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Public private partnership (PPP) has gained increasing popularity around the globe. Whether the government needs to participate in the PPP special purpose vehicle (SPV) as an equity coinvestor is a critical issue in PPP development. This research aims to examine the influence of government equity investment on PPP performance by taking public-private communication as an intermediate variable.

A questionnaire survey was adopted as the main research method. PPP practitioners with extensive experiences from both the public and private sectors were targeted respondents. The survey results were subsequently analyzed using statistical data analysis method.

Based on the results from the questionnaire survey, this research indicates an inverted U-shaped relationship between the ratio of government equity and performance in PPP projects. In addition, communication plays a mediating role between government equity investment and PPP project performance.

This research explicates the relationship between the equity structure in a PPP SPV and the project performance. It provides important guidance and reference for PPP practitioners to structure the SPV and associated financial and commercial arrangements. It also offers valuable insights into the development of PPP policy, especially regarding the structuring of PPP models in China and elsewhere.

The purpose of this paper is to present evidence to the heated debate “whether Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model should be introduced into the hospitals” and, if so, how to promote the social sustainability of such PPP projects.

This paper has established an analytical framework to analyse the social sustainability of PPP projects. Using content analysis method, a single case study was carried out on the Northern Beaches Hospital in Sydney, Australia.

The results show that there are many problems related to social sustainability in the project, due to which employees and patients were exposed to most of them. Some recommendations are provided, including to strengthen the supervision of the project, provide sufficient information, establish communication channels and stakeholder participation, improve hospital policies and procedures, and strengthen government support.

This paper can provide guidance for the stakeholders in a partnership, including the public and private sectors, to analyse the social sustainability implications, and then plan and implement hospital PPP projects to achieve social sustainability goals. Meanwhile, it can also provide important reference for the employees, patients, local community and society to assess social sustainability issues, and provide relevant inputs to inform decision-makers in the development, delivery and management of hospital projects.

The research will contribute to knowledge of social sustainability of hospital PPP projects. The proposed analytical framework can be used to analyse and assess the social sustainability of such projects from the perspective of stakeholders.

Using social network theory (SNT), this study empirically examines the impact of digital supply chain announcements disclosing corporate social responsibility (CSR) information on stock market value.

Based on 172 digital supply chain announcements disclosing CSR information from Chinese A-share listed companies, this study uses event study method to test the hypotheses.

First, digital supply chain announcements disclosing CSR information generate positive and significant market reactions, which is timely. Second, strategic CSR and value-based CSR disclosed in digital supply chain announcements have a more positive impact on stock market, however there is no significant difference when the CSR orientation is either towards internal or external stakeholders. Third, in terms of digital supply chain network characteristics, announcements reflecting higher relationship embeddedness and higher digital breadth and depth lead to more positive increases of stock value.

First, the authors consider the value of CSR information in digital supply chain announcements, using an event study approach to fill the gap in the related area. This study is the first examination of the joint impact of digital supply chain and CSR on market reactions. Second, compared to the previous studies on the single dimension of digital supply chain technology application, the authors innovatively consider supply chain network relationship and network structure based on social network theory and integrate several factors that may affect the market reaction. This study improves the understanding of the mechanism between digital supply chain announcements disclosing CSR information and stock market, and informs future research.

Despite an emerging interest in constructive deviance, the exploration of its antecedents is still limited, particularly from an ethical perspective. This study aims to uses moral disengagement theory to investigate how team identification, moral justification and team environmental instability interact to affect employee constructive deviance.

With survey data collected in two waves from 315 employees of 49 work teams in five service companies in China, this study develops four hypotheses and tests them through hierarchical linear model.

The survey results support the complete mediating effect of moral justification on the positive impact of team identification on constructive deviance. They also confirm the moderating effect of environmental instability on the relationship between team identification, moral justification and constructive deviance.

This study explores the sources of constructive deviance at team level from the ethical decision-making perspective and reveals the mechanism and contingency factors in the relationship between identity and constructive deviance. In practice, the study findings imply that managers should encourage their employees to cultivate their identification with their team and align their moral justification with the team’s norms especially when the team faces turbulent environment.

High-tech enterprises, as the national innovation powerhouses, have garnered considerable interest, particularly regarding their technological innovation capabilities. Nevertheless, prevalent research tends to spotlight the impact of individual factors on innovative behavior, with only a fraction adopting a comprehensive viewpoint, scrutinizing the causal amalgamations of precursor conditions influencing the overall innovation proficiency of high-tech enterprises.

This paper employs a hybrid approach integrating necessary condition analysis (NCA) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to examine the combinatorial effects of antecedent factors on high-tech enterprises' innovation output. Our analysis draws upon data from 46 listed Chinese high-tech enterprises. To promote technological innovation within high-tech enterprises, we introduce a novel perspective that emphasizes technological innovation networks, grounded in a network agents-structure-environment framework. These antecedents are government subsidy, tax benefits, customer concentration, purchase concentration rate, market-oriented index and innovation environment.

The findings delineate four configurational pathways leading to high innovative output and three pathways resulting in low production.

This study thereby enriches the body of knowledge around technological innovation and provides actionable policy recommendations.

Cities are facing challenges with their smart city agenda due to tighter budget constraints, varied interests of different stakeholders and increasing needs of technological innovation. Therefore, cities are partnering with private organisations to advance smart city projects. This research critically analyses the existing research published on public-private partnerships (PPPs) for the development of smart city projects and aims to identify the emerging themes and recommend mechanisms and strategies for improved use of smart city PPPs.

The content/textual analysis was conducted on 52 research publications relating to PPP and smart city from 2001 to 2020. With the assistance of the Leximancer software, the related literature was systematically analysed and synthesised to present the emerging themes of PPP application within the smart city context.

The analyses reveal that smart city PPPs mainly concentrated on building new or improving existing infrastructure. The research identifies five themes on PPP application for smart city development: (1) Technological innovation integration and increased risk profile, (2) Smart citizen engagement and participatory governance, (3) Data sharing and information security, (4) Transformation of PPP process and approach and (5) PPPs for urban sustainability. This research consolidates these five themes in a proposed sustainable public-private-people partnership (PPPP) framework.

This research provides a new perspective on rethinking the extant PPP models by highlighting the emerging themes in the PPP application for smart city development. This study provides useful recommendations for smart city infrastructure project partnership and engagement among the public and private sectors, and the city residents.

The main goal of this paper is to present a synthetic multiple criteria group decision-making (MCGDM) methodology for assessing the enterprise digital maturity with linear Diophantine fuzzy (LDF) setting.

This paper utilizes the presented LDF generalized Dombi operator to aggregate assessment information of experts. The developed combined weight model through merging the rank sum (RS) model and symmetry point of criterion (SPC) method is used to ascertain the comprehensive importance of criterion. The evaluation based on distance from average solution (EDAS) approach based upon regret theory (RT) is presented to achieve the sorting of candidate enterprises.

Firstly, the proposed method has strong stability. Secondly, the proposed method takes into consideration the psychological behavior of experts during the decision-making process which further enhances the rationality of the decision results. Finally, the proposed method integrates expert and criterion weight determination models which provides a practical evaluation framework for assessing the digital maturity of enterprises. The research outcomes confirm that the proposed approach fails to resolve the decision problems with unknown weight information flexibly, but also reflect the psychological behavior of expert in decision process. The presented weight approach also provides a rational algorithm to ascertain the weight more accurate.

A composite LDF group decision-making approach is presented by aggregating the proposed generalized Dombi operator, combined weight model and the EDAS model, which make the outcome more reasonable. Sensitivity analysis and comparison study are conducted to reflect the superiority of the proposed approach.

To incentivize innovation, support competitiveness, lower skill scarcities, and alleviate the housing affordability difficulty, proponents underscore the pertinence of embracing contemporary construction methodologies, with particular emphasis on volumetric modular construction (VMC) as a sustainable paradigm for production and consumption. However, construction industry stakeholders in Australia have encountered profound challenges in adopting VMC, as its adoption remains significantly low. Therefore, this study investigated the constraints that hinder VMC in the Australian construction industry.

The study used qualitative methodology using semi-structured interviews as a core approach to glean professional experts' perspectives and insights, along with Pareto and mean index score analyses.

The study identified 77 reported and validated VMC constraints by professionals, categorizing them into eight categories: cultural, economic, knowledge, market, regulatory, stakeholder, supply chain, and technological. The mean index score analysis reveals stakeholder (µ = 9.67) constraints are the most significant, followed by cultural (µ = 9.62) and regulatory (µ = 9.11) constraints. Pareto analysis revealed 25 of the 77 constraints as ‘vital few” among different categories. This study presented causal relationships and mitigation strategies for VMC constraints, followed by an argument on whether VMC adoption in Australia requires a nudge or mandate.

This study offers guidance for efficient resource allocation, aiding management and government policy formulation. It's also valuable for global audiences, especially countries transitioning to modular construction.

This is one of the first studies to identify VMC constraints and delineate them into different categories in Australia, identify their causal interrelationships, and deliver countermeasures to overcome them.

Relationship conflict between the owners and contractors is inevitable, which could induce negative consequences. Yet, the existing literature mostly focused on its direct effects on project performance and ignored the process by which relationship conflict gradually deteriorates cooperation as well as corresponding managerial approaches. Given the fact that relationship conflict originates from interdependent tasks, the proposed theoretical model is intended to measure relational behavior as an instant outcome of relationship conflict, and explore the buffering role of contract enforcement approach.

This paper develops the conceptual model based on the literature review. Then the questionnaire survey was conducted. The dyadic data obtained from 168 Chinese construction project professionals were analyzed by the Partial Least squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) technique.

The results show that relational behavior partially mediates the link between relationship conflict and project performance. Besides, three types of contract enforcement approaches are found to differentially change the negative link between relationship conflict and relational behavior. Rigid contract enforcement can worsen the adverse effects of relationship conflict on relational behavior, whereas flexible contract enforcement can alleviate these negative effects. The level of mitigation hinges on whether compromising behaviors or obliging behaviors are chosen.

The study extends the knowledge of conflict theory and contract theory in the construction field. Based on the proposed conceptual model and PLS-SEM results, this study contributes to the understanding of relationship conflict’s consequences between the owners and contractors and enriches conflict management approaches in the construction field.

Sustainable houses remain at a low rate among the housing stock in New Zealand. Government, industry and the public are wanting to deliver homes that are energy and water efficient, healthy and adaptive to the climate. The purpose of this paper is to find out the driving forces influencing the uptake of sustainable housing in New Zealand.

Comparative case studies of Hobsonville Point, Wynyard Quarter and Long Bay were adopted as the primary research method. Semi-structured interviews and an online survey were both conducted for data collection to increase the validity of the research.

Central and local governments were the most effective driving forces for encouraging sustainable housing. Corporate brand and leadership were critical drivers for public-owned companies, whereas private-owned companies were mainly driven by local governments’ policies and strategies. Social awareness and client demand were increasing to influence the sustainable housing, but there was still room for improvement.

The developers can learn from the sustainable development frameworks to set the sustainability goals. Policymakers can draw lessons from the public sectors’ experiences to carry out new policies and inspire the private sectors to follow. Besides, the basic framework could help the further study to use a larger sample size and more rigorous statistical analysis to explore the synergies among the identified drivers.

This paper provides the useful information on how to promote the uptake of sustainable housing in New Zealand.