GB, and the path coefficient is high. The results demonstrate the necessity for the formulation of incentive policies and power of GB propaganda. We identify distinct government and market effects and then induce a government-led GB development path. These findings provide a valuable reference for government body aiming at promoting GB in the construction industry to put forward relevant policies and incentives and for the market body to understand the major driving factors and path when making decisions.

Logistics and supply chain management has been elevated to a strategic level whereby firms can simultaneously achieve differentiation and low cost for sustained competitive advantage. Empirical studies have often concentrated on logistics management in developed Western countries, displaying a bias towards the USA. This study applies the competency approach to explore logistics in Taiwan. A survey of 1,200 manufacturing firms was undertaken in order to examine the relationships between logistics competency, logistics performance, and financial performance, using exploratory factor analysis and the structural equation modelling technique. Four logistics competencies, namely, integration and knowledge competency, customer focused logistics competency, measurement competency, and agility competency were identified. The research findings revealed that (1) logistics competency was significantly related to logistics performance but not significantly associated with financial performance, and (2) logistics performance was positively associated with financial performance. These findings also implied that logistics competency has an indirect effect on financial performance through logistics performance. This finding confirmed the “world-class” logistics competencies (i.e. positioning, integration, agility, and measurement) as identified by MSUGLRT (1995). In addition, it suggests that logistics competency in a huge geographic area such as America can have the same effect in a smaller geographic area such as Taiwan.

This research aimed to examine the impact of input, process, output, productivity and outcome variables on university research performance and the indicators that represent them in order to improve academic quality and contribute to government policy.

The quantitative approach was used through a survey method that obtained samples using questionnaires from 150 leaders of research institutions and continued analysis using the structural equation modeling-partial least square (SEM-PLS) to test the developed model.

Except for the relationship between process and productivity variables, all variable relationships had a positive and significant effect. Furthermore, the input, process, output, productivity and outcome variables each include seven, twelve, four and ten indicators.

This study has several ramifications because it provides a clear policy input and advances science. As a prelude to developing research performance assessment tools that take into account variances in a tertiary institution, this research aids in the implementation of national policies for assessing research performance in postsecondary institutions.

To improve the accuracy of the information acquired, we conducted a survey among the heads of research units at various higher-ranking Indonesian universities, taking into consideration their skill and experience in leading research organizations and conducting research. Other than that, our belief in the originality of our manuscript is strengthened by the way we applied systems theory to construct a performance evaluation model that examines each contribution made by each system aspect.

Tremendous growth and worldwide expansion of Islamic banking industry has gained widespread attention of economist, bankers, investors and financial experts regardless of economic and political volatility in global banking industry. To compete with conventional banking, Islamic banks are setting up themselves with innovative technologies to gain competitive edge and market share. The establishment of mobile banking has been proven a technological wonder by eliminating time and space boundaries, and one can access financial services anywhere and at any time. For effective market segmentation, recognizing gender differences in factors affecting the adoption patterns of m-banking may provide competitive edge. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate how gender differences impact the intention to adopt Islamic mobile banking in Pakistan.

The study uses extended technology acceptance model (TAM) on final 243 participants from Pakistan. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) methodology has been applied for data analysis using SPSS 21 and AMOS 21.

Results have identified two interesting and different models for males and females in intention to adopt Islamic mobile banking. It is inferred that males are more task driven and desire for personality, value and status, so their intention is significantly impacted by perceived usefulness and perceived self-expressiveness. Whereas, females have found lack of IT knowledge and trust; therefore, their intention is significantly impacted by perceived credibility. However, the perceived financial cost was found of no concern for both males and females and social norms influenced the adoption, but there existed no significant gender differences.

The contribution of this study to existing literature is twofold. First, the existing research on mobile banking has mainly applied TAM on conventional banking overlooking the important ethnic group, the Muslims, who prefer Islamic banking. Second, the impact of gender differences is investigated in factors affecting intention to adopt Islamic mobile banking that has not been studied previously. The study fills the gap.

This paper aims to identify the impacts of brand communities on relational outcomes such as word-of-mouth, advocacy and loyalty through the mediating effects of brand love.

In total, 510 valid questionnaires were collected from Portuguese consumers. Structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed hypotheses.

This investigation shows how brand communities may contribute to reinforce the bonds between brands and customers by introducing love in these relationships. The results of this study show that the identification dimension of brand communities has an important effect on brand love, word-of-mouth, advocacy and brand loyalty. Building on the foundations of previous studies, this research also highlights the role of brand love on word-of-mouth, brand advocacy and brand loyalty and the impact of brand loyalty on word-of-mouth, brand advocacy and brand loyalty.

This investigation makes two major contributions: first, investigating the impacts of brand communities, and second, using the mediating effects of brand love on relational outcomes.

The main goal of the article is to determine the mediating role of HRM outcomes in the relationships between staffing the organization and company performance results and to establish whether there are any identifiable regularity in this scope in the pre-pandemic and pandemic period in the HQs and foreign subsidiaries of MNCs.

The empirical research included 200 MNCs headquartered in Central Europe. To capture the actual relations between the variables under study the raw data in the variables were adjusted with the efficiency index (EI). The Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to verify the research hypotheses and assess the mediating effects.

The research findings show that, with the exception of the HQs in the pandemic period, when staffing had a negative effect on the company performance results in quality, in other cases it had a positive effect on results in HRM, finance, innovativeness and quality, both in the pre-pandemic and pandemic period, although this effect was not always statistically significant. Furthermore, the company's performance results in HRM mediate positively the relationships between staffing and the other three categories of company performance results, regardless of the organizational level (HQs' or subsidiaries') and time period under consideration. Additionally, during the pandemic, the company's performance results in HRM mediate the relationships between staffing and the other company's performance results stronger than in the pre-pandemic time.

In addition to confirming the results of some other studies, the article also provides new knowledge. It determines the mediating role of HRM outcomes in the relationship between staffing and company performance results in finance, innovativeness and quality. Moreover, it identifies certain regularities in the four studied contexts, which is a novelty in this type of research. It also uses an innovative approach to including employee KPIs as the efficiency index in analyzing the relationships between the variables under study.

This study aims to identify the dimensions recognised by customers when assessing quality in the automotive repair industry. It further examines potential variations in customers' perceptions of service quality based on their purchase behaviour designating different loyalty patterns.

The SERVPERF instrument and the patronage behaviour were utilised to measure service quality and loyalty respectively. A total of 949 questionnaires were personally administered to customers of nine automotive repair companies in Greece.

Exploratory factor analysis revealed three service quality dimensions. These are: holistic customer consideration, infrastructure, and empathy. T‐tests were also utilised to reveal possible differences in terms of the identified dimensions. Controlling for customers' loyalty showed significant differences in 11 of the service quality items.

Distributing questionnaires personally did not allow the creation of a completely representative sample of customers of the Greek automotive repair industry.

Measuring customers' perceptions in terms of the three service quality dimensions that emerged can support decision making regarding initiatives to be taken. Moreover, findings suggest that managers should customise the holistic bundle of services offered.

The findings of this study provide insight into customers' priorities in the automotive repair industry. Furthermore, they reposition service quality construct within the customer satisfaction framework.

The growing recognition of the role of teacher innovative behavior in educational improvement has led to more systematic assessment of teacher-driven innovations, usually through expert panels. Innovative peer-teachers may be more closely aligned with the correlates of teacher innovative behavior than experts, and hence their participation in such panels might make the process more robust. Hence, the authors ask, “Do expert and peer assessments relate to individual-related correlates of innovative teacher behavior differently?”

Innovations of 347 teachers in India were assessed by an expert panel and a peer-teacher panel using the consensual technique of rating innovations. Structural equation modeling was used to study the relationships of the ratings with the innovative teachers' self-reported creative self-efficacy, intrinsic motivation, learning orientation and proactive personality.

Expert ratings were significantly related to creative self-efficacy beliefs (β = 0.53, p < 0.05), whereas peer ratings were not. Peer ratings were significantly related to learning orientation (β = 0.19, p < 0.05), whereas expert ratings were not. Also, expert ratings were found to be indirectly associated with teachers' proactive personality and intrinsic motivation via creative self-efficacy beliefs; peer ratings were not associated with proactive personality.

The paper, through a robust methodology that relates expert and peer assessments with individual-related correlates of innovative behavior, makes a case for educational innovation managers to consider mixed panels of experts and innovative teacher-peers to make the assessment process more robust.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a hybrid, metaheuristic, multimodal and multi-objective optimization tool that is needed for aerospace propulsion engineering problems.

Multi-objective hybrid optimization code is integrated with various benchmark and test functions that are selected suitable to the difficulty level of the aero propulsion performance problems.

Ant colony and particle swarm optimization (ACOPSO) has performed satisfactorily with benchmark problems.

ACOPSO is able to solve multi-objective and multimodal problems. Because every optimization problem has specific features, it is necessary to search their general behavior using other algorithms.

In addition to the optimization solving, ACOPSO enables an alternative methodology for turbine engine performance calculations by using generic components maps. The user is flexible for searching various effects of component designs along with the compressor and turbine maps.

A hybrid optimization code that has not been used before is introduced. It is targeted use is propulsion systems optimization and design such as Turboshaft or turbofan by preparing the necessary engine functions. A number of input parameters and objective functions can be modified accordingly.

The main aim of this paper is to empirically test at market level, the investors' differential reaction to information, contribution of their confidence level and adaptive behaviour to excessive market volatility in Indian stock market.

The Bivariate Vector Autoregression and Impulse Response Analysis are used to study whether investors over/under-react to private and public information. EGARCH models are used to study the contribution of investors' over/under-confidence and adaptive behaviour to excessive market volatility.

The investors over-react to private information and under-react to public information during pre-crash period, become overconfident and contribute to excessive volatility. They under-react to both private and public information during after-crash period, become under-confident and also conform to adaptive market hypothesis (AMH).

The empirical results of the study can help investors to minimize the negative impact of over/under-confidence on their expected utility.

The investors shall perform a post-analysis of investment, become aware of their past behavioural mistakes and start adapting to changing market conditions. This shall move the markets towards a new equilibrium in long run thus conforming AMH. However, the investors sometimes display an apparently irrational behaviour during this process.

To the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first study at market level data examining investors' over/under-reaction, over/under-confidence and adaptive behaviour in the context of stock market crash.