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The management of building information modeling (BIM)-enabled construction projects is challenging and unstructured in nature, particularly in terms of contract administration. Even though previous studies have revealed various legal issues related to BIM, little is known regarding the contractual practices of BIM. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to explore the contractual practices between the BIM consultant and employer in detail.

An explanatory case study was carried out on four large BIM-enabled construction projects in China.

The contractual practices differed from one project to another in terms of ownership and intellectual property rights (IPRs) of the BIM model, roles of the BIM consultant, liability of the BIM consultant in the event of errors and delays of the BIM model, and BIM-related costs and payments. Some of the interesting findings are as follows: the employer shall retain the ownership and IPRs of the BIM model, the BIM consultant shall provide a warranty to ensure usability of the BIM model after project handover, the BIM consultant shall pay for damages or losses if the BIM model fails to deliver and the costs of BIM implementation shall be borne by both contracting parties.

This study provides a fresh, realistic insight on the development of plausible contractual practices between the BIM consultant and employer and the findings can be used to improve BIM contract protocols in future projects.

Audit trail cost management is crucial for ensuring accountability and enhancing quality assurance in construction management. Despite limited practical studies on audit trail management from a cost perspective; this study developed a lifecycle-based audit trail cost management framework. It used synchronized Building Information Modeling (BIM) cost models and Bills of Quantities (BoQs) to address the existing gap.

This study employed a descriptive case study approach of a real-life hospital project in China. Data triangulation was achieved through interviews, observations, documents, and relevant artifacts.

The study identified three key factors contributing to cost variances between BIM cost models and BoQs: differences in measurement rules, model precision, and professional errors, particularly evident during the preliminary estimate stage. Notably, significant cost savings of approximately RMB 5.811 million were achieved during the detailed estimate stage. During the construction phase, a synchronized approach was deployed to improve precise payment verification and modifications to the BIM model. In the post-construction phase, the synchronized as-built BIM models and BoQs served as primary references to facilitate the resolution of operational discrepancies.

The research contributes to the literature by proposing a synchronized approach of BIM cost models and BoQs. This approach enhances traceability and accountability of project information, catering to the digitalization needs of the construction industry.

This study unveils a pragmatic approach to enhancing transparency and accountability in audit-trail cost management by synchronizing BIM cost models and BoQs at various project stages. The synchronized approach offers a promising direction for future research and implementation of audit trail frameworks to enhance cost management in construction.

Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American preemptive invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent prisoner abuse, such an existence seems to be farther and farther away from reality. The purpose of this work is to stop this dangerous trend by promoting justice, love, and peace through a change of the paradigm that is inconsistent with justice, love, and peace. The strong paradigm that created the strong nation like the U.S. and the strong man like George W. Bush have been the culprit, rather than the contributor, of the above three universal ideals. Thus, rather than justice, love, and peace, the strong paradigm resulted in in justice, hatred, and violence. In order to remove these three and related evils, what the world needs in the beginning of the third millenium is the weak paradigm. Through the acceptance of the latter paradigm, the golden mean or middle paradigm can be formulated, which is a synergy of the weak and the strong paradigm. In order to understand properly the meaning of these paradigms, however, some digression appears necessary.

The Republic of China (ROC or Taiwan) has emerged as one of the world's most aggressive countries in the fight against international and domestic money laundering. Money laundering is an enormous and multifaceted global problem which fertilises organised crime, benefits drug traffickers and damages financial systems. The nature of money laundering is a synthesis of criminal activities that completes the illegal activity and produces the illicit profits. Money laundering, which plays a fundamental role in facilitating the ambitions of various illegal activities, is averse to social and economic ideas. Successful money laundering will furnish the fuel for criminal activities by operating and expanding the illegal operations of drug traffickers, terrorists, arms dealers and other criminals.

Individualism collectivism measures, along with decision styles, are examined in Taiwan. About 600 questionnaires were distributed directly to employees with managerial positions in private, public, and mixed enter prises in the capital, Taipei. In general, Taiwanese were found to be more collectivist than individualistic. Participants displayed a strong preference for consultative and participative styles and determined that these two styles were the most effective in practice. Further more, participants indicated that their immediate supervisors were mostly consultative and autocratic.

Internet-famous food (also known as “online celebrity” food) is very popular in the digital age. This study aims to investigate consumer attitudes and understand consumer behavior towards Internet-famous food.

The authors collected 136,835 online comments regarding “Internet-famous food” from Dianping platform between 2016 and 2019 using a web scraper. A sentiment lexicon for Internet-famous food was constructed, and sentiment analysis is further conducted to understand consumer attitudes. Additionally, the authors use topic analysis and time series analysis to study consumer behavior.

Sentiment analysis showed that the number of consumers' comments decreased over time with the attitudes being overall positive, and the Internet-famous food industry has a positive prospect; time series analysis showed that the consumption of Internet-famous food was not affected by the season; topic analysis showed that consumers' comments on Internet-famous food were rich with a large variety, covering food categories, brand, quality, service, environment and price.

To the authors’ knowledge, limited research has focused on public opinions regarding “Internet-famous food”. This is the first study on consumer behavior towards Internet-famous food. This article provides a unique insight into the purchasing behavior and attitude of Chinese Internet-famous food consumers through text mining.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, the author conducts the first detailed review on the impact of ownership variables on corporate tax avoidance, based on 69 archival studies over the two last decades.

Referring to an agency-theoretical framework, the author differentiates between six categories of ownership (institutional, state, family, foreign, managerial and cross-ownership/ownership concentration). The author also includes research on ownership proxies as moderators of other determinants of tax avoidance.

The review indicates that most research refers to institutional, state and family ownership. Moreover, except for state ownership, no clear tendencies on the impact of included ownership types can be found in line with the author’s agency-theoretical framework.

Regarding research recommendations, among others, the author stresses the urgent need for recognizing heterogeneity within and interactions between ownership proxies. Researchers should also properly address endogeneity concerns by advanced econometric models (e.g. by the difference-in-difference approach).

As international standard setters have implemented massive reform initiatives on both tax avoidance and corporate governance, this literature review underlines the huge interaction between those topics. Firms should carefully analyze their ownership structure and change their tax planning due to owners' individual tax preferences.

This analysis makes useful contributions to prior research by focusing on six categories of ownership and their impact on tax avoidance in (multinational) firms and moderating effects. The author provides a detailed overview about current archival research and likes to guide researchers to focus on ownership heterogeneity and endogeneity concerns.

Looks at attitudes of Chinese adolescents to materialism, including the effect of age on materialism and the influence of family and peers. Outlines the values of Chinese culture: thrift, respect for parents, group orientation, social harmony, good manners, face, and academic achievement; these values could impact both positively and negatively on endorsement of materialistic values. Points out that parental expectations of their children’s material success have increased since the one child per family policy. Finds that older adolescents were more materialistic than younger ones, that more materialistic adolescents tended to communicate more with their peers and less with their parents, and that television (which now reaches 92 per cent of households) has no effect because the Chinese government’s strict rules about TV programmes’ content requires them to reflect traditional values.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the physical properties of a full-size range (S-XXL) of a commonly used brand of medical grade GCS, aimed to provide consistent leg pressures across all sizes, assisting patients recovering from Achilles tendon rupture surgery.

This experimental study analyzed the fabric properties of a full-size range of GCS and evaluated their applied pressures on the Ankle and Calf levels of 14 patients recovering from Achilles tendon rupture surgery. ANOVA was run across multiple dependent variables, Density, Thickness, Weight, Air Permeability, Force, Elongation and Stiffness of stocking fabrics.

Results revealed significant effects for several factors. Sock Size had a significant main effect on Density, Thickness and Force. Level had a significant main effect on Weight, but no interaction effects were significant. Air Permeability was significantly influenced by its main effect and by its interaction with Sock Size. No significant main effects or interactions were found for Elongation. Both Sock Size and Level had significant main effects on Stiffness. The Pressure results showed that the Level variable had a significant effect on Pressure, explaining 40.4% of the variance in Pressure.

Because of the chosen research approach, samples and participants, the research results may lack some generalizability.

The results highlight the inconsistent fabric properties across a size range of medical grade GCS, with the larger sizes having smaller differences between pressures on the Calf relative to Ankle than the smaller sizes.

This paper fulfils an identified need to study the size range of GCS and the material properties in relation to body pressures. Understanding these differences could help GCS manufacturers improve their sock sizing design process, resulting in more consistent pressure properties across sock sizes, and better therapeutic and recovery patient experience.

This paper aims to explore how typical personal, interpersonal and environmental factors influence entrepreneurs' growth aspirations by investigating the impact mechanism of entrepreneurial competency and guanxi on the growth aspirations of small tourism entrepreneurs in a dynamic environment.

Applying social cognitive theory (SCT) and business growth theory (BGT), this research uses confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) based on the questionnaire survey data of 371 small tourism business owners/owner-managers to test the relationship between entrepreneurial competency, guanxi and growth aspirations, with self-efficacy as a mediator and environment dynamism as a moderator.

The findings indicate that entrepreneurial competency is a more direct and significant factor than guanxi in facilitating the entrepreneurial growth aspirations in small tourism enterprises (STEs). Entrepreneurial competency and guanxi can both enhance entrepreneurs' self-efficacy, which then affects their aspirations to grow their business. Self-efficacy is a critical predictor of entrepreneurs' growth aspirations in STEs, although its effect is weakened by environmental dynamism.

This study expands the integrated application of SCT and BGT in tourism context, providing a more comprehensive and nuanced interpretation of the growth aspirations of entrepreneurs in STEs. It sheds more light on the effect of different entrepreneurial capital on growth aspirations and provides managerial implications accordingly.