Bath Spa University

This article seeks to identify the most recurrent and significant delay factors during all phases of construction in Pakistan and to evaluate the top effective delay factors in a case study project. Two research approaches were employed to gain the objective of the study. A questionnaire was designed comprised of 42 delaying factors that were grouped into six categories based on their relativity to the consultant, contractor, client, project manager, financial, and external group. Relative Importance Index (RII) was used to rank the delaying factors. A hybrid of fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method-analytical hierarchy process (FCEM-AHP) was utilized to evaluate the significance of top-ranked delaying factors in the case study project. The findings of the study show that factors from consultants, clients, and external groups such as improper project feasibility study, poor design, unreasonable constraints to clients, financial difficulties, political benefits, and political involvement were considered the most significant delaying factors in the construction industry of Pakistan. This is the first study wherein identified delay factors are further evaluated in a case study project to validate the findings of the study. The study also provides conceivable recommendations to both local and foreign construction firms engaged in Pakistan that could be attained to reduce the impact of delays in construction projects.

The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of crisis leadership by discussing conceptual and empirical research, as well as practical suggestions. As such in this chapter, we offer a conceptual classification of crises, definitions of crisis leadership, indicative empirical studies conducted in sport, and recommendations of how sport leaders (e.g., coaches, performance directors, team leaders) can deal with crisis events. Moreover, we highlight that there is a great deal of scope for empirical research to grow the knowledge-base of leadership crisis in sport. The generated knowledge would aim to support sport leaders to better prepare for, deal with, and even benefit from crisis events.

I engage with two recent articles published in the Journal of Political Ecology, both of which critique political ecology engagements with ontological and epistemological complexities. These complexities might be distilled into the idea that how 'the world' is socially known also shapes how the world is known to be. I explore three key issues worked through in these papers, partly with reference to work of mine, namely: 1) conservation struggles around biodiversity offsetting; 2) debates regarding plural and relational ontologies, particularly representations of 'flatness' and 'depth' in ontological considerations; and 3) critical realism, specifically distinctions between perspectives on transitive and intransitive dimensions in qualifying understandings of reality. I highlight a pernicious problem of dismissive approaches towards analysts trying to ask difficult and subtle questions about 'onto-epistemology.' This situation seems surprising given the effort in political ecology towards recognising and respecting plural knowledges, particularly knowledges often overridden by discourses emboldened by structures of power. My overall aim is towards clarity in ongoing political ecology debate on these issues, alongside the pursuit of respectful praxis in this burgeoning area of engagement. Keywords: political ecology, biodiversity offsetting, conservation struggles, ontology, flat ontology, depth ontology, relational ontology, ontological pluralism, critical realism, indigeneity, critique

Aim The study was designed to explore the experiences of autistic counsellors living and working in the United Kingdom (UK). The research question was split into four aims: exploring presenting differences, strategies and modalities preferences, challenges and barriers, and training and support needs. Method Seven autistic counsellors, either self‐identified or diagnosed, completed semi‐structured questionnaires. Patterns and themes were then extracted from the data using a thematic analysis procedure. Findings The data analysis identified four themes: the practical differences of working as an autistic counsellor, working with a similar neurotype, understanding and accommodation within the counselling profession, and representation. Conclusion Participants felt that being autistic brings unique strengths to the counselling process, and it was identified that while they have been trained to work with allistic (non‐autistic) clients, they found strength in supporting and being supported by those of a similar neurotype. Participants challenged the deficit depiction of autism and, subsequently, the lack of recognition, understanding, accommodation and representation of autistic counsellors within the profession. The participants called for a change in training, within professional bodies, counselling organisations, workplaces and colleagues. Recommendations Counselling training needs to include autistic trainers, represent and accommodate autistic trainees, as well as support the needs of autistic clients. Counselling bodies need to create safe spaces for autistic counsellors, including the ability to advertise within directories and support the endorsement of neurological differences as strengths. These spaces need to challenge the archaic beliefs around autism through lived experience and the hiring of autistic professionals. Inclusivity should be encouraged within organisations and workplaces, consequently filtering to allistic colleagues.

Whilst much global research takes place in universities, many researchers in the sciences and humanities do not work within these institutions. Some citizen researchers run their own companies or provide independent consultancy, having left their roles in universities through a conflict of values, where they experienced hostile, hierarchical, or restrictive practices. In a world where many postdigital and biodigital challenges do not sit neatly under one discipline or sector, collaboration with community experts to research potential solutions is crucial, as demonstrated during the Covid-19 pandemic. Universities count knowledge exchange partnerships as a key part of their activities, linked to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, yet a closer look at how this works in practice reveals different forms of ‘lockdowns’ that prevent equitable research collaborations. In this collective article, we offer a postdigital perspective on citizen science and humanities research from the ground. This includes a provocation to knowledge-producing institutions via recommendations that emerged from our collective citizen researcher workshop held in Zagreb in Spring 2024. There is now a pressing need to review institutional policies and practices around citizen research, towards more inclusive knowledge exchange partnerships, if we are to collaborate successfully to address many global challenges.

Emergency front of neck airway (eFONA) is a potentially lifesaving but very high‐stress procedure. We explored the cognitive and affective processes involved via semi‐structured interviews with 17 UK anaesthetists who had attempted eFONA within the previous two years. Thematic analyses generated two meta‐themes: ‘Making the decision is the hardest part; the doing is easier’ and ‘What helps make the decision?’. We found concerns around scrutiny, lack of a flat hierarchy, unfamiliarity with the situation and the lack of a model for transitioning to eFONA. Culture change, using a shared mental model, priming and emotional disengagement, assisted with eFONA decision‐making. Conclusions and implications for practice are presented.

This chapter presents findings from qualitative research into how fiction writers make a living in the UK. In particular, it focuses on how a number of aspects of making a living from writing combine to silence writers as cultural workers. There is a growing body of knowledge around what we might term media and cultural work, which highlights issues of precarity and structural inequality. This new research finds that writing is a precarious way to make a living and supports survey findings on writers receiving low incomes. This chapter argues that writers as workers suffer from a lack of agency over career planning and are devalued by a publishing industry which produces them as voiceless and grateful providers of literary content for profit-making. In addition, it argues that writers’ own perceptions of writing as not-work, and the discourses of love and luck they employ when thinking and talking about writing, function in complex ways to position them in enchanted spaces which, nevertheless, exclude the possibility of complaint. In these ways, writers as workers lack both individual and collective voices. This chapter draws on ideas of passionate work and explores how fiction writers in the UK are, despite giving voice to others in their work, lacking a voice as cultural workers.

The depiction of the supernatural in cinema dates back to the earliest days of the medium, with a pioneering example being Georges Méliès’ Le Repas fantastique in 1900. This film displays a ghostly figure interfering with a family’s meal through the cinematic technique of superimposition. The supernatural is therefore conveyed through a second visual layer, simultaneously of the image, yet not of the world it portrays. This can be traced further back to double exposures in trick photography and magic lantern shows. From Méliès to the modern day, superimposition has allowed for worlds to collide, whether in modern horror, silent drama, or experimental cinema. The idea of the superimposition of two visual layers as the interaction between two distinct worlds turns the cinematic image into a “thin place” where the worlds of our everyday and the supernatural can intermix. This article will detail this cinematic tradition and explore the possibilities of this concept. It will question how filmmakers have interpreted the possibilities of layering reality, and how they have attempted to replicate the psychological feeling of the uncanny into a visual experience.

This research employs a vector autoregression (VAR) analysis to explore the volatility and dynamic interactions between stock, commodity, and cryptocurrency markets. It focuses on the returns of the S&P 500, gold, crude oil, and Bitcoin to analyse their interconnections. Our results indicate that Bitcoin returns positively affect S&P 500 and crude oil, but negatively impact gold. Conversely, crude oil returns have a positive influence on gold but lead to decreased returns for Bitcoin and the S&P 500. Similarly, higher gold returns correspond to increased returns in crude oil and S&P 500 but decreased returns in Bitcoin. The rise of the S&P 500 negatively influences Bitcoin and crude oil returns, while gold returns remain unaffected. However, these relationships exhibit weak and limited strength. Including these assets in a portfolio can help risk mitigation, as Bitcoin diversifies crude oil, gold, and S&P 500, and crude oil diversifies S&P 500. These findings contribute to our understanding of global financial dynamics and inform decision-making in risk assessment, portfolio management, risk mitigation, and diversification strategies.

Today's banking industry achieving sustainable profitability necessitates by integrating economic, environmental, and social factors due to pressing environmental concerns. This study investigates the impact of sustainability on financial performance in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) banking sector, using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) and Bootstrapping ARDL approaches on data from 2002 to 2022. The analysis revealed that economic sustainability, environmental and social sustainability exhibit a significant impact on financial performance in the short run and the long run at a (p < 0.05). 1% of economic sustainability activities increases Return on Assets (ROA) by 0.73 and Return on Equity (ROE) by 0.64. 1% of environmental sustainability activities decreases ROA by −0.28 and increases ROE by 0.35. 1% of social sustainability activities increases ROA by 0.47 and ROE by 0.42. To improve long-term profitability, this study emphasizes how crucial it is for the banking industry in the UAE to strategically integrate sustainability principles. These findings highlight the need to promote sustainability in the banking sector for environmental improvement, offering insights for UAE regulators and stimulating additional research.

Workforce diversity is increasing across the globe, while organizations strive for equity and inclusion. Therefore, research has investigated how team diversity relates to performance. Despite clear arguments why diversity should enhance (some types of) performance, and promising findings in individual studies, meta-analyses have shown weak main effects. However, many meta-analyses have failed to distinguish situations where diversity should have a positive impact from those where its impact is more likely to be negative, leaving boundary conditions unclear. Here, we summarized the growing literature across disciplines, countries, and languages through a reproducible registered report meta-analysis on the relationship between diversity and team performance (615 reports, 2638 effect sizes). Overall, we found that the average linear relationships between demographic, job-related and cognitive diversity, and team performance are significant and positive, but insubstantial (|r|< .1). Considering a wide range of moderators, we found few instances when correlations were substantial. However, context matters. Correlations were more positive when tasks were higher in complexity or required creativity and innovation, and when teams were working in contexts lower in collectivism and power distance. Contrary to expectations, the link between diversity and performance was not substantially influenced by teams’ longevity or interdependence. The main results appear robust to publication bias. Further research is needed on how diversity climates and team cultures affect these relationships, and when there may be non-linear relationships—yet for the moment, promises of wide-spread performance increases may not be the strongest arguments to promote diversity initiatives. We discuss further implications for researchers and practitioners, and provide a web app to examine subsets of the data: https://lukaswallrich.shinyapps.io/diversity_meta/.

Using rice husk ash (RHA) as a cement substitute in concrete production has potential benefits, including cement consumption and mitigating environmental effects. The feasibility of RHA on concrete strength was investigated in this research by predicting the split tensile strength (SPT) and flexural strength (FS) of RHA concrete (RHAC). The study used machine learning (ML) methods such as ensemble stacking and gene expression programming (GEP). The stacking model was improved using base learner configurations ML models, such as, random forest (RF), support vector regression, and gradient boosting regression. The proposed models were validated by statistical tests and external validation criteria. Moreover, the effect of input parameters was investigated using Shapley adaptive exPlanations (SHAP) for RF and parametric analysis for GEP-based models. The analysis revealed that the stacking ensemble integrates base learner predictions and demonstrated superior performance, with R values greater than 0.98 and 0.96. Mean absolute error and root mean square error values for both SPT and FS were 0.23, 0.3, 0.5, and 0.7 MPA, respectively. The SHAP analysis demonstrated water, cement, superplasticizer, and age as influential parameters for the RHAC strength. Furthermore, the SPT and FS of RHAC can be predicted with an acceptable error using the GEP expressions in the standard design procedure.

This chapter considers the ways that writing-as-work is also devalued by writers themselves in the ways that they conceive of and experience their writing lives. This chapter offers analysis of writers’ motivations, goals and dreams, and understandings of success, arguing that these combine to further the devaluing of writing that is begun by the publishing industry’s treatment of writers. It considers the literature around cultural work as not-work, drawing on ideas of a calling, sacrificial labour, and psychic income. It presents findings which complicate notions of writing-as-work, finding it to be both/and work and not-work in shifting ways which both undermine and nurture writers.