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Most decision-making problems in construction are complex and difficult to solve, as they involve multiple criteria and multiple decision makers in addition to subjective uncertainties, imprecisions and vagueness surrounding the decision-making process. In many instances, the decision-making process is based on linguistic terms rather than numerical values. Hence, structured fuzzy consensus-reaching processes and fuzzy aggregation methods are instrumental in multi-criteria group decision-making (MCGDM) problems for capturing the point of view of a group of experts. This chapter outlines different fuzzy consensus-reaching processes and fuzzy aggregation methods. It presents the background of the basic theory and formulation of these processes and methods, as well as numerical examples that illustrate their theory and formulation. Application areas of fuzzy consensus reaching and fuzzy aggregation in the construction domain are identified, and an overview of previously developed frameworks for fuzzy consensus reaching and fuzzy aggregation is provided. Finally, areas for future work are presented that highlight emerging trends and the imminent needs of fuzzy consensus reaching and fuzzy aggregation in the construction domain.

This study uses migrant household survey data from 2008 to 2009 to examine how parental migration decisions are associated with the nutritional status of children in rural and urban China. Results from instrumental variables regressions show a substantial adverse effect of children’s exposure to parental migration on height-for-age Z scores of left-behind children relative to children who migrate with their parents. Additional results from a standard Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition, a quantile decomposition, and a counterfactual distribution analysis all confirm that children who are left behind in rural villages – usually because of the oppressive hukou system – have poorer nutritional status than children who migrate with their parents, and the gaps are biggest at lower portions of the distribution.

Introduction: Artificial intelligence (AI) is being extensively used to solve complex problems in the industry. AI provides several benefits such as providing visibility in the processes, reducing time, improving accuracy, saving time, helping in the decision-making process, etc. Due to the range of benefits of AI technologies, organisations readily adopt this technology. However, there are several challenges that the organisation faces during the implementation of AI. These challenges are in context to human resource (HR) development for successful implementation of AI across different functions and are discussed in this chapter.

Purpose: Although we know that AI technology is widely accepted in human resource management (HRM) due to its various benefits. But the organisations face many challenges during the implementation of AI. The focus of the study is to explore the literature on AI in HRM, identify the challenges of implementing AI and provide potential future research direction based on a systematic literature review.

Methodology: To explore the literature on AI in HRM, the study undertakes a systematic literature review. The study identifies, analyse and classifies the literature to provide a holistic view of HR challenges in implementing AI. The study is built on a review of 47 documents, including the articles, book chapters and conference papers using the Scopus database for the past 10 years (2012–27 January 2022).

Findings: The study provides an overview of the documents published in Scopus in this area through a systematic literature review. The study reveals that a significant amount of growth in the publication has been shown in the past 10 years. The maximum and continuous growth is shown after 2017. The maximum number of papers are published in India, the USA and China. The study identifies major eight challenges of AI implementation in HRM. The study also provides a secondary case to deep dive in this area based on a systematic literature review.

Research Limitation/Implication: The challenges identified in the study are not empirically tested. Each of the identified challenges should be empirically examined. This study has expanded the body of knowledge of AI in HRM. This study will help the academicians and practitioners work on the identified challenges and help the organisations ease in adopting AI.

Originality/Value: This study represents the first work that integrates AI implementation challenges in HRM.

The minimum wage has been regarded as an important element of public policy for reducing poverty and inequality. Increasing the minimum wage is supposed to raise earnings for millions of low-wage workers and therefore lower earnings inequality. However, there is no consensus in the existing literature from industrialized countries regarding whether increasing the minimum wage has helped lower earnings inequality. China has recently exhibited rapid economic growth and widening earnings inequality. Since China promulgated new minimum wage regulations in 2004, the magnitude and frequency of changes in the minimum wage have been substantial, both over time and across jurisdictions. The growing importance of research on the relationship between the minimum wage and earnings inequality and its controversial nature have sparked heated debate in China, highlighting the importance of rigorous research to inform evidence-based policy making. We investigate the contribution of the minimum wage to the well-documented rise in earnings inequality in China from 2004 to 2009 by using city-level minimum wage panel data and a representative Chinese household survey, and we find that increasing the minimum wage reduces inequality – by decreasing the earnings gap between the median and the bottom decile – over the analysis period.

This paper investigates, theoretically and empirically, differences between blacks and whites in the United States concerning the intergenerational transmission of occupational skills and the effects on sons’ earnings. The father–son skill correlation is measured by the correlation coefficient (or cosine of the angle) between the father’s skill vector and the son’s skill vector. The skill vector comprises an individual’s occupational characteristics from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT). According to data from the U.S. National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), white sons earn higher wages in occupations that require skills similar to those of their fathers, whereas black sons in such circumstances incur a wage loss. A large portion of the racial wage gap is explained by the father–son skill correlation. However, a significant unexplained racial wage gap remains at the lower tail of the wage distribution.

This study focuses primarily on the business operating departments (hereinafter, DMUs) of a case telecom company (hereinafter, the Company) in the northern and eastern areas of Taiwan. In 2007, the Company finished the first stage of its reorganization by consolidating 14 DMUs into 12. In 2011, the Company completed the second stage of its reorganization by consolidating the 12 remaining DMUs into 8. This study intends to explore the effects of each stage of the Company’s reorganization on the efficiency and ranking of the various DMUs. The results show that the DMUs became more efficient after each stage of the Company’s reorganization. Moreover, the efficiency and ranking of the new DMUs, A6, A7, and B7 increased post-consolidation. This suggests that both the first and second stages of the reorganization were necessary. The findings of this study could help the Company and other telecom companies to design strategies for the future consolidation of other units, and thereby maintain their competitiveness and continued growth.