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Blockchain technology (BCT) is considered a promising tool to improve the productivity of construction project management. Existing research has studied its potential costs and benefits for the construction industry. However, the potential costs and benefits of BCT failed to be compared as actual costs and benefits of specific applications for stakeholders. To fill this gap, this study seeks to analyze the cost-effectiveness of BCT-based applications in construction project management.

This study is conducted with a customized systematic literature review based on transaction cost theory to enable qualitative comparison. With a deliberately designed structure confining extraneous variables, the costs and benefits of BCT-based applications are identified and compared. The inherent dependent relations of processes and the evolution relations of functions are identified. The cost-effectiveness of blockchain adoption is then analyzed.

Seven functions and six challenges are identified within five processes. The result suggests all identified functions are cost-effective except for manual instruction (coding smart contracts manually). The smart contracts require explicit definition and logic to be effective. However, the construction projects essentially require the institution to be flexible due to unpredictability. The adoption of smart contracts and corresponding additional requirements can increase the transaction cost of bounded rationality.

As manual instruction is fundamental to realize other functions, and its advanced substitute relies on its broad adoption, its cost-effectiveness must be improved for applications to be acceptable to stakeholders. The establishment of a universal smart contract model and a universal, legitimate and efficient database structure are recommended to minimize the cost and maximize the effect of applications.

This study contributes to the knowledge by providing a comprehensive analysis of BCT adoption’s cost-effectiveness in construction project management. The adopted review structure can be extended to analyze the qualitative benefits and challenges of management automation in the early stages.

Achieving sustainable construction is immensely challenging in developing economies due to their inadequate technical support system(s) (TSS). Hence, this article develops a TSS framework for sustainable construction indicators for Zimbabwe, a developing country.

A post-positivist philosophical stance and deductive reasoning were adopted to test pertinent theory. Construction professionals in consultancy, construction companies, government bodies and academic institutions participated in an online questionnaire survey. Primary data was analysed using a reliability test, Shapiro Wilks test, Kruskal–Wallis H test, mean score ranking, normalisation value, factor analysis and fuzzy synthetic evaluation (FSE).

FSE revealed a framework with six critical technical support subgroups, in order of importance viz: innovation for construction sustainability; adequate sustainability expenditure and skills training support; adequate project economic assessment and governance support; adequate circularity and environmental technical support; climate change literacy and supplier assessment support; and adequate decent work support. Existing sustainable construction initiatives can be buttressed by strengthening the six identified TSS through related policy initiatives.

The framework developed constitutes an innovative TSS for Zimbabwe to achieve sustainable construction.

Despite the considerable increase in research on entrepreneurship education, few studies examine the role of entrepreneurship educators. Similarly, most frameworks from entrepreneurship education recognize the educator’s importance in facilitating instruction and assessment, but the factors influencing the educator role are not well understood. According to the identity theory, personal factors including self-efficacy, job satisfaction and personal values influence the perspective of self, significance and anticipations that an individual in this role associates with it, determining their planning and actions. The stronger the role identity the more likely entrepreneurship educators will be in effectively developing their entrepreneurial skills as well as the overall learning experience of their students. The objective of this study is to pinpoint the factors that affect entrepreneurial role identity.

Drawing upon the identity theory, this study developed a theoretical framework and carried out an empirical investigation involving a survey of 289 entrepreneurship educators across the globe. Structural equation modeling (SEM) technique was applied to analyze and explore the factors that impact the identity of the educators in their role as entrepreneurship teachers.

The findings show that the role identity of entrepreneurship educators is significantly influenced by their self-efficacy, job satisfaction and personal values. Among these factors, self-efficacy and job satisfaction have the most significant impacts on how educators perceive their role. The implications of these results and directions for future research are also discussed.

The novelty of the current study is derived from its conceptualization of the antecedents of role perception among entrepreneurship educators. This study stands out as one of the earliest attempts to investigate the factors that shape an individual’s scene of self and professional identity as an entrepreneurship educator. The significance of comprehending the antecedents of role perception lies in the insights it can offer into how educators undertake and execute their role, and consequently, their effectiveness in teaching entrepreneurship.

Academic buoyancy refers to a student’s adaptive response to overcome common academic-related stress and challenges. Guided by social cognitive theory, we investigated the relation between students' academic buoyancy and their endorsement of compassionate and uncompassionate self-responding.

Students from a Minority-serving, Hispanic-serving public university (N = 112) completed an online survey assessing academic buoyancy (Martin and Marsh, 2008) and self-compassion (Neff, 2003). We conducted a hierarchical regression analysis with uncompassionate and compassionate self-responding as predictors and academic buoyancy as the outcome.

Compassionate self-responding (i.e. self-kindness, common humanity and mindfulness) explained additional variance above and beyond what uncompassionate self-responding (i.e. self-judgment, isolation and overidentification) explained in the model. Uncompassionate self-responding components emerged as the strongest predictors of academic buoyancy.

Limited research exists regarding the relation between self-compassion and academic buoyancy, especially in the higher education setting. This research indicates that student compassionate self-responding is associated with students’ adaptive response to overcoming academic setbacks, stress and challenges. The findings of the current research could have meaningful implications for university officials’ efforts in helping students overcome academic-related setbacks and achieve academic success in higher education. University offices, programs and communities can focus on compassionate self-responding to support students in overcoming common school-related setbacks. Programs could be developed to move students away from uncompassionate self-responding as a means of promoting buoyancy.

For over 25 years, the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) has significantly influenced the US sustainable construction through its leadership in energy and environmental design (LEED) certification program. This study aims to delve into how Baton Rouge, Louisiana, fares in green building adoption relative to other US capital cities and regions.

The study leverages statistical and geospatial analyses of data sourced from the USGBC, among other databases. It scrutinizes Baton Rouge’s LEED criteria performance using the mean percent weighted criteria to pinpoint the LEED criteria most readily achieved. Moreover, unique metrics, such as the certified green building per capita (CGBC), were formulated to facilitate a comparative analysis of green building adoption across various regions.

Baton Rouge’s CGBC stands at 0.31% (C+), markedly trailing behind the frontrunner, Santa Fe, New Mexico, leading at 3.89% (A+) and in LEED building per capita too. Despite the notable concentration of certified green buildings (CGBs) within Baton Rouge, the city’s green building development appears to be in its infancy. Innovation and design was identified as the most attainable LEED benchmark in Baton Rouge. Additionally, socioeconomic factors, including education and income per capita, were associated with a mild to moderate positive correlation (0.25 = r = 0.36) with the adoption of green building practices across the capitals, while sociocultural infrastructure exhibited a strong positive correlation (r = 0.99).

This study is beneficial to policymakers, urban planners and developers for sustainable urban development and a reference point for subsequent postoccupancy evaluations of CGBs in Baton Rouge and beyond.

This study pioneers the comprehensive analysis of green building adoption rates and probable influencing factors in capital cities in the contiguous US using distinct metrics.

The current study investigates the factors influencing graduates’ perceived employability by utilizing the stimulus-organism-response theory, in the post pandemic era.

A quantitative approach was employed to examine the hypotheses of the research framework through partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) on the SmartPLS software.

The result indicates that course structure has a positive effect on students’ grit and community of inquiry (CoI). Also, students’ grit and CoI have a positive relationship with students’ performance, while students’ performance has a positive relationship with perceived employability. Moreover, students’ grit, CoI and students’ performance sequentially mediated course structure and perceived employability, whereas readiness and self-directed learning strengthen the relationship between students’ performance and perceived employability.

The findings will benefit university management, government and potential employers on how confident the student is in the chances of a future career after graduating from a higher institution.

This study examines the sequential mediating role of employee organisational commitment (EOC) and innovation on the relationship between budgetary participation and competitive advantage. Data were collected from a mail survey questionnaire of 86 Australian organisations with PROCESS applied to analyse the data. The study's findings make a significant contribution to the budgetary participation and behavioural management literature and practice. Specifically, the study provides a theoretical insight into the role of an important employee behavioural factor, EOC and innovation in mediating the relationship between budgetary participation and competitive advantage. In particular, the findings inform practitioners that budgetary participation influences the EOC of employees and subsequently influence competitive advantage through exploratory innovation.

This chapter recognizes and ranks the factors that impact the adoption of mobile commerce (MC) by users. The results showed that compatibility, perceived usefulness (PU), perceived risk (PR), mobility, and perceived cost (PC) have a significant effect on the adoption of MC by users. The results of multilayer perceptron (MLP) showed that mobility, among other model variables, had the greatest impact on the adoption of MC, and PC had the lowest effect on the adoption of MC. The comparison of the MLP model with linear regression illustrates that the predictive power of MLP outperforms the linear regression model in predicting MC adoption.

Despite the burgeoning popularity of virtual gifting in live streaming, research lacks an in-depth understanding of the drivers behind this behavior. Using para-social relationship (PSR), this study aims to capture viewers’ lively social feelings toward the streamer as the key factor leading to the purchase behavior of virtual gifts. It also aims to establish a theoretical link between PSR and viewers’ holistic experience in live streaming as captured by cognitive absorption and aims to investigates the role of technological features (i.e. viewer–streamer and viewer–viewer interactivity, streamer-level and viewer-level deep profiling and design aesthetics) in shaping viewers’ experience.

Based on 433 survey responses, this study employs a combination of structural equation modeling and neural networks to offer valuable insights into the relationships between the technological environment, viewer experience and viewer behavior.

Our results highlight the salience of PSR in promoting the purchase of virtual gifts through cognitive absorption and the importance of the technological environment in eliciting the viewer experience. This study sheds light on the development of PSR in a technological environment and its relationship with cognitive absorption.

By applying PSR to conceptualize viewers’ perceived connection with the streamer, this study extends the research on purchase behavior in the non-shopping context by providing an enlightened understanding of virtual gift purchase behavior in live streaming. Moreover, by theoretically linking PSR with cognitive absorption, virtual gift purchase and technological features of live streaming, it enriches the theory of PSR and bridges the gap between the design practice of supporting the IT infrastructure of live streaming and research.

In this paper, the authors aim to study the relationship between hydrogen embrittlement (HE) susceptibility and cathodic current density applied on the X70 steel girth welds.

The HE susceptibility of X70 steel girth welds were investigated through slow strain rate tensile test and observed and analyzed by optical microscope and scanning electron microscope methods.

The results show that HE susceptibility of X70 girth weld was basically unchanged with increasing of ion concentration while gradually increased and maintain at a specific value with the increase of cathodic current density. As for same ion content, a dense calcareous deposit layer generated on the sample surface in soil simulation solution with Ca2+ and Mg2+ resulted a decreased HE susceptibility while the porous calcareous deposit layer resulted a increased HE susceptibility.

A logistic regression model was established to describe the correlation between HE index and the cathodic current density.