Hui Lian Yip, Shi Yee Wong, Chu Sheng Ding and Wai Wah Low
The unethical practices of quantity surveyors (QSs) are affecting quality of construction projects, leading to projects’ time and cost overruns. However, the unethical practices…
Abstract
Purpose
The unethical practices of quantity surveyors (QSs) are affecting quality of construction projects, leading to projects’ time and cost overruns. However, the unethical practices of QSs specifically from contractor and consultant firms are currently understudied. Therefore, this research aims to investigate and categorize the unethical practices of QSs.
Design/methodology/approach
A questionnaire survey was employed and distributed to the QSs who work in the contractor and consultant firms. Ninety-five responses were analyzed using Mann–Whitney U-test, factor analysis and partial least square-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).
Findings
The findings unveiled disparity between the QSs who work in the consultant and contractor firms, as evidenced by 16 out of the 33 practices displaying statistical significance. The factor analysis results grouped 24 practices into seven components. The PLS-SEM analysis revealed that “contractors ‘collusion and consultants’ biased tender evaluation” had the most significant impact on the perceptions of ethical standards’ declination.
Practical implications
The findings could serve as guideline for the management of consultant and contractor firms with QSs for better management procedures to avoid any intentionally or unintentionally unethical practices that may impact negatively on projects’ time, cost and quality.
Originality/value
This is one of the first studies investigating the perspectives of QSs from the contractors and consultancy firms’ perspective by employing factor analysis and PLS-SEM. The findings could contribute to the body of knowledge in tackling the ethical transgressions specifically related to contractors’ or consultants’ QSs.
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Zhenkuo Ding, Zhipeng Chen and Sheng Huang
This paper aims to examine the impact of top executives’ military experience on the internationalisation process of firms, as well as the boundary conditions of this impact.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the impact of top executives’ military experience on the internationalisation process of firms, as well as the boundary conditions of this impact.
Design/methodology/approach
The hypotheses are tested using 8,759 imbalanced panel samples in 1,718 China’s A-share listed firms.
Findings
The findings show that the military experience of top executives has a positive impact on the internationalisation process (scope, speed and rhythm) of firms. The managerial discretion strengthens the influence of top executives’ military experience on the internationalisation scope and speed but weakens its influence on the internationalisation rhythm.
Originality/value
The study contributes to the literature by testing the relationships that among military experience of top executives, firm internationalisation process and managerial discretion. The authors also help practitioners to become aware of the importance that the military experience of top executives have on firm internationalisation process, and managerial discretion can exert contingent influence on this relationship.
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This study aims to explore the impact mechanism of social support on individual health knowledge creation among users in online patient communities, guide and promote the creation…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the impact mechanism of social support on individual health knowledge creation among users in online patient communities, guide and promote the creation of health knowledge and provide insights into managing online patient communities.
Design/methodology/approach
A theoretical model was constructed by integrating social impact and social support theories. Data were collected through questionnaires, and 750 valid responses were analysed using a structural equation model.
Findings
This study found the following. (1) Social support influences individual health knowledge creation through the mediating effects of creative self-efficacy and positive emotions. (2) The general rule of the strength of the influencing factors on individual health knowledge creation is that creative self-efficacy > positive emotions. (3) The general pattern of the mediating effect of attitude factors between social support and health knowledge creation is that creative self-efficacy > positive emotions. (4) The key path for social support to influence individual health knowledge creation is “social support → creative self-efficacy → health knowledge creation”. (5) The dimensions of social support in online patient communities can be divided into information, emotional, respect and network support. Individual health knowledge creation can be divided into health knowledge externalisation, combination, socialisation and internalisation.
Originality/value
This study expands the application scope of social influence theory and opens up the “black box” of the impact of social support on individual health knowledge creation behaviour. Simultaneously, the dimensions of social support, individual health knowledge creation and the mediating role between social support and health knowledge creation are discussed.
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Zhiqiang Jia, Weian Li and Jian Xu
The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of customers' environmental concern on corporate green innovation and its underlying mechanisms.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of customers' environmental concern on corporate green innovation and its underlying mechanisms.
Design/methodology/approach
This study empirically examines the impact of customer environmental concern on corporate green innovation using 967 company-customer-year observations of Chinese A-share listed companies over the period 2012–2022.
Findings
The empirical results show that customer environmental concern significantly enhances corporate green innovation. Furthermore, executive environmental awareness and research and development (R&D) investment play a partial mediating role in this relationship. The heterogeneity analysis reveals that state-owned customers, customers located in the same province with the corporate and the intellectual property model cities contribute to strengthening this relationship. Moreover, corporate performance analysis shows that customer environmental concern can significantly increase corporate financial performance and sustainable performance.
Originality/value
This study innovatively proposes a measure of customer environmental concern and examines its impact on corporate green innovation and its underlying mechanisms. In addition, this study also proposes some insights for policymakers.
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José Pereira, Aldina Correia, Alexandra Braga, Wellington Alves, Vanessa Ratten and Vitor Braga
This study aims to analyze the impact of technology and innovation on businesses’ internationalization process as well as the relationship between innovation and technology and…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to analyze the impact of technology and innovation on businesses’ internationalization process as well as the relationship between innovation and technology and internationalization.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was based on quantitative analysis of secondary data from 30 economies in Europe and Central Asia, extracted from the Enterprise Surveys – The World Bank database, using the multivariate statistical techniques of multiple linear regression and cluster analysis.
Findings
The results suggest that innovation and technology (I&T) mutually and positively influence the internationalization of firms. In this sense, innovative firms are more successful in competing internationally and exposure to alternative business contexts culminates in innovation. The results suggest a positive relationship between the percentage of firms that introduced a process innovation, the percentage of firms with websites and the businesses’ internationalization.
Originality/value
The originality of this research is based on the methodological approach that allowed the identification of the most significant variables for stimulating the internationalization of firms based on innovation and technology. Given the predominance of economies with higher I&T and internationalization in Europe, it is proposed as future research projects to ascertain the reasons for such a phenomenon.
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In today’s turbulent and complex era, initiative behavior is becoming more drawn to construction projects but challenging to arouse as it is free of the established regulations in…
Abstract
Purpose
In today’s turbulent and complex era, initiative behavior is becoming more drawn to construction projects but challenging to arouse as it is free of the established regulations in project practice. Given the prevalence of social media (SM) in modern workplaces, this study is thereby motivated to investigate whether and how SM use can act to drive initiative behavior of construction project members (PMs) in this context.
Design/methodology/approach
This study sharply examines two distinct types of SM use – work-related and social-related – to explore their roles in driving the initiative behavior of construction PMs. Additionally, self-determination theory is employed to explore their underlying translation mechanisms and associated boundary conditions. A survey dataset collected from 229 construction PMs is used to empirically test the proposed theoretical model.
Findings
Empirical results show that role-breadth self-efficacy, psychological safety and project identification, by satisfying basic psychological needs respectively, act as crucial bridging roles in translating SM use into initiative behavior of PMs. Such mediation effects are applied to both work-related and social-related SM use with varied mechanisms. Besides, prevention focus is found to be a contingent moderator on these relationships, with a strengthening role toward role-breadth self-efficacy and a weakening role toward project identification.
Originality/value
This study digs into the nuanced mechanisms of how SM use benefits construction projects, especially in terms of PMs’ initiative. The findings of this research afford new insights into effectively invigorating the initiative behavior of construction PMs under the current digital momentum.
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This study aims to explore the impact of emotional cues in knowledge product descriptions on users’ willingness to gather information. It specifically focuses on how different…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the impact of emotional cues in knowledge product descriptions on users’ willingness to gather information. It specifically focuses on how different types of textual emotional cues, including heuristic cues like “emotional titles” and systematic cues like “emotional synopses,” influence users’ information-gathering willingness and examines the mediating role of emotional arousal in this process.
Design/methodology/approach
A conceptual model was developed by integrating the heuristic-systematic model with cue utilization theory. The experimental design employed knowledge product descriptions from the “Knowledge Column” section of the Zhihu platform. A controlled experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of varying emotional cues in these descriptions on participants’ willingness to gather information.
Findings
The study identified two types of emotional cues – heuristic cues, such as “emotional titles,” and systematic cues, such as “emotional synopses” – that significantly and positively influence users' information-gathering willingness. Additionally, emotional arousal was found to mediate the relationship between emotional cues and users’ willingness to gather information in the context of knowledge payments.
Originality/value
This study confirms that emotional cues in knowledge product descriptions, mediated by emotional arousal, can enhance the information-gathering willingness of knowledge payment users. The research deepens the theoretical exploration of information behavior among online knowledge payment users, providing valuable insights for knowledge producers on effectively leveraging emotional cues to attract potential customers as well as offering guidance for knowledge payment users in their information-gathering practices.
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Siavash Moayedi, Jamal Zamani and Mohammad Salehi
This paper aims to provide a full introduction, new classification, comparison and investigation of the challenges as well as applications of layerless 3D printing, which is one…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to provide a full introduction, new classification, comparison and investigation of the challenges as well as applications of layerless 3D printing, which is one of the industry 4.0 pioneers.
Design/methodology/approach
Given the significance and novelty of uniform 3D printing, more than 250 publications were collected and reviewed in an unbiased and clear manner.
Findings
As a result, the majority of uniform parts printed in polymer form are known up to this point. In a novel division for better researchers’ comprehension, uniform printing systems were classified into three categories: oxygen inhibition (OI), liquid lubrication (LL) and photon penetration (PP), and each was thoroughly investigated. Furthermore, these three approaches were evaluated in terms of printing speed, precision and accuracy, manufacturing scale and cost.
Originality/value
The parameters of each approach were compared independently, and then a practical comparison was conducted among these three approaches. Finally, a variety of technologies, opportunities, challenges and advantages of each significant method, as well as a future outlook for layerless rapid prototyping, are presented.
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Heng Zhang, Hongxiu Li, Chenglong Li and Xinyuan Lu
The purpose of this study is to examine how the interplay of stressor (e.g. fear of missing out, FoMO) and strains (e.g. perceived social overload, communication overload…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine how the interplay of stressor (e.g. fear of missing out, FoMO) and strains (e.g. perceived social overload, communication overload, information overload and system feature overload) in social networking sites (SNS) use can contribute to users’ SNS fatigue from a configurational view.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected among 363 SNS users in China via an online survey, and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was applied in this study to scrutinize the different combinations of FoMO and overload that contribute to the same outcome of SNS fatigue.
Findings
Six combinations of casual conditions were identified to underlie SNS fatigue. The results showed that FoMO, perceived information overload and system feature overload are the core conditions that contribute to SNS fatigue when combined with other types of overloads.
Originality/value
The current work supplements the research findings on SNS fatigue by identifying the configurations contributing to SNS fatigue from the joint effects of stressor (FoMO) and strain (perceived social overload, communication overload, information overload and system feature overload) and by providing explanations for SNS fatigue from the configurational perspective.
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Thac Dang-Van, Phuoc-Thien Nguyen, Thinh Truong Vu and Manh Quynh Doan
On the basis of the conservation of resources theory (CORT), this study investigates the relationship between social overload and users’ withdrawal intention from social…
Abstract
Purpose
On the basis of the conservation of resources theory (CORT), this study investigates the relationship between social overload and users’ withdrawal intention from social communities on social networking sites (SNSs), with the serial mediating mechanisms of social-psychological distance and emotional exhaustion and the moderating mechanism of (similar) linguistic style.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from 489 users in different social communities on SNSs in an emerging market. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the sample data and test the hypotheses.
Findings
Results show that social overload has a positive influence on withdrawal intention from social communities on SNSs. Furthermore, social-psychological distance and emotional exhaustion have a serial mediating effect in this relationship. In addition, (similar) linguistic style negatively moderates the link between social overload and emotional exhaustion and that between social overload and withdrawal intention.
Originality/value
This study extends CORT to propose and test a unique research model that clarifies the mechanisms leading to users’ withdrawal behavior from social communities on SNSs. The findings of this study provide implications for researchers, individual users, administrators/managers of social communities, and SNS providers to understand and make better decisions to retain member users.