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The purpose of this paper is to explore the emergence of civil disobedience (CD) movements in Hong Kong in the context of the notion of civil society (CS).

The paper begins by rigorously defining the notion of CD, as well as the concept of CS and tracing its development in Hong Kong over the past several decades. By using a model of CS typology, which combines the variables of state control and a society’s quest for autonomy (SQA), the paper aims to outline the historical development of CD movements in Hong Kong. It also discusses the recent evolution of CS and its relationship with CD movements, particularly focusing on their development since Leung Chun-ying became the Chief Executive in 2012. Finally, by using five cases of CD witnessed in the past several decades, the relationship between the development of CS and the emergence of CD in Hong Kong has been outlined.

Four implications can be concluded: first, CD cannot emerge when the state and society are isolated. Second, the level of SC and the scale of CD are positively related. Third, as an historical trend, the development of SQA is generally in linear progress; SQA starts from a low level (e.g. interest-based and welfare-based aims) and moves upwards to campaign for higher goals of civil and political autonomy. If the lower level of SQA is not satisfied, it can lead to larger scale CD in future. Fourth, the CD movement would be largest in scale when the state-society relationship confrontational and when major cleavages can be found within CS itself.

This paper serves to enrich knowledge in the fields of politics and sociology.

This study aims to identify the pandemic’s impact on house rents by applying a rental gradient analysis to compare the pre-and post-COVID-19 periods in Auckland. The micro-level household census data from the Integrated Data Infrastructure of Statistics New Zealand is also applied to scrutinise this WFH trend as a robustness check.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, work-from-home (WFH) and e-commerce have become much more common in many cities. Many news reports have contended that households are leaving city centres and moving into bigger and better houses in the suburbs or rural areas. This emerging trend has been redefining the traditional theory of residential location choices. Proximity to central business district (CBD) is no longer the most critical consideration in choosing one’s residence. WFH and e-commerce flatten the traditional bid rent curve from the city centre.

The authors examined micro-level housing rental listings in 242 suburbs of the Auckland Region from January 2013 to December 2021 (108 months) and found that the hedonic price gradient models suggest that there has been a trend of rental gradient flattening and that its extent was almost doubled in 2021. Rents are also found to be increasing more in lower-density suburbs.

The results imply that the pandemic has accelerated the trend of WFH and e-commerce. The authors further discuss whether the trend will be a transient phenomenon or a long-term shift.

Suppose an organisation is concerned about productivity and performance issues due to a companywide ability to WFH. In that case, some standard key performance indicators for management and employees could be implemented. Forward-thinking cities need to focus on attracting skilful workers by making WFH a possible solution, not by insisting on the primacy of antiquated nine-to-five office cultures.

WFH has traditionally encountered resistance, but more and more companies are adopting WFH policies in this post-COVID era. The early rental gradient and the micro-level household data analysis all confirm that the WFH trend is emerging and will likely be a long-term shift. Instead of resisting the change, organisations should improve their remote work policies and capabilities for this WFH trend.

So far, empirical studies of post-COVID urban restructuring have been limited. This study aims to empirically test such an urban metamorphosis by identifying the spatial and temporal impacts of COVID on house rental gradients in the Auckland Region, New Zealand. The authors apply rental gradient analysis to test this urban restructuring hypothesis because the method considers the spatial-temporal differences, i.e. a difference-in-differences between pre-and post-pandemic period against the distance measured from the city centre. The method can control for the spatial difference and the endogeneity involved.

The idea of implementing supply chain management (SCM) principles for the construction industry was embraced by construction stakeholders to enhance the sector's performance. The analysis from the literature revealed that the implementation of SCM in the construction industry enhances the industry's value in terms of cost-saving, time savings, material management, risk management and others. The construction supply chain (CSC) can be managed using the pull or push system. This chapter also discusses the origin and proliferation of SCM into the construction industry. The chapter revealed that the concept of SCM has passed through five different eras: the creation era, the use of ERP, globalisation stage, specialisation stage and electronic stage. The findings from the literature revealed that we are presently in the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) era. At this stage, the SCM witnesses the adoption of technologies and principles driven by the 4IR. This chapter also revealed that the practice of SCM in the construction industry is centred around integration, collaboration, communication and the structure of the supply chain (SC). The forms and challenges hindering the adoption of these practices were also discussed extensively in this chapter.

The repeat sales house price index (HPI) has been widely used to measure house price movements on the assumption that the quality of properties does not change over time. This study aims to develop a novel improvement-value adjusted repeat sales (IVARS) HPI to remedy the bias owing to the constant-quality assumption.

This study compares the performance of the IVARS model with the traditional hedonic price model and the repeat sales model by using half a million repeated sales pairs of housing transactions in the Auckland Region of New Zealand, and by a simulation approach.

The results demonstrate that using the information on improvement values from mass appraisal can significantly mitigate the time-varying attribute bias. Simulation analysis further reveals that if the improvement work done is not considered, the repeat sales HPI may be overestimated by 2.7% per annum. The more quality enhancement a property has, the more likely it is that the property will be resold.

This novel index may have the potential to enable the inclusion of home condition reporting in property value assessments prior to listing open market sales.

The novel IVARS index can help gauge house price movements with housing quality changes.

This article aims to examine one aspect of Chinese culture, guanxi. Guanxi, “special relationships” has long been employed to facilitate business in China. The authors ask whether this is likely to continue in the rapidly changing environment. China's long history of insularity has created a culture and business environment considered to be uniquely based on Confucian values. Yet in the last couple of decades China has opened its doors to globalisation. These forces, in conjunction with what many see as Confucian dynamism of Chinese entrepreneurship, have generated economic growth levels in excess of 11 per cent per annum. This blending of the old and the new raises questions about how practices may be changing.

The authors employed a survey of two groups; middle managers in Hong Kong and young middle class in mainland China. These groups represent the modern, Hong Kong as westernised; the old, but with new perspectives, the affluent middle classes of present day China. Open‐ended questions about perceptions of understanding and use of guanxi were asked.

The research finds many contrasts between the respondent groups. The Hong Kong respondents did not really understand guanxi, but still thought it important in China. The mainland group both understood and used guanxi, but similarly to the Hong Kong group, did not like it or enjoy its use. Both groups saw a diminishing application of guanxi as China's regulatory and market environment improves.

The paper establishes that guanxi persists and may remain essential in China. However guanxi will work in conjunction with markets and regulations, rather than as a replacement.

We combine insights from the strategic management and international business literatures in order to explore the moderating role of business group characteristics on the link between innovation and internationalization in the context of the pharmaceutical sector in India. We test our three hypotheses on a sample of 219 Indian pharmaceutical firms affiliated with business groups, over a five-year period (2005–2010) in a panel of 1,096 firm-year observations. Results indicate that, contrary to our contention, research expenditure is negatively associated with export intensity, implying that firms in the Indian pharmaceutical sector may face a trade-off between investing in innovation and international expansion. As expected, business group characteristics significantly impact the strength of the relationship between innovation and internationalization. Theoretical and practitioner implications are discussed.

In construction, the involvement of complex human interactions and incompatible interests among negotiating parties would pose as an obstacle in any negotiation process. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of face in governing the behaviour of negotiating parties.

This paper identified the generic types of face-saving tactics used by construction negotiators, investigated the tactic-outcome relationships and examined the effects of face-inducement factors on these relationships with the use of moderated multiple regression (MMR).

A taxonomy of face-saving tactics has been developed by employing the technique of principal component of factor analysis. The results suggest that the use of face-saving tactics in construction negotiation would statistically result in an achievement of mutual agreement, maintenance of harmony and avoidance of offending situations. The MMR models finally affirm that some tactic-outcome relationships would significantly depend on the face-inducement factors.

This research highlights the usefulness of face-saving tactics in construction negotiation.

The findings revealed that these tactics can help facilitate the achievement of mutual agreement, maintain harmony and avoid offending situations. In this connection, an awareness of the proper use of face-saving tactics is worth-noticing in order to have successful dealings in negotiating project disputes.

In construction, there are some distinct features which may influence the use of face-saving tactics and the behaviour of project dispute negotiators. The findings of this research would provide an insight into promoting proactive and collaborative project dispute resolution.

In Hong Kong, a balcony is often perceived as a “green” provision in modern residential buildings. However, how the market values the benefits of balconies is seldom studied due to the difficulty in separating such benefits from other associated effects such as view enjoyment and security concerns. This paper attempts to study the implicit value of a balcony, the green effects of balconies on the prices of residential properties, and the effect of security concerns on balconies situated on lower floors. A sample of transactions in a private housing estate in Hong Kong has been studied. The sample contains apartments with and without balconies. A balcony is found to have a positive effect on the value of a property irrespective of the quality of the view. The negative effects of air and noise pollution on property prices are also found to be highly significant. Although security concerns are found on the low stories of a building, the provision of a balcony does not aggravate the hazard. Finally, the log‐linearity assumption in the empirical price model is relaxed by applying the Box‐Cox transformation to the continuous variables.

Drawing on institutional and transaction cost theories, the purpose of this paper is to examine the location choice for a sample of 522 foreign affiliates of Turkish multinational enterprises (MNEs).

Binary logistic regressions are conducted to test a number of hypotheses on the functional relationships between the hypothesized effect of variables and location choice of Turkish MNEs based on a secondary data drawn from official sources.

In general, the findings provide support for the majority of the study's hypotheses and tend to confirm the theoretical perspectives adopted. The level of political constraints, the level of knowledge infrastructure in the host country market, subsidiary density, industry R&D intensity and subsidiary size are found to have the expected impact on the Turkish MNE's location choice among geographic alternatives. No support is found for the impact of ownership mode of subsidiary and the group affiliation on Turkish MNEs' location choice for their subsidiaries.

The paper focuses on Turkish MNEs and the findings may not be generalizable to other emerging country (EC) MNEs. Also, the classification of geographic location into developed versus emerging countries may be too crude.

In general, the paper posits that Turkish MNEs have a motive of strategic asset seeking to enhance their global competitiveness when they enter developed countries, whereas they simply attempt to exploit their firm‐specific advantages or competencies when they access emerging countries.

Given the increasing number of EC MNEs entering other emerging and developed markets, this paper adds to the understanding of the determinants of location strategies of Turkish MNEs by identifying key regional characteristics that lead Turkish MNEs to select particular locations, among the several geographic alternatives.