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Support at the organizational and managerial levels defines the degree to which construction workplaces can accommodate disabled and injured workers. There is little empirical evidence about the indicators and practices that can be used by construction organizations to evaluate disability management (DM). This paper aims to develop and validate key indicators and practices of disability/injury management within construction.

To achieve this, the research used a two-phase sequential exploratory review of literature, followed by a quantitative phase, using analytic hierarchy process. The analytical hierarchy process (AHP) involved recruiting eight health and safety and DM experts to conduct pairwise comparisons of these indicators.

The results found return-to-work and disability and injury management practices to be the most important indicators and physical accessibility and claims management practices to be the least important.

The development of these indicators should help construction organizations develop DM programs that better meet their needs, and benchmark and improve related performance.

The results could also be useful for all stakeholders in general and decision makers in particular involved within construction.

Such prioritization helps organizations to prioritize their DM practices thereby optimizing performance.

A review of the literature revealed a lack of coherent frameworks for implementing disability management, particularly within the construction industry. This study involved developing the construction disability management maturity model (CDM3) to assess the maturity of disability management (DM) practices in construction organisations.

In its current form, the model assessed twelve indicators using a series of questions representing relevant best practices for each indicator and five different maturity levels. An analytical hierarchical process was conducted using eight construction and DM experts to determine the weights of importance of these different indicators. The model was then applied to evaluate ten construction companies in Manitoba, Canada.

The results revealed that the indicators of “Return to Work”, “Disability and Injury Prevention”, and “Senior Management Support” practises were the most heavily weighted and, thus, the most important. Companies' DM performance was observed, on average, to be at the quantitatively managed level. “Senior Management Support” and “Disability Injury Prevention” practices were observed to be the most mature indicators on average, revealing a potential relationship between the most important and most mature indicators.

The sample size of companies evaluated is a key limitation in that it does not permit for the generalisation of the results.

This study provided a framework for benchmarking the DM performance of construction organisations.

No similar maturity model has been developed to date to assess DM in construction, making the CDM3 the first of its kind to evaluate a construction organisation's existing DM practices against best practises.

To examine the perspective of third-level university students in the context of the value proposition of construction apprenticeships in Ireland.

The research uses a qualitative method, conducting semi-structured interviews with 20 third-level university students enrolled on a Bachelor of Science (Honours) degree program in Construction Management in Ireland.

The results highlight six themes. These include that society appears to be directly and/or indirectly steering students towards university. This is driven by what appears to be a prevailing stigma in that apprenticeships are not seen as an achievement by society. Also, apprenticeships are seen as a limited career choice, while also being one which appears to repel female entrants.

If the shortage of new skilled workers entering the construction industry continues, construction organisations will not have the necessary resources to tender for, and subsequently, complete new work.

The perception of what could have been seen as potential new apprenticeship entrants, but ultimately chose university, is worth examining further with a view to industry addressing the shortcomings identified. This therefore can provide an opportunity to stem the tide of reducing apprenticeship numbers, while also providing a viable alternative to university for those who wish to pursue alternative routes of entering the sector.

The paper uniquely focuses on the third-level university student's perspectives and what influenced their decision to pursue third-level university education over that of an apprenticeship within the built environment; an area which has yet to be investigated.

This paper provides a theoretical foundation and conceptual framework to explain the interactions among risk management (RM), top management support (TMS), and internal audit activities (IAA) to achieve internal control quality (ICQ).

A review of the extant literature in RM, auditing and management control is conducted to develop and establish theoretical relationships.

In this work, interconnectedness among organisational factors is discussed by drawing on contingency theory to provide the theoretical logic and support the conceptual framework.

Although this work illustrates the significance of the moderation effect of TMS and the mediation effect of IAA to link RM processes with the quality of internal controls, limitations exist, as the study is conceptual and lacks empirical evidence. The paper emphasises education and training on RM and internal audit to address emerging issues and arising challenges in RM and ICQ.

The paper extends the existing literature in the area of ICQ, which is discussed extensively in developed contexts. However, studies on ICQ in emerging economics, specifically the Middle East and North Africa region, which suffers from high levels of corruption, and asset misappropriation cases are limited. Hence, this work is important because it addresses under-researched issues in relation to ICQ in an attempt to develop a conceptual framework from the available and most effective organisational factors to attain better ICQ.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of firm financial and operational characteristics on the level of forward-looking information disclosure (FLID) by Egyptian-listed non-financial companies. The present research also aims to investigate the moderating role of gender diversity on the board of directors.

The sample incorporates the non-financial companies included in the EGX 100 of the Egyptian Stock Exchange (ESE), whose reports were available during the study period from 2013 to 2018. The final sample comprises 49 companies with 294 observations. Statistical analysis is performed using multiple regression analysis.

This study found a significant positive impact of return on assets, leverage, company size and age on the level FLID, while external audit firm type and industry were found to impact the level of FLID negatively. Further, the board gender diversity (BGD) is found to have a moderating impact as it strengthens the effect of financial and operational characteristics on the level of FLID.

The present study has some implications for Egyptian companies, investors in the Egyptian market and regulators in emerging economies, which include paying more attention to BGD when selecting the board members by companies as well as following up the female representation in all the listed companies by regulators.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the moderating role of BGD and its impact on the level of FLID in emerging markets. This extends the disclosure literature as the present study brings new evidence from an emerging market regarding BGD moderating role as early research concentrated on the direct impact of BGD on the level of FLID.

Within the literature of global mindset there has been much discussion of antecedents. Few attempts have been made, however, to analyze the outcomes of a global mindset. Our chapter undertakes a thematic analysis of global mindset antecedents and outcomes in the 1994–2013 literature. Adopting an inductive approach and borrowing methods from international business and managerial cognition studies, we map, assess, and categorize 42 empirical and 10 theoretical studies thematically. We focus on the antecedents and outcomes at individual, group, and organizational levels. We conceptualize corporate global mindset as a multidimensional construct that incorporates global mindset at the individual level and is dependent on a robust communications infrastructure strategy for its cultivation throughout the organization. Our study categorizes antecedents and outcomes by level and identifies the gaps in global mindset outcomes and firm performance for future researchers to address.

A majority of higher education institutions (HEIs) in Oman, and internationally, have adopted English as the language of education, driven by its power and its globally accepted status as the language of knowledge and communication. Such an internationalisation policy has been inadequately evaluated to examine its actual effects. This paper aims at analysing the existing literature with a view to hypothesise the effects of adopting English as a medium of instruction (EMI) on establishing intellectual capital in the Omani context.

The paper employs a case study design that draws on data generated through a systematic review of 94 peer-reviewed papers that are synthesised using thematic analysis.

The findings indicate that EMI negatively affects the optimal creation of intellectual capital through limiting access to HE, hindering knowledge transfer, impeding Omanis' employability and hindering faculty's professional growth. EMI leads HEIs to mirror the supplying countries' cultures in terms of materials, ideologies and standards. It affects teaching and research quality, training and communication, the sense of equity, belonging and self-worth amongst students and the relationships amongst faculty members. It also increases reliance on external stakeholders.

The paper highlights the interconnection between the forms of intellectual capital and how some components are antecedents to the creation of the intellectual capital forms. It establishes the moderating role the language of instruction plays in relation to the three sub forms of intellectual capital in higher education.

The paper calls for maximising higher education intellectual capital through adopting bilingual rather than monolingual higher education. It calls upon policymakers to revisit the assumptions underlying higher education systems in order to optimise their outcomes.

The paper is the first one that sheds light on the role of language in intellectual capital construction. Such a moderating role has received almost no attention in the higher education literature that is largely busy quantifying its outcomes rather than ensuring they are actually sustainably generated.

After the financial crisis of 2007–2008, the financial service industry realized that the world’s worst financial catastrophe had been caused by an age of easy money and lax monitoring. This realization led to pressure on regulators to overhaul the financial system during the Great Depression. Banks were required to make sure they implemented a variety of endogenous risk-minimization mechanisms and assume accountability for verifying the stability of the financial scheme. Innovative financial technology (FinTech) solutions arose in this more regulated environment to address – or, as one would argue, avoid – risks that arose during the financial crisis. The goal of this chapter is to examine the possible challenges and opportunities of incorporating FinTech into Islamic finance. Four services are provided by Islamic FinTech: finance, payments, advisory, and compliance. The traditional financial system is being recolonized by Islamic FinTech. FinTech adoption in Islamic finance could lead to greater financial inclusion, the solution to emergencies like COVID-19, and the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for a sustainable national economy. However, there could be obstacles associated with this acceptance in the form of risk, investment, and regulatory issues. In order for FinTech companies to be innovative and address social issues that conventional financial institutions fail to address, authorities must provide a market whereby these companies can thrive without having to be acquired by major banks or focus their innovation solely on meeting the demands of these banks. Furthermore, they need to be explicit about the regulations' applicability to FinTech companies, especially with regard to how to strike a balance between being a technology company and a financial institution.

Facility management gained profound importance due to the increasing complexity of different systems and the cost of operation and maintenance. However, due to the increasing complexity of different systems, facility managers may suffer from a lack of information. The purpose of this paper is to propose a new facility management approach that links segmented assets to the vital data required for managing facilities.

Automatic point cloud segmentation is one of the most crucial processes required for modelling building facilities. In this research, laser scanning is used for point cloud acquisition. The research utilises region growing algorithm, colour-based region-growing algorithm and Euclidean cluster algorithm.

A case study is worked out to test the accuracy of the considered point cloud segmentation algorithms utilising metrics precision, recall and F-score. The results indicate that Euclidean cluster extraction and region growing algorithm revealed high accuracy for segmentation.

The research presents a comparative approach for selecting the most appropriate segmentation approach required for accurate modelling. As such, the segmented assets can be linked easily with the data required for facility management.

In the present work, under severe conditions of an inert atmosphere and high temperature, epoxidized natural rubber (ENR) with 25 per cent epoxidation level reacts with different aliphatic amine compounds such as ethyl amine (EA), propyl amine (PA) and butyl amine (BA) to prepare ENR/EA, ENR/PA, ENR/BA compounds as, respectively. The produced compounds were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and oxirane oxygen content determination. Different concentrations of the produced compounds were added to epoxy and urethane acrylate coating formulations to evaluate them as corrosion inhibitors for mild steel under UV irradiation. Corrosion resistance tests and weight loss measurements of the coated steel panels were made. It was found that coating formulations containing the prepared ENR/EA compound could protect metal surface from corrosion, and corrosion inhibitors efficiency of the prepared compounds were arranged as follows: ENR/EA > ENR/PA > ENR/BA. The optimum concentrations for all inhibitors which give the best inhibition efficiency for corrosion are 0.4-0.6 phr.

Corrosion scratch tests were carried out according to ASTM D 1,654-92 (2000). The weight loss of coated steel was measured according to ASTM D 2,688-94 (1999). The measurement of film hardness was carried out with a Wolff–Wilborn pencil hardness tester according to ASTM D 3,363 (2000).

It was found that coating formulations containing the prepared ENR/EA compound could protect metal surface from corrosion and corrosion inhibitors efficiency of the prepared compounds were arranged as follows: ENR/EA > ENR/PA > ENR/BA. The optimum concentrations for all inhibitors are 0.4-0.6 g/100g coating.

A highly efficient and economically corrosion inhibitors for mild steel were prepared from ENR and series of aliphatic amines.