The purpose of this paper is to examine Hong Kong's newly published nature conservation policy (NCP) which introduces two additional mechanisms to address sites deemed by…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine Hong Kong's newly published nature conservation policy (NCP) which introduces two additional mechanisms to address sites deemed by Government of HKSAR to be of prime conservation importance. These sites have historically proven problematic, as they have fallen without the proper scope of pre‐existing measures to balance development, conservation and social pressures.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper reviews the background of such measures and how they inter‐relate. It then queries whether the additional mechanisms are an initial move by government to tackle the most difficult sites first, prior to rationalising and integrating legislation for sustainable development, or merely another ad hoc fix.
Findings
The new NCP decidedly represents a step in the right direction for Hong Kong's treatment of nature conservation.
Originality/value
The paper critically evaluates the ad hocism in the conservation policies in Hong Kong.
Details
Keywords
Hannah Pitt, Simone McCarthy and Samantha Thomas
Gambling is well-recognised as a significant public health threat. However, current responses to gambling still primarily focus on individualised responsible gambling paradigms…
Abstract
Gambling is well-recognised as a significant public health threat. However, current responses to gambling still primarily focus on individualised responsible gambling paradigms, which neglects to consider the range of commercial and political determinants that contribute to gambling harm and how it might influence young people's gambling attitudes and consumption intentions. This includes the marketing tactics used by the gambling industry to normalise harmful gambling products as embedded in everyday life, including in sport. Young people have demonstrated an in-depth gambling brand awareness and can even recall specific strategies used in gambling advertising that might appeal to children. There have been continuous calls for action to protect children and young people from the commercial marketing of gambling products from a range of stakeholders, including young people and their parents. Young people and their parents are very supportive of increased regulations on gambling advertising, particularly during sport, and have called for sporting teams and codes to reject sponsorship deals with gambling companies. However, a heavy reliance on industry self-regulation has meant that governments across the world have decided that the costs associated with exposing children and young people to pervasive gambling marketing are outweighed by perceived benefits that gambling provides to businesses benefiting financially from gambling. Comprehensive curbs on marketing, as seen in tobacco, are required to significantly reduce young people's exposure to gambling advertising and ultimately prevent the next generation of harm.
Details
Keywords
Farook Hamzeh, Farid Rached, Youssef Hraoui, Antoine Joseph Karam, Zeina Malaeb, Mounir El Asmar and Yara Abbas
This study investigates the extent to which the popular forms of contract adopted in the Middle East (ME) address collaboration. The purpose of this paper is to assess how…
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigates the extent to which the popular forms of contract adopted in the Middle East (ME) address collaboration. The purpose of this paper is to assess how collaboration features weaved into the construct of integrated project delivery (IPD) may impact projects in the ME. In this context, the study identifies features in IPD and existing delivery methods that may enable or inhibit collaboration and evaluates their impact on project success from the perspective of various contract managers in the ME.
Design/methodology/approach
The study employs structured face-to-face interviews with 41 construction industry practitioners in top contract management positions in the ME to evaluate the significance of collaboration features in IPD. Data collected from the structured interviews/surveys were analyzed using statistical tools in R and Excel.
Findings
Results reveal that while experts recognize the collaboration benefits which IPD features may contribute to a project, the current contractual environment of the industry does not optimally encompass these features. The current status of project delivery does not favor IPD implementation nor does it enable its collaborative features.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the growing international body of knowledge addressing the application of collaborative contracts in construction projects, and it is innovative in evaluating collaboration features within IPD and exiting project deliveries in the ME.
Details
Keywords
Using the theory of sensibility, the purpose of this paper is to analyze how T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land furthers our understanding of sustainable property management.
Abstract
Purpose
Using the theory of sensibility, the purpose of this paper is to analyze how T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land furthers our understanding of sustainable property management.
Design/methodology/approach
Inter-connected indicators of environmental performance disclosures (EPD) and epistemological-based aesthetic environmental accounts (EBAEA) are used to textually analyze The Waste Land’s heightening of sustainable property management.
Findings
The results of the study show that the level of EPD of The Waste Land was 80 per cent, while the level of The Waste Land’s EBAEA was 100 per cent. In terms of sustainable property management, the images of sustainable property management that permeate The Waste Land furthers our understanding of the apprehension of urban living, the intensification of assets and materials, the intrusiveness of city landmarks, the ephemeralness of the profit and loss, the inconstancy of water and the tension of torrid landscapes.
Research limitations/implications
A research implication arising from the results of the study is that the property-poetry nexus may actualize new possibilities for discerning and imagining sustainable property management.
Practical implications
The results of the study offer fruitful paths for understanding sustainability endeavour for planners, property managers, valuers, occupiers, accountants and developers.
Social implications
The Waste Land’s complex, multi-vocal, figurative, seemingly ambiguous lines render a sophisticated form of sustainable property scholarship that shapes aesthetic environmental accounts.
Originality/value
The study’s originality rests in its methodological approach to identify, interpret and understand sustainable property management in a modernist poem.
Details
Keywords
Ayman Ahmed Ezzat Othman and Lamis Yasser Wagih Youssef
This paper aims to develop a framework for implementing the integrated project delivery (IPD) approach during the design process in architecture design firms (ADFs) in Egypt.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to develop a framework for implementing the integrated project delivery (IPD) approach during the design process in architecture design firms (ADFs) in Egypt.
Design/methodology/approach
A research methodology consists of literature review, case studies and survey questionnaire was designed to achieve the abovementioned aim. First, literature review was used to identify and categorise the challenges of implementing IPD during the design process. Second, four case studies were analysed to investigate the values delivered to the client or missed due to the use of IPD or traditional procurement approaches, respectively. Finally, a survey questionnaire was carried out with a representative sample of ADFs in Egypt to investigate their perception towards the challenges of IPD implementation in Egypt. Based on the results of the above, the research developed a framework to facilitate the implementation of IPD in ADFs in Egypt.
Findings
Through literature review, the research identified 30 challenges that hamper the implementation of IPD in ADFs. These challenges were categorised due to their nature into five groups, namely, integration, cooperation, commitment and trust challenges, knowledge, experience skills and decision-making challenges, cultural challenges, legal and contractual challenges and technical and financial challenges. Results of data analysis showed that “poor communication and spirit of collaboration between project stakeholders” was ranked the highest influential challenge as IPD is based on collaboration and trust between project participants. In addition, “lack of training and motivation in investing for using IPD” was ranked the lowest influential challenge due to the poor attention paid to training in the construction industry. Moreover, despite the benefits of IPD implementations in many countries worldwide, it is not implemented in the Egyptian context. This necessitated taking action towards developing a framework to facilitate IPD implementation in ADFs in Egypt.
Research limitations/implications
The research focussed on ADFs in Egypt.
Practical implications
Adopting the proposed framework developed through this research will help implementing IPD during the design process in ADFs.
Originality/value
The research identified, categorised and analysed the challenges that obstruct the implementation of IPD in ADFs. The research tackled a topic that received scant attention in construction literature in the Middle East generally and Egypt in particular. In addition, this paper presented a framework to facilitate the implementation of IPD during the design process, which represents a synthesis that is novel and creative in thought and adds value to the knowledge in a manner that has not previously occurred.
Details
Keywords
Michèle A. Bowring and Joanna Brewis
The purpose of this paper is to explore the ways in which Canadian lesbians and gay men manage their non‐hegemonic identities in organizations, given the relative paucity of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the ways in which Canadian lesbians and gay men manage their non‐hegemonic identities in organizations, given the relative paucity of qualitative data in the area, the importance of work as a site for identity projects in the contemporary west and growing pressure on employers to attend to sexual orientation as part of diversity management initiatives.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were gathered through 16 semi‐structured interviews with lesbian and gay workers from three Canadian cities.
Findings
The data emphasize the importance of organizational environments in which queer people feel able to integrate their identity at work with their identity in the rest of their lives. Role models were identified as especially important in this regard, particularly for women who talked of the organizational “double jeopardy” of being female and a lesbian.
Research limitations/implications
Although the data reported here are not generalizable, it is worrying that they echo many earlier studies on the negative aspects of lesbian and gay workplace experience. One key implication is that those employees who conform most closely to what Butler calls the heterosexual matrix are less likely to experience problems related to their sexual orientation.
Originality/value
This paper indicates several themes which are not extensively travelled in the existing literature, including the suggestion that coming out to colleagues is easier if one is in a long‐term relationship, as well as a sense that having to negotiate such disclosure simultaneously enhances work‐related interpersonal skills.
Details
Keywords
Bo Pang, Sharyn Robyn Rundle-Thiele and Krzysztof Kubacki
Evidence indicates that active school travel (AST) including walking can effectively lower levels of obesity among school-age children. Yet Queensland has been identified as one…
Abstract
Purpose
Evidence indicates that active school travel (AST) including walking can effectively lower levels of obesity among school-age children. Yet Queensland has been identified as one of the most inactive states in Australia where only 5 per cent of Years 1 and 5 children engaged in AST on a daily basis. The purpose of this paper is to explain walking to school behaviour among Queensland children by investigating the explanatory potential of the ecological and cognitive active commuting (ECAC) model.
Design/methodology/approach
An online survey of 537 carers in Queensland, Australia was conducted to collect data about demographics and the variables in the ECAC model. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the ECAC model and the pathways between variables.
Findings
The results indicate that the ECAC model explained 53.4 per cent of the variance in walking to school. Social norms are the dominating factor in the model. Distance to school affects how the ECAC model works by moderating the associations among walking to school behaviours, perceived risks, and social norms.
Practical implications
Changing carers’ social norms and lowering the perceived risks they associate with walking to school should increase the incidence of walking to school in Queensland.
Originality/value
Although the ECAC model was proposed as a comprehensive framework to explain walking to school behaviour, to date, it has not been tested empirically. Informed by a modified ECAC framework this study aims to empirically explore the factors that may be preventing or facilitating Queensland children from walking to school.
Details
Keywords
Ivana Vasilevska Petrovska, Anastasia C. Giannakopoulou, Vassiliki Tsecoura, Angela Winstanley, Roberto Miletto, Georgeta Constanţa Roşca, Biserka Ivanova, Vasiliki Kaisa and Vladimir Trajkovski
Amid the expanding demand on the autism service delivery system, little knowledge is accumulated regarding access and availability of support and services in the region of…
Abstract
Purpose
Amid the expanding demand on the autism service delivery system, little knowledge is accumulated regarding access and availability of support and services in the region of Southern and South-Eastern Europe – critical for improvement of individual outcomes, as well as family quality of life. The purpose of this paper is to explore how service delivery systems are responding to the specific needs of autistic individuals with autism, as perceived by parents.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative exploratory descriptive method was used. Thematic analysis was used as a pragmatic method to report on the experiences of parents (92% mothers, n = 55) of children, youth and young autistic adults (76% male) across six South and South-Eastern European counties that participated in a survey involving a combination of qualitative and quantitative data collection.
Findings
Thematic analysis revealed three broad themes: challenging pathways to service utilization, insufficient service options and providers’ competences and lack of continuous and meaningful support across life span.
Originality/value
The findings from this study add to the small body of literature specific to South and South-Eastern Europe, by exposing problems related to meeting the needs of autistic children and youth and potential ways to strengthen services, as perceived by parents. The findings have potential policy ramifications for the region in which the research was conducted.
Details
Keywords
This chapter discusses the coupling of High Impact Educational Practices with an Active Learning pedagogical approach applied within an introductory undergraduate Visual…
Abstract
This chapter discusses the coupling of High Impact Educational Practices with an Active Learning pedagogical approach applied within an introductory undergraduate Visual Communication course (VC1). The course involves several high impact educational practices, such as collaborative assignments, community-based learning, and ePortfolios as reflective tools. VC1 is also open across the School of Art, Design, and Media and accordingly attracts a diverse, multicultural cohort. This heterogeneity provided an ideal circumstance to encourage the exploration of differing cultural perspectives, life experiences, and worldviews and, subsequently, an opportunity for students to better connect with the subject matter on an intercultural level. While the entire course successfully implemented several high impact practices (HIP), this chapter aims to provide a concise overview of these methods before differing to a more microanalysis; focusing on an integrated, preventing visual plagiarism workshop, which leveraged global knowledge, active learning, and collaborative discourse to facilitate improved academic integrity among the student body. The workshop engaged students by posing ethically driven questions through active learning exercises, such as case study discussions and reflective making activities, to open dialogues and encourage debate on various, and often opposing, ethical perspectives. The overarching objective of this workshop was for students to develop best practice ethical frameworks to subsequently inform and underpin their creative practice, both within higher education and in a professional industry context.
Details
Keywords
This paper aims to explore how gay men and lesbians draw upon workplace friendship for developing and sustaining managerial careers and identities.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore how gay men and lesbians draw upon workplace friendship for developing and sustaining managerial careers and identities.
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopts a qualitative design, using data collected from semi‐structured interviews with four lesbians and eight gay men, all employed in managerial roles in the UK.
Findings
Data reveal the importance of workplace friendship as a resource for mentoring, climbing managerial career ladders, fitting into existing work cultures and developing gay and lesbian managerial identities. A significant finding is that participants preferred to befriend heterosexual colleagues, to that end complicating previous research that suggests gay and lesbian friendship preferences tend to be marked by similarity in regard to sexual identity. Work friends enable and constrain the development and visibility of gay and lesbian managerial identities and careers.
Research limitations/implications
Although the data are not generalisable, it is of concern that gay men and lesbians continue to be disadvantaged by heteronormative constructions of gender and sexuality. While gender and sexual norms can limit the visibility and embodiment of gay and lesbian managers in the workplace, the study reveals also how gay sexualities can be utilised as a resource for developing influential friendships.
Originality/value
This article provides insights into issues not previously covered or understudied in the organisation studies literature such as the agency of gay men and lesbians in constructing different types of workplace friendships as a resource for developing managerial identities and careers.