Search results

Housing sufficiency is a critical indicator of national development and growth. However, in most countries, housing affordability remains a significant challenge, leading to a mismatch between housing supply and demand. The purpose of this study is to investigate the housing preferences, current occupation and the resulting surplus and shortage across various housing types.

Data were collected through a survey, and the analysis focused on quantifying the mismatch between preferred and occupied housing types.

Results revealed significant disparities between housing preferences and current occupation, with some housing types experiencing surplus and others facing shortages. The findings uncovered a 23% discrepancy in housing demand and supply. The sensitivity results indicate that 30% of the respondents currently living in a particular type of housing unit would choose to live there if given the option. The specificity results show that 90% of respondents not living in a particular type of housing unit would continue to avoid choosing it. Housing price, income, ethnicity, race and location are the major drivers of the housing preferences.

Developers can align their projects with consumer preferences to minimize surplus and shortages. Financial institutions may consider these insights when tailoring mortgage products to meet the diverse needs of potential homebuyers. This research provides a valuable foundation for strategic planning and policy formulation aimed at enhancing housing sufficiency and socioeconomic development in Malaysia.

This study lays the foundation for future research and for incentive mechanisms for homebuyers and developers. The results are useful to policymakers, developers, banks, consultants, housing associations and academics.

This study aims to investigate how the adoption of sustainable manufacturing practices by companies can positively impact their reputation and environmental performance. Additionally, it aims to explore the specific relationships between these factors within the unique context of manufacturing companies in Tunisia.

The research uses an online questionnaire survey methodology targeted at manufacturing companies in Tunisia. This approach provides detailed insights into the current landscape of sustainable manufacturing practices within the region.

The study underscores the increasing significance of sustainable manufacturing practices for companies striving to align with environmental sustainability while meeting stakeholder expectations. It reveals that embracing these practices can indeed yield favorable impacts on both a company’s environmental performance and its overall reputation.

While the study sheds light on the relationships between sustainable practices, environmental performance and reputation, it acknowledges certain limitations. These limitations might include the scope of the survey, potential biases in responses or constraints within the Tunisian manufacturing context, impacting the generalizability of findings.

This research holds unique value by offering insights into the complex interplay between sustainable manufacturing practices, environmental performance and corporate reputation in a developing country context like Tunisia. The study contributes to a deeper understanding of these dynamics, benefiting both academia and industry practitioners interested in fostering sustainability within the manufacturing sector.

This paper aims to analyze the publication structure of academic research on organizational creativity between 1975 and 2022.

Bibliographic data on organizational creativity are extracted from the Scopus database and then analyzed through VOSviewer and R Statistical Software.

This paper analyzes 416 publications on organizational creativity from 1975 to 2022. Accordingly, the study identifies the most productive countries, universities, authors, journals and prolific organizational creativity publications. Also, the study uses VOSviewer and R Statistical Software Bibliometrix Package to visualize the mapping based on co-citation, bibliographic coupling and co-occurrence of keywords.

The study’s main contribution is that it provides an overview of the trends and trajectories of organizational creativity, which may help researchers and practitioners comprehend the trends and future research directions.

The construction industry contributes to economic development by providing physical equipment and infrastructures. However, it also generates some undesirable outputs such as waste and environmental pollution, especially in developing countries. Due to the importance of the green supply chain management (GSCM) philosophy, for solving these problems, the current study aims to evaluate the drivers of GSCM adoption in the construction industry of Iran.

This research uses a descriptive and practical methodology. The participated experts in the study include senior managers of the construction department in Rasht municipality who had relevant academic education and suitable experiences in urban and industrial construction. The experts took part in both qualitative and quantitative phases of the research, namely verification of the drivers extracted from literature and ranking them in ascending order. In the quantitative phase, Step-Wise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA) as a new multi-criterion decision-making (MCDM) method is used to evaluate the drivers of GSCM adoption using MATLAB software.

The results show that environmental management systems, green product design and innovational capability with weights of 0.347, 0.218 and 0.143 are the most significant sub-drivers, respectively. The less important factor is an investment in environmental technology.

This study evaluated the motivational factors of GSCM in the construction industry. The findings help governments, companies and green supply chain (GSC) managers to improve their knowledge about GSCM and make the best decisions to decrease environmental pollution.

In recent times, both academics and industrialists have undertaken research into various areas of circular business models (CBM) in a bid to promote a green economy. Yet despite numerous studies conducted, the ensuing discourse contains scant information regarding the contributions of CBM towards the transition of green economy in the construction industry. This present study therefore aims to explore the contributions of CBM in the transition towards a green economy in the Ghanaian construction industry.

A comprehensive literature review was first conducted to identify the contributions of CBM towards the transition towards a green economy. A quantitative research strategy was then adopted to collect primary questionnaire data from professionals with knowledge of CBM and the green economy from 104 participants for the study. The data gathered was analyzed using descriptive statistics and exploratory factor analysis viz. Principal component analysis.

The contributions of CBM towards the transition towards a green economy were found to be: value contributions (i.e. lower carbon footprint, lower emission of waste by the industry, value creation for clients, innovation in construction materials and methods, reduced maintenance cost, creation of energy efficient infrastructures, improved value proposition for firms, improved sustainability of the industry and reduced pressure on finite resource.); green contributions (i.e. recycling and reuse of construction waste, promotion of green building technology, increased potential for economic growth, increased resource efficiency and creation of green building market) and longevity contribution (i.e. increased life span of buildings). It was evident that CBM make significant contributions in the transition towards green economy and as such, policymakers and other stakeholders within the construction industry must adopt these models to maximize their green credentials and accrue inherent benefits associated with transitioning towards a green economy.

This paper presents a novel and comprehensive study that explores the contributions of CBM towards engendering a green economy. The study’s results provide construction industry stakeholders and policymakers with clear insight into the contributions of CBM towards the transition into a green economy. In practice, this study provides much needed guidance to support construction practitioners to transition towards a green economy in alignment with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The purpose of this review is to examine the current state-of-the-art in artificial intelligence (AI) implementations within library settings across Southeast Asia.

The study uses the AI Library Services Innovative Conceptual Framework (AI-LSICF) to evaluate the AI initiatives in Southeast Asian libraries. Sources include relevant libraries and association’s websites, mainstream newspapers across Southeast Asia, together with academic papers published between 2019 and 2024, with a focus solely on English-language literature.

Most of the Southeast Asian libraries are in the decision and implementation stages in utilising AI technologies into library operations. It is evident that most of the libraries have made the decision to embrace AI techniques in the workplace and have started to implement the AI-enabled applications. Nevertheless, those implementations are not yet comprehensive and most of the projects are still in the trial stage. This suggests a unanimous decision concerning the use of AI in the libraries across the region has not been reached. Librarians may still face challenges and concerns in adopting AI, including resource constraints, application maintenance, staff reluctance, staff training, data security concerns and more.

A limitation of this study is its focus on completed and published projects, due to limited access to ongoing or unpublished initiatives. Non-English publications were excluded which may have omitted relevant studies and insights from non-English-speaking countries.

This paper seeks to address the gap by conducting a review of the current landscape of AI applications within libraries across Southeast Asia. Its aim to provide valuable insights for Southeast Asian libraries which seek to leverage AI advancements, ultimately supporting more user-centric and technologically adept library services.

The originality of this paper lies in its unique perspectives on library settings in Southeast Asia, showcasing successful projects while also pinpointing areas and countries in need of further development.

Topologically ordered functionally graded composite (TOFGC) biodegradable materials are needed in the field of metallic degradable implants, as they degrade over a period of time avoiding the necessity of another surgery for implant removal. Also, their rate of degradation can be tailored to match the requirement of the patient. These biomaterials also have the functionality to assist bone growth and eliminate stress shielding in orthopaedic implants.

In this study, TOFGC biomaterials were developed for the first time using additive manufacturing, pressureless microwave sintering and casting methods, and their cytocompatibility, hemocompatibility and in vitro degradation evaluations were done. Also, pure dense iron and iron scaffolds were included in the study, for the comparison of results with the iron-hydroxyapatite-zinc functionally graded composite biomaterial.

The maximum weight loss and corrosion rate were found to be 6.98% and 2.38 mmpy, respectively, in the immersion test and electrochemical test for Fe-3.5HAp-54Zn biomaterial. Zinc-infiltrated composite biomaterials exhibited excellent cytocompatibility and hemocompatibility as compared to pure dense iron and iron scaffolds. A comparative analysis was conducted, taking into account relevant literature, and it was determined that the fabricated iron-hydroxyapatite-zinc biomaterial demonstrated desirable degradation and biological characteristics, customized to meet the specific requirements of bone tissue engineering applications.

TOFGC iron-hydroxyapatite-zinc biomaterial has been fabricated for the first time using the developed novel methodology and their degradation and biological characterizations were performed.

In recent years, technological advancement has radically changed the landscape of work by creating an “always-on” workplace. As a result, many employees use their information and communication technologies (ICTs) to perform work-related tasks during personal times. This constant availability then paves the way for harming the employee’s wellbeing. Nevertheless, research on ICTs usage after-hours has received limited consideration in organizational scholarship. To address this gap in the literature, current study aims to examine the relationships between workplace telepressure and employee wellbeing with the role of work-related email (WRE) use after-hours and subjective norm of connectivity.

Data were collected from 421 employees from different sectors. The hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling and PROCESS macro for SPSS.

The results showed that (1) workplace telepressure positively relates to work-related email use after-hours; (2) work-related email use after-hours negatively relates to employee wellbeing; (3) the subjective norm of connectivity moderates the link between workplace telepressure and work-related email use after-hours and (4) work-related email use during nonwork hours mediates the link between workplace telepressure and employee wellbeing.

This study contributes to overcoming the lack of studies by investigating underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions for ICTs during nonwork hours. In this expanded sense, this study broadens our understanding of WRE use after-hours by delineating the impact of workplace telepressure, subjective norm of connectivity and employee wellbeing.

Many studies have examined pre-diploma students' backgrounds and academic performance with results showing that some did not achieve the expected level of competence. This study aims to examine the relationship between students’ demographic characteristics and their academic achievement at the pre-diploma level using machine learning.

Secondary data analysis was used in this study, which involved collecting information about 1,052 pre-diploma students enrolled at Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Pahang Branch between 2017 and 2021. The research procedure was divided into two parts: data collecting and pre-processing, and building the machine learning algorithm, pre-training and testing.

Gender, family income, region and achievement in the national secondary school examination (Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia [SPM]) predict academic performance. Female students were 1.2 times more likely to succeed academically. Central region students performed better with a value of 1.26. M40-income students were more likely to excel with an odds ratio of 2.809. Students who excelled in SPM English and Mathematics had a better likelihood of succeeding in higher education.

This research was limited to pre-diploma students from UiTM Pahang Branch. For better generalizability of the results, future research should include pre-diploma students from other UiTM branches that offer this programme.

This study is expected to offer insights for policymakers, particularly, the Ministry of Higher Education, in developing a comprehensive policy to improve the tertiary education system by focusing on the fourth Sustainable Development Goal.

These pre-diploma students were found to originate mainly from low- or middle-income families; hence, the programme may help them acquire better jobs and improve their standard of living. Most students enrolling on the pre-diploma performed below excellent at the secondary school level and were therefore given the opportunity to continue studying at a higher level.

This predictive model contributes to guidelines on the minimum requirements for pre-diploma students to gain admission into higher education institutions by ensuring the efficient distribution of resources and equal access to higher education among all communities.

Research on human resource management (HRM) and technology has gained momentum recently. This review aims to create a bibliographic profile of the field of HRM and technology using bibliometric techniques, complemented by qualitative analysis, examining 239 articles published in the four key human resource (HR) journals.

First, using VOSviewer software, we analysed the research productivity by identifying authors, journals and influential articles, followed by insights on research themes and their evolution. Next, integrating bibliometric and qualitative approaches, we conducted a hybrid inquiry of the field to analyse current theories, methods and variables.

The bibliometric analysis highlighted the intellectual structure, key themes and distinctive developments categorised under four temporal phases that have shaped research in this field. In addition, qualitative analysis presents significant theoretical perspectives, the methods employed and the nomological framework of variables.

Our study advances the extant literature on HRM and technology by quantifying the leading bibliometric performance indicators complemented by qualitative evaluation of the field, which entails exploring the possible research strands and related trends that have emerged in the past two decades.