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The information used for supervision by regulatory departments in public-private partnership (PPP) projects is primarily transmitted and processed by the PPP implementation department, which negatively impacts the information quality, leading to information asymmetry and undermining the overall effectiveness of supervision. This study aims to explore how to use blockchain to anchor the information used for supervision in PPP projects to the original information, to strengthen the oversight.

This paper adopts the principles of design science research (DSR) to design a conceptual framework that systematically organizes information along the information dissemination chain, ensuring the reliable anchoring of original information. Two-stage interviews involving experts from academia and industry are conducted, serving as formative and summative evaluations to guide the design.

The framework establishes a weak-centralized information organizing mode, including the design of governance community and on-chain and off-chain governance mechanisms. Feedback from experts is collected via interviews and the designed framework is thought to improve information used for supervision. Constructive suggestions are also collected and analyzed for further development.

This paper provides a novel example exploring the inspirations blockchain can bring to project governance, like exercising caution regarding the disorderly expansion of public sector authority in addressing information disadvantages and how to leverage blockchain to achieve this. Technical details conveyed by the framework deepen understanding of how blockchain benefits and the challenges faced in successful implementation for practitioners and policymakers. The targeted evaluation serves as rigorous validation, guiding experts to provide reliable feedback and richer insights by offering them a more cognitively convenient scenario.

Based on the Chinese government's increased public‐private partnership (PPP) experience in the last decade, they have made a lot of efforts to improve the investment environment. This paper hence aims to conduct a more up‐to‐date evaluation of the potential risks in China's PPP projects.

As part of a comprehensive research looking at implementing PPP, a two‐round Delphi survey was conducted with experienced practitioners to identify the key risks that could be encountered in China's PPP projects. The probability of occurrence and severity of the consequence for the selected risks were derived from the surveys and used to calculate their relative risk significance index score.

The results showed that the top ten risks identified according to their risk significance index score are: government's intervention; poor political decision making; financial risk; government's reliability; market demand change; corruption; subjective evaluation; interest rate change; immature juristic system; and inflation. Further analysis was conducted on these risks so that the possible consequence, the most impacted parties, and the preferred allocation are discussed. Recommendations on commercial principles or contract terms between the Chinese government and private consortium are also provided.

These up‐to‐date findings concerning the probability and consequence of key risks would provide a valuable reference for private investors who are planning to invest in infrastructure projects in China.

The aims of this study are to conduct a systematic review of public–private partnership (PPP) studies published from 2009 to 2019, to compare the results with Ke et al. (2009) who reviewed the PPP literature published from 1998 to 2008, and to trace the evolution of the PPP knowledge in the past two decades. This study also presents the possible directions that the PPP research may go towards in the future, arguably.

This study carried out a top journal-based search to identify the quality PPP articles published from 2009 to 2019. A total of 12 top-tier construction journals were systematically searched in the database of web of science (WOS), from which 279 PPP articles were identified for review.

The number of the identified articles, the titles of the journals, institutions, the most cited papers, and prevalent research methods were analyzed and compared. The existing PPP studies in construction journals were classified into seven streams. Through analysis of the PPP research status and gaps, five future research directions were revealed.

This study contributes to the current body of knowledge by revealing the research trend of PPP from 2009 to 2019. It presents the change of PPP development trend in the past decade through comparison with Ke et al. (2009). It also reveals the major research streams and points out the directions that the PPP research may go towards in the future. Moreover, this study is helpful to the practice as well. It can enhance the practitioners' understanding of the PPP development in the past decade. In addition, it identified the research institutions contributing the most in the area of PPP, which may serve as valuable reference for practitioners to locate the best institutions for consultancy or collaboration.

The purpose of this paper is to help domestic private enterprises (DPEs) identify their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) in developing infrastructure projects in China.

The paper draws on extensive literature reviews coupled with brainstorming and interviews methodologies to compile a list of SWOT factors for DPEs in developing infrastructures. To validate the significance of the identified SWOT list, a questionnaire survey is thus carried out.

The paper identifies 16 strengths, 15 weaknesses, 16 opportunities, and 21 threats for DPEs in developing infrastructure projects in China. The opinions of respondents from different sectors are sought and evaluated to obtain the relative significance of these factors. A set of major SWOT hypotheses is then derived using factor analysis.

The paper is limited to identifying SWOT factors in common, therefore the next step should be proposing an adjustment framework to support decision marking.

These findings should provide a valuable reference not only for DPEs but also for foreign investors who are planning to invest in infrastructure projects in China.

The investors in both rounds of infrastructure investments in China in the last two decades have limitations. Foreign investors acting as the major player in the first round usually charge higher and prefer operating projects in more developed regions, while state‐owned enterprises as the principal player in the second round are inefficient in the operation and management, which largely restrained the advantages of public‐private partnership model. Therefore, there is an urgent need to explore the potential of DPEs, another potential major player in developing infrastructure projects. To this end, this paper provides valuable information through a comprehensive SWOT analysis to the DPEs.

The purpose of this paper is to validate and elaborate on the preferred risk allocations for Chinese public‐private partnership (PPP) projects.

A previous two‐round Delphi survey was carried out to identify the preferred risk allocations in Chinese PPP projects. A series of face‐to‐face interviews was subsequently conducted to collect actual risk allocations in some recently completed PPP projects. By comparing the preferred and actual allocations and discovering the reasons behind the differences, an equitable risk allocation scheme was then obtained.

The comparative analysis showed a great degree of conformity between the two allocation schemes. These interviews effectively reinforce the rationale of the preferred risk allocations, so that they can be considered as equitable for PPP projects in China.

Equitable risk allocation is critical to the success of a PPP project. The findings in this paper are hence important to investors for a better understanding of the risks of PPP projects in China.

This paper aims to establish an organizational learning system model based on both western and Chinese management thoughts.

The approach is a conceptual model which is based on research within the field.

The model consists of nine interrelated organizational learning sub‐systems including “discovering”, “innovating”, “selecting”, “executing”, “transferring”, “reflecting”, “acquiring knowledge from environment”, “contributing knowledge to environment”, and “building organizational memory” ones. The evidences in some famous Chinese traditional cultural classics (including Great Learning, Doctrine of the Mean, The Analects of Confucius, Book of Change, Tao‐Te‐Ching, The Art of War and Chuan‐Xi‐Lu) that support the rationale of the model are described and analyzed.

Several propositions are developed and it is hoped that the model is applicable in both eastern and western business environments.

This paper aims to explore how management approaches are adopted in the modern Chinese business environment.

A questionnaire survey was conducted among the companies based in Hong Kong with manufacturing processes in China and supplying their products to the global market. The results of the survey are analyzed in conjunction with traditional Chinese philosophy, Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Criteria and ISO 9001 requirements.

The findings confirm that most companies operating in the capacity of original equipment manufacturer (OEM) suppliers will use ISO 9001 to set up their management systems. With the development of business, the companies will move from OEM to original design manufacturer (ODM), and some of them to original brand manufacturer. The management approach used at the OEM stage is basically ISO 9001; however, more comprehensive management approaches such as MBNQA criteria would be used when the company developed into OEM and particular ODM. In the Chinese business environment, the values of traditional Chinese philosophy are often shared by the senior leaders of the company.

This paper confirms that different management approaches should be used at different stages of business development. Furthermore, the management approach adopted should reflect the culture of the people concerned. Traditional Chinese philosophy is a rich source of management concepts from which foreign investors in China will be benefited.

To look into the current state of value management (VM) practice in China and reveal the challenges and opportunities to its future development.

Copies of a questionnaire (2,000) were mailed to chief engineers in manufacturing companies (1,000) and construction companies (1,000). Interviews with six practitioners and two experts were followed up in leading cities of VM applications in China.

Reveal awareness and applications of VM in manufacturing and construction industries, different VM method from overseas mainstream and rank the difficulties in applying VM in China. Limited scope of applications, misusing mathematical techniques in VM studies and the inappropriate measures adopted to promote VM applications were identified as three main factors blocking the development of VM in china. In order to overcome these problems, more cooperation with overseas VM practitioners is recommended.

The findings of this paper based on VM applications in China limits its usefulness elsewhere.

This paper reveals the main problems in current VM applications in China and point out the direction to overcome the difficulties for promoting VM practice in future. It is instructive for VM practitioners, especially in the construction industry.

This paper provides an overall understanding of the current state and future prospect of VM application in China for VM researchers and practitioners.

More and more foreign companies, including multinational companies, open business in China. The staff management under the local culture of China is one of the critical points affecting the success of foreign invested companies in China. This paper aims to illustrate the effective methods of staff management for foreign invested companies in China.

For this purpose, a survey on concrete practices of staff management was conducted among three multinational company affiliates in China, whose parent companies are located in the USA, Japan, and Europe, respectively, by the in‐depth interviews with the high‐level executives of the affiliates.

It was found that although the staff management experiences of the surveyed affiliates show differences in operation, the affiliates have a common sense on how to balance culture difference, how to effectively communicate with staff, and how to appraise the performance. The active and passive factors of these experiences were further analysed from the needs level under current Chinese economic situation and from the invisible impacts on human behaviour of Chinese culture.

This study surveyed only three multinational company affiliates in China and therefore, the understanding obtained is limited in scope. The comprehensive knowledge of the subject depends on more case studies.

The analysis reveals that the active factors and localization, especially localization of the management team, are very important to the staff management of foreign invested companies in China.

The paper contributes to the research on effective methods for staff management in multinational companies.