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Stimulating innovation in projects can contribute to achieving policy goals, addressing societal challenges and meeting objectives within programs and projects. Despite their potential, innovations are rarely included in tender assignments and evaluated in the award of civil engineering projects. One explanation for this is the perceived difficulty in triggering and objectively assessing innovations in the awarding of projects. The aim of this paper is to develop, implement and evaluated a method to encourage and assess innovations in the awarding of bridge construction projects to address this problem.

A design science research (DSR) approach is used to develop, implement and evaluate a method to trigger and assess innovations in tenders for bridge projects. DSR approaches are used to develop “well-tested, well-understood and well documented innovative generic designs, dealing with authentic field problems or opportunities” (van Aken et al., 2016).

The findings show that the application of the developed method in a bridge project led to the inclusion of a broad range of innovations in the tender offers. Despite the broad support for the defined criteria, there were some differences in the way the criteria were interpreted by the public procurement team and by the tenderers. Despite these differences, no legal claims were filed in court.

Further development and wider adoption of the method is likely to have a positive impact on the application of innovations in bridge projects. With some adjustments, the method would also be appropriate for other civil engineering and construction projects.

This paper contributes to the discussion on how the terms innovation and innovativeness can be operationalized and used in the literature and practice. The developed method provides definitions for assessing the degree as well as the level of innovations in tenders for bridge projects. Further, it provides a way to rank innovations and determine the additional value of the offered innovations in terms of a notional reduction in tender price. Finally, it provides insights into how to encourage innovations through public procurement in civil engineering projects.

The purpose of this article is to develop a cross-level, theoretical model describing the process by which interpersonal helping becomes conspicuous, as well as the process by which interpersonal helping subsequently prospers or becomes eradicated in the organization.

A theoretical analysis was performed by drawing upon various management-related theories.

We propose that organizational crises foster the emergence of interpersonal helping. Additionally, the positive relationship between organizational crises and interpersonal helping is stronger (or weaker) when individuals possess higher levels of other-oriented (or self-oriented) motives. Furthermore, we propose that a sympathetic climate at the unit level and employee job crafting at the individual level result in the prosperity of interpersonal helping, whereas interpersonal helping is eradicated by a sarcastic atmosphere at the unit level and citizenship pressure at the individual level.

Theoretically, we advance the literature by providing future research with a theoretical base for understanding interpersonal helping from a temporal and cross-level perspective. Practically, this article offers some managerial recommendations that help managers nurture interpersonal helping in organizations effectively.

This study seeks to examine the effect of work-related boredom and a perceived lack of external stimulation on benevolent and entitled employees' perceived inequity and discretionary workplace behaviors.

A total of 668 useable three-wave panel data were obtained via Amazon Mechanical Turk during a three-month period. The hypothesized model was tested using a latent growth curve modeling via EQS 6.4 for Windows.

This study finds the following results. First, benevolent employees who experience higher initial work-related boredom report positive inequity. Second, entitled employees who experience higher initial work-related boredom and a perceived lack of external stimulation report negative inequity. Third, increases in work-related boredom and a perceived lack of external stimulation result in a faster increase in entitled employees' perceived negative inequity. Fourth, entitled employees who perceive higher negative inequity at the initial measurement period report higher interpersonal deviance. Finally, increases in entitled employees' perceived negative inequity result in a faster increase in interpersonal deviance.

This study highlights how employees may assess their effort and rewards when experiencing boredom. This study also offers some practical recommendations that help human resource managers manage boredom in the organization effectively.

This study furthers one’s understanding of the motivations of the crowdfunding crowd by empirically examining critical factors that influence the crowd's decision to support a crowdfunding project.

Backer's comments from a sample of the top 100 most funded technology product projects on KickStarter were collected. A latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) analysis strategy was adopted to investigate critical motivational factors. Three experts mapped those factors to the known theoretical constructs of social exchange theory (SET).

Although backers are motivated by value, they are also motivated by far less tangible social factors including trust and a feeling of psychological ownership. Findings suggest that the crowd is far more than a passive group of investors or customers and should be viewed as participatory stakeholders. This study serves as guidance for project owners hoping to motivate the crowd and for future investigators examining backer motivations in other types of crowdsourcing projects.

Online chatter in the form of user-generated comments is an excellent data source for researchers to mine for value and meaning.

Given strong feelings of psychological ownership, project owners should actively engage the crowd and solicit the crowd for advice and help in order to motivate them.

The study presents the first empirical exploration of backer motivations using LDA guided by theory and the knowledge of experts. A framework of latent motivational factors is proposed.

How to reduce uncertainty in clothing online purchasing has become a primary concern for consumers. This study aims to investigate the effects of quality perception and multisensory perception on consumer online clothing purchase intention and to explore the mediating effect of trust.

This study was conducted with consumers who have online clothing shopping experiences. A total of 539 valid samples were analyzed by bootstrap and structural equation model.

The result of this research revealed that perceived information quality, perceived service quality, perceived haptic imagery and perceived visual-audio cues have a significant influence on purchase intention. Additionally, consumers’ trust is positively correlated with purchase intention. Trust mediates the relationship between the perceptions (perceived information quality, perceived service quality, perceived haptic imagery and perceived visual-audio cues) and purchase intention, irrespectively.

To investigate the effects of multisensory perception on purchase intention, perceived haptic imagery is adopted as a variable in this study. This study investigates the mediating role of trust between multisensory perception and purchase intention. The findings of this study can enrich Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework and Information System (IS) success model in the field of clothing online shopping.

This study aims to elucidate the dyeing kinetics and thermodynamic relationships of CI Reactive Red 24 (RR24) on cotton fabrics, achieve the recycling of inorganic salts and water resources and obtain comprehensive data on color parameters, fastness and other characteristics of fabrics dyed with the recycled dyeing residual wastewater.

The dyeing wastewater obtained through advanced oxidation technology was used as a medium for dyeing cotton fabrics with RR24. The absorbance value of the dyeing residue served as an evaluation index, and the relevant kinetic and thermodynamic parameters were calculated based on this absorbance. The color parameters and fastness of the fabric samples were measured to compare the performance of different dyeing media.

Dyeing cotton with RR24 in both media follows pseudo-second-order kinetics. When dyeing with wastewater media, the dye adsorption in the first 45 min increased by 0.082–1.29 g/kg compared with conventional dyeing. Furthermore, the half-dyeing time was shortened by 4.19–11.99 min and the equilibrium adsorption amount was reduced by 0.277–0.302 g/kg. The adsorption of RR24 on cotton fabrics conformed to the Freundlich model. Fabrics dyed using recycled wastewater exhibit a deeper color, with reduced red light and enhanced blue light, resulting in an overall deeper apparent color.

These dyeing kinetics and thermodynamic properties are beneficial for comprehending and interpreting the dyeing performance and behavior of reactive dyes in dyeing wastewater. They lay a theoretical foundation for the treatment and recycling of dyeing wastewater.

This paper aims to find a suitable solution to degrade the C.I. Reactive Red 24 (RR24) dyeing wastewater by using sodium persulphate to recycle water and inorganic salts.

The effects of temperature, the concentration of inorganic salts and Na₂CO₃ and the initial pH value on the degradation of RR24 were studied. Furthermore, the relationship between free radicals and RR24 degradation effect was investigated. Microscopic routes and mechanisms of dye degradation were further confirmed by testing the degradation karyoplasmic ratio of the product. The feasibility of the one-bath cyclic dyeing in the recycled dyeing wastewater was confirmed through the properties of dye utilization and color parameters.

The appropriate conditions were 0.3 g/L of sodium persulphate and treatment at 95°C for 30 min, which resulted in a decolorization rate of 98.4% for the dyeing wastewater. Acidic conditions are conducive to rapid degradation of dyes, while ·OH or SO₄⁻· have a destructive effect on dyes under alkaline conditions. In the early stage of degradation, ·OH played a major role in the degradation of dyes. For sustainable cyclic dyeing of RR24, inorganic salts were reused in this dyeing process and dye uptake increased with the times of cycles. After the fixation, some Na₂CO₃ may be converted to other salts, thereby increasing the dye uptake in subsequent cyclic staining. However, it has little impact on the dye exhaustion rate and color parameters of dyed fabrics.

The recommended technology not only reduces the quantity of dyeing wastewater but also enables the recycling of inorganic salts and water, which meets the requirements of sustainable development and clean production.

The authors examine one special focus of Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs), namely environmental, social and governance (ESG) related investments. The authors document the performance of SPACs with and without ESG focus.

The authors collect data, from several sources, on 1,737 SPAC IPOs formed between 2003 and 2022. A SPAC's focus on ESG is classified based on declared focus in Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings and in post-merger annual reports. The authors examine operational and financial performance of SPACs with and without ESG focus.

In the study's sample, only 50% of SPACs that announced an intention to acquire an ESG target ended up consummating a merger with an ESG private firm. ESG SPACs exhibit worse operating performance than non-ESG SPACs. Furthermore, they experience 11.6% lower 1-year post-merger excess returns than their non-ESG counterparts.

The study provides an examination of ESG firms that came to market via mergers with SPACs, which is an alternative method to traditional initial public offerings (IPOs). The study also provides a comparison of both operational and stock performance of ESG and non-ESG SPACs.

This paper examines students' decisions when playing an in-class version of the TV game, Deal or No Deal (DOND), to study the relation between personal characteristics and individual decision-making under risk.

This study analyzes DOND game play data collected from 374 students in 13 university finance classes, and their personal characteristics collected in a post-game survey. It uses ordered probit, OLS and probit regression analysis to examine the impact of personal characteristics on an individual's risk tolerance.

The key finding is that international students are significantly more risk averse than US domestic students. Additionally, given the natural control for age and education, the study finds that gender, race and religion have a limited impact on an individual's risk tolerance. Finally, the study provides evidence that the structure of the DOND game, in general, rewards risk-taking as long as it is not excessive. Once participant behavior becomes risk-seeking, the correlation between risk-taking and game payoff becomes negative.

The homogeneous set of contestants (business students) analyzed in this study presents some limitations yet provides opportunities to examine risk tolerance differences between the US and international students, and whether gender, race or religious affiliation has an impact on the level of risk tolerance given a natural control for age and education level.

The evidence suggests that culture and environmental unfamiliarity may impact an individual's risk tolerance. This finding is useful when providing financial advice to diverse clients or when conducting international business. Additionally, understanding that education and financial literacy reduces differences in risk tolerance across gender, race and religion can impact the way we interact with others. A broader practical implication for all investors is that, while under normal circumstances, risk-taking is rewarded with a higher expected return, excessive risk-taking may harm their investment performance.

This paper utilizes a unique data set, collected through a class activity and post-class survey. While there have been empirical studies using DOND data, this is the first study that examines the impact of personal characteristics on game participants' behavior, thereby generating unique findings not reported in previous studies employing DOND data.

Traditional contracting often leads to claims during construction by contractors, increasing transaction costs for both parties in the form of policing and enforcement costs. Partnering is widely advocated as a governance form to more cooperative relationships between client and contractor. However, partnering requires a significant investment in elaborating a specific procurement approach, and is regarded as inappropriate for small, one-off, less complex projects. Dutch municipal governments are searching for alternative solutions to increase cooperation with contractors and reduce transaction costs by applying immediate post contractual negotiations in traditionally procured projects. We studied four such municipal projects which have shown that immediate post contractual negotiations achieve the effects of partnering despite the initial traditional procurement procedures. These negotiations seem to reduce the transaction costs of traditional procurement making them particularly applicable in smaller projects where high set up costs would not be justifiable due to their limited size, complexity, or cost.