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Career development involves how employees manage their career advancement. This study aims to investigate the relevance of Sun Tzu's Art of War to career development of construction professionals with the aim of suggesting strategies that may be adopted for career development.

The data collection technique was in‐depth interviews with 32 subjects who are Singapore‐based construction professionals. The subjects were asked 13 open‐ended questions which were developed based on the Art of War.

The main findings on the effective career development strategies are: outperforming peers by developing deep job experience and delivering excellent performance; adopting a team member posture before moving on to a team leader stance; handling office politics and conflicts effectively; maintaining flexibility and manoeuvrability in one's career; networking; and acquiring foreknowledge.

The study is qualitative in nature, thus, the actual effectiveness of the recommendations for career development is not known. There may also be some more strategies undisclosed by interviewees as sharing them may cause them to lose their competitive advantage.

The effective strategies for career development are found. Construction professionals may adopt some military strategies that may help them in their career development.

The relevance of military strategies to career development in construction firms suggests that career progression is akin to war, where winning is important and strategizing to win is necessary.

In this paper military strategies are mapped onto career development, and relevant career advancement strategies are identified.

This study aims to understand how a community of practice (CoP) facilitates the knowledge spiral of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) in tourist destinations.

This case study focuses on Cantonese opera, a representative example of the ICH of Hong Kong. Narrative inquiry with eight CoP members was used in this study.

The CoP members believed that the city has unique and quality tourism knowledge. They used their professional expertise in the domains of creating, collecting and sharing both explicit and tacit knowledge. With the strategic goal of creating a sustainable competitive advantage, CoP act as a kernel in knowledge creation by converting explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge and vice versa.

This study uses the knowledge spiral model to understand knowledge creation, and it contributes to the sparse literature on knowledge management in the field of tourism, especially the role of CoP. It addressed a gap in the literature pertaining to knowledge creation and ICH.

This study sought to understand which food allergen labeling systems (non-directive, semi-directive, and directive) were attended to and preferred by 34 participants with food hypersensitivity and their perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) and behavioral intention towards a restaurant that identifies food allergens on menus.

This study used an online survey with open-ended and ranking questions, combined with eye-tracking technology, to explore participants' visual attention and design preferences regarding four menus. This study utilized one-way repeated measures analysis of variance (RM-ANOVA) and heat maps to analyze participants' menu-reading behaviors. A content analysis of survey responses and a ranking analysis of menus were conducted to understand the reasons behind consumers' preferred menu designs.

The advisory statement was not much attended to. Participants identified food allergen information significantly quicker with the directive labeling system (icons) than the other two systems, implying they were eye-catching. Semi-directive labeling system (red text) has lower visit count and was more preferred than two other systems; each labeling system has its strengths and limitations. Participants viewed restaurants that disclosed food allergen information on menus as socially responsible, and they would revisit those restaurants in the future.

This study was one of the first to explore, through use of eye-tracking technology, which food allergen labeling systems were attended to by consumers with food hypersensitivity. The use of triangulation methods strengthened the credibility of the results. The study provided empirical data to restauranteurs in the US on the values of food allergen identification on restaurant menus, although it is voluntary.

This study scrutinizes the convergence between commercial advertising and the political vision of social movement in media advertisements. This study deliberates how commercial advertisement could be compatible with movement discourses and social resistance. Such hybridization between commercial narration and movement discourses is different from political advertising sponsored by political and civic organizations. This study uses an advertising campaign in Hong Kong which expressed outcry against police search on an outspoken media as a case study to conceptualize advertising activism with the thematic analysis of the movement discourses shown in printed advertisements. This study aims to engage with scholarly dialogue surrounding social movement studies and discuss how movement discourses could hybridize with commercial advertisement.

This study examines the discourses and textual features of an advertising campaign initiated by the public instead of political elites and social movement organizations in Hong Kong, in which various individual citizens, anonymous participants, business enterprises and civic organizations expressed their anger over a police search against an outspoken media (Apple Daily) by Hong Kong police. This bottom-up advertising campaign shows how the narration of commercial advertising could be hybridized with the activism for social resistance, which is conceptualized as advertising activism in this paper.

Based on the textual features and discourses embedded in the advertisements, this study investigates the printed advertisements mushroomed in Apple Daily since the police search in August 2020 by the thematic analysis under the concept of advertising activism: frame construction, identities mobilization and decentered solidarity. Advertising activism differs from commercial and political advertising from two ways. Firstly, its advertisements are cosponsored by numerous nonpolitically well-known individuals or organizations. Secondly, advertising activism feature with hybridization between commercial narration and political or movement discourses. Discourses of advertising activism aim to mobilize the commercial identity of consumers for noncommercial means by their consumption behaviors.

The findings illustrate a hybridization of commercial narration and movement discourses stemming from social movement and identity politics, which is coined by our conceptualization of advertising activism. While commercial and political advertising focus on business promotion and political messages, respectively, advertising activism demonstrates multiple layers of cultural meanings on the consumption behaviors which hybridize with political and movement discourses. The authors hope this study could unleash further intellectual dialogue on the social role of advertising in social movement and how movement discourses “spillover” from social events to the commercial advertisement.

Many large construction firms (LCFs) adopt product diversification (PD) to counter downturns and spread risks. However, no detailed information is available concerning the type of PD that improves their performance. In addition, it is still uncertain how much changes in institutional dimensions influence the effectiveness of PD. Therefore, the aim is to resolve this issue by establishing a model that shows the extent of this influence.

The generalised method of moments (GMM) estimator is used to model the PD strategies of 86 LCFs in Malaysia over 14 years (2003–2016) and its impact on productivity and profitability performance.

Unrelated diversification (UD) decreased firm performance in 2003–2016, while related diversification (RD) had a positive impact during the more liberal 2010–2016 phase. The models show that the impact of PD is highly dependent on changes in institutional dimensions.

Firstly, managers may adjust the type of PD and its level of diversification to improve firm performance. Secondly, they may devise PD strategies based on changes in institutional dimensions to maximise their effectiveness.

The study contributes to the literature by determining the optimal amount of PD (including RD and UD) and its impact on performance. Secondly, the study is the first to investigate the moderating relationship of the institutional dimensions of economic and regulatory institutions on PD-firm performance. Thirdly, the study is the first to explore the components of technical-scale-scope economies (movement towards and around the production frontier), this being crucial to the strategy that was only conjectured in previous studies.

Soft robotics is currently a rapidly growing new field of robotics whereby the robots are fundamentally soft and elastically deformable. Fabrication of soft robots is currently challenging and highly time- and labor-intensive. Recent advancements in three-dimensional (3D) printing of soft materials and multi-materials have become the key to enable direct manufacturing of soft robots with sophisticated designs and functions. Hence, this paper aims to review the current 3D printing processes and materials for soft robotics applications, as well as the potentials of 3D printing technologies on 3D printed soft robotics.

The paper reviews the polymer 3D printing techniques and materials that have been used for the development of soft robotics. Current challenges to adopting 3D printing for soft robotics are also discussed. Next, the potentials of 3D printing technologies and the future outlooks of 3D printed soft robotics are presented.

This paper reviews five different 3D printing techniques and commonly used materials. The advantages and disadvantages of each technique for the soft robotic application are evaluated. The typical designs and geometries used by each technique are also summarized. There is an increasing trend of printing shape memory polymers, as well as multiple materials simultaneously using direct ink writing and material jetting techniques to produce robotics with varying stiffness values that range from intrinsically soft and highly compliant to rigid polymers. Although the recent work is done is still limited to experimentation and prototyping of 3D printed soft robotics, additive manufacturing could ultimately be used for the end-use and production of soft robotics.

The paper provides the current trend of how 3D printing techniques and materials are used particularly in the soft robotics application. The potentials of 3D printing technology on the soft robotic applications and the future outlooks of 3D printed soft robotics are also presented.

This paper aims to introduce the notion of investigative research on the internet (IRI) and conceptualise its processes through the principle of streaming. It seeks to discuss the similarities and differences between IRI and netnography and considers various aspects of the IRI process, including site selection, sampling, data collection and analysis.

Investigative internet‐based research uses the techniques of ethnography and netnography, including variations of participant observation and analysis of visual and textual material. Three international empirical cases are used to illustrate the application of IRI and streaming in research on international workers, consumer cultures and on emerging business phenomena.

IRI has a number of potential applications for hospitality management academics and practitioners. Streaming can help to understand the processes involved in conducting netnographic research, and streaming is a more appropriate way to conceptualise some internet‐based studies that do not conform to netnographic or ethnographic ideals.

The three empirical cases highlight the processes of streaming in practice, which can be applied elsewhere. Principal limitations are the ethical dimensions of conducting undisclosed research and the sampling bias resulting from adopting an unobtrusive role and focusing on active internet users.

The paper highlights several issues, identified through streaming, that can be used to design human resource, marketing and operational strategies.

The paper demonstrates the application of streaming. Streaming can help researchers conduct netnographic studies; it is also a more appropriate way to describe broader types of investigative internet research. Moreover, it demonstrates the applicability of streaming in research on hospitality management and public policy issues.

This paper reviews the strategic responses of successful local Chinese banks (LCBs) in the changeable Hong Kong banking sector over the past decades. Given the mixed outlook of the industry resulting from the handover of sovereignty, financial internationalization, and regional and domestic economic developments, this paper also discusses the benefits of using strategic alliance as a means for LCBs to meet current and future challenges. Based on case reviews, the paper demonstrates the values of strategic management concepts for small banks to cope with an externally oriented and politically uncertain operating environment.