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The purpose of this paper is to critically review the extant guanxi literature to identify the major inconsistencies in the way guanxi is currently conceptualized. The authors develop a conceptualization of guanxi which views guanxi as a complex adaptive system.

Electronic databases were queried for the keyword guanxi. This study offers an extensive review of the current literature, highlighting four major inconsistencies, namely, the breadth, linguistic-cultural depth, temporality and level of the conceptualization and analyses of guanxi.

In reviewing the extant literature, the authors find four levels of inconsistency that contribute to a lack of clarity in the way guanxi is conceptualized. They define guanxi as a complex adaptive system involving a dynamic formed by the strategic establishing, evolving, utilizing and maintaining of personal relationships based on social norms of trust and reciprocal obligation unique to the Chinese culture.

This approach has the advantage of capturing the dynamic and emerging nature of guanxi over time, while encompassing the underlying principles of the evolving networks as part of the definition.

The authors' new definition makes it easier to explain to people of other cultures. The appropriate level of breadth allows guanxi to be distinguished from associated concepts. This provides guidance for non-Chinese people to help understand guanxi and avoid cross-cultural misunderstandings and conflict.

Having a clear and inclusive definition of the cultural practice of guanxi will integrate the growing literature and theoretical dialogue surrounding the phenomena. This will allow for consistent study of guanxi and its underlying principles, making integration of the various studies conceptually easier.

Wonders whether companies actually have employees best interests at heart across physical, mental and spiritual spheres. Posits that most organizations ignore their workforce – not even, in many cases, describing workers as assets! Describes many studies to back up this claim in theis work based on the 2002 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference, in Cardiff, Wales.

Entrepreneurship by Indigenous people in Canada and Australia, while historically connected to the ancestral lands and traditional practices of Indigenous people, has been evolving and expanding in scope and nature. In this article, the authors aim to offer an integrative framework for capturing the contemporary dynamics and outcomes of entrepreneurship by Indigenous people as they pursue venture creation as part of their broader development aspirations.

Drawing on literature from place-based views of entrepreneurship and social identity theory, the authors develop a typology to account for four modes of entrepreneurship by Indigenous people along two contextual dimensions – Indigenous territory and Indigenous marker.

Indigenous practicing entrepreneurship may choose to conduct business within or outside of traditional lands and demonstrate more or less indigeneity in their business activities as they marshal resources and seek opportunities. The authors identify how these diverse Indigenous businesses contribute to the economic development among Indigenous communities as part of their ongoing struggle to rebuild their “nations” using business.

This article contributes by differentiating sociocultural vs economic resources in noneconomic contexts to develop a theoretical typology of Indigenous entrepreneurship. By detailing the relations between Indigenous territories and Indigenous lands and between Indigenous identity and Indigenous markers, the authors contribute to a more nuanced and practical conceptualization of Indigenous entrepreneurship.

Due to the frenetic and dynamic working conditions ascribed to architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) project organizations, enormous research has addressed the poor mental health propensity of project management practitioners (PMPs). However, research has not considered the distant factors related to organizational design causing poor mental health. Therefore, this study addresses the problem by integrating institutional theory, agency theory and resource-based theory (RBT) to explore the relationship between organizational design elements: project governance, knowledge management, integrated project delivery, project management skills and mental health management indicators. Examples of mental health management indicators include social relationships, work-life balance and project leadership.

Purposive sampling method was adopted to collect survey data from 90 PMPs in 60 AEC firms in Australia. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was utilized to test the relationship between the variables.

The research found that project governance, knowledge management and integrated project delivery are positively correlated to mental health management indicators. However, the research finding suggests that project management skills have a negative impact on mental health management indicators.

The findings offer guidelines to AEC firms on achieving positive mental health management outcomes through concentration on project governance, knowledge management and integrated project delivery. It further calls for a reconsideration of existing project management skills causing poor mental health management outcomes.

Mental ill-health among construction project professionals (CPPs) is a significant, persistent and unresolved problem that sparked the proliferation of literature worldwide. Despite the diverse research publications, a systematic review to reveal forms of mental ill-health, cause of mental ill-health and coping is lacking.

This paper aims to systematically reviews the existing body of knowledge on mental health in the construction project by analyzing 60 papers published between 1989 and 2020 (years inclusive) using the preferred reporting item for systematic reviews and meta-analysis. Academic journals between 1989 and 2020 were selected for this study because the first published paper on the mental health of construction managers commenced in 1989 and current studies are published in 2020.

The findings show that stress, job burnout, depression, anxiety and substance use disorder (SUD) are prominent forms of mental ill-health among CPPs, with an absence of project-related measuring scales for evaluating the mental ill-health symptoms. Moreover, generic stressors including long working hours, time pressure and work overload were used to establish the root causes of mental ill-health by ignoring construction project related stressors for mental ill-health. Problem-focused coping is more efficient than emotional focused coping in mitigating work stress, job burnout, depression, anxiety, but little is known on the influence of coping strategies on SUD. Knowledge gaps and future research directions were identified. This research contributes to a comprehensive understanding of the implications of mental health management on construction projects.

The findings of this study contribute toward understanding the need to investigate individual mental ill-health as against the existing practices of considering all forms of mental ill-health as one umbrella. It also challenges limitations in the utilization of generic stressors to determines factors for mental ill-health by the introduction of the Swisse cheese theoretical model.

Heavy fog results in low visibility, which increases the probability and severity of traffic crashes, and fog warning system is conducive to the reduction of crashes by conveying warning messages to drivers. This paper aims at exploring the effects of dynamic message sign (DMS) of fog warning system on driver performance.

First, a testing platform was established based on driving simulator and driver performance data under DMS were collected. The experiment route was consisted of three different zones (i.e. warning zone, transition zone and heavy fog zone), and mean speed, mean acceleration, mean jerk in the whole zone, ending speed in the warning zone and transition zone, maximum deceleration rate and mean speed reduction proportion in the transition zone and heavy fog zone were selected. Next, the one-way analysis of variance was applied to test the significant difference between the metrics. Besides, drivers’ subjective perception was also considered.

The results indicated that DMS is beneficial to reduce speed before drivers enter the heavy fog zone. Besides, when drivers enter a heavy fog zone, DMS can reduce the tension of drivers and make drivers operate more smoothly.

This paper provides a comprehensive approach for evaluating the effectiveness of the warning system in adverse conditions based on the driving simulation test platform. The method can be extended to the evaluation of vehicle-to-infrastructure technology in other special scenarios.

This study aims to undertake a review of how carbon trading contributes to a reduction in emission of greenhouse gases (CHGs).

A narrative literature review approach was adopted to identify and synthesise existing literature using the Scopus and Web of Science databases. Articles were limited to the past 10 years to obtain the most current literature. The various ways in which carbon trading leads to reductions in emissions were identified and discussed.

The results showed that the main ways in which carbon trading contributes to reductions in emissions are through innovation in low-carbon technologies, restoration of ecosystems through offset money, development of renewable and clean energy and providing information on investment related to emissions.

The value of this study is to contribute to the built environment’s climate change mitigation agenda by identifying the role of carbon trading.

The output of this research identifies and contextualises the role carbon trading plays in the reduction of CHG emissions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate Chinese farmers’ adaptation behavior in the context of the rising cost of labor in agriculture. As the cost of labor increases, farmers will either reallocate their budget to different inputs or change the structure of agricultural production to maximize profit.

The Rural Fixed Point Observation data set between 2004 and 2010 is employed in the empirical analysis of this study. Both the compensated and uncompensated demand elasticities with respect to wages are estimated by adopting the translog cost function and the profit function.

The results show that labor input will drop down significantly as a response to rising wages. Land, fertilizer and intermediate inputs are net complements of labor, whereas machinery appears to be net substitute for labor. In addition, the authors also separate the expansion effect from the substitution effect and find that farmers will shift to grain production with intensive use of fertilizer and from wheat and corn to rice as a response to the rising cost of labor.

This study adopts the classical household model to incorporate various adaptation behaviors of farmers into one framework and decomposes the total effect of the rising cost of labor on input demand into an expansion effect and a substitution effect, which provides a better understanding of farmers’ adaptation behavior.