Blockchain has great potential for facilitating the development of the construction industry but has not been widely used to this end. The objective of this study was to identify the factors affecting the adoption of blockchain in the construction industry from the technical, organizational, and environmental dimensions with the help of theories related to technology adoption. Empirical results showed that relative advantage, compatibility, competitive pressure, technological maturity, organizational readiness, and policy have an impact on intention to adopt blockchain in the construction industry through perceived usefulness or perceived ease of use. Competitive pressure has the greatest impact on the internal variables of the technology acceptance model (TAM) (0.696). Perceived cost of adoption does not have a significant effect on blockchain adoption behavior. However, in contrast to previous research, organizational readiness has a negative effect (−0.03) on perceived usefulness. The research results provide inspiration for further research on the impact mechanisms of blockchain adoption in the construction industry, as well as guidance for governments to formulate blockchain adoption policies and guidance for the widespread application of blockchain in construction.

At present, the low degree of informatization in the construction industry chain is one of the prominent problems impeding the application efficiency of prefabrication. To break through the bottleneck of information integration and interaction in the construction process of prefabricated buildings, this paper proposes a conceptual framework of an Intelligent Construction System for Prefabricated Buildings based on the Internet of Things (ICSPB-IoT) according to the needs of government supervision departments, contractors and owners. Then this paper describes the formation of the “information network” from “information flow”, based on which the operating mechanism of the ICSPB-IoT is discussed using the method of system engineering analysis. Finally, the proposed ICSPB-IoT is graded into different implementation levels according to the degree of intelligence of the Internet of Things information, and the implementation path is proposed for construction enterprises with different levels of digitalization. The results show that the ICSPB-IoT provides cross-phase, cross-organizational information interaction for government supervision departments, contractors and owners to improve the efficiency of communication and collaboration between them. This paper also provides decision-making support for the design, layout and implementation of the Internet of Things for prefabrication construction enterprises.

The COVID-19 outbreak has greatly impacted the stability of the global financial markets. In the post-COVID-19 pandemic era, the risk contagion patterns of the global financial markets may change. This paper utilizes the conditional value-at-risk (ΔCoVaR) model to measure the risk level of the financial markets in various economies and uses the TVP-VAR-CONNECTEDNESS approach to construct a time-varying spillover index. Based on the dimensions of time and space, we explored the contagion path, contagion status, and contagion structure characteristics of global financial market risk before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results entail several conclusions. (i) The COVID-19 pandemic increased the spillover level of global financial market risk and the risk connectedness of financial markets in different countries. In addition, during the concentrated outbreak period of COVID-19, the risk spillover level in developing countries rose rapidly, while the financial risk spillover level in developed countries decreased significantly. (ii) The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the spillover of the global financial market risk is time-varying, and there is a strong correlation between the risk spillover level of the financial markets of the world and the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic. (iii) Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Brazil, Canada, and Russia have become new risk spillover centers; in the post-COVID-19 pandemic era, China's spillover to developed countries has increased, and the financial influence of China has also gradually increased. In addition, the risk contagion capacity of financial markets among European countries is gradually converging. (iv) During the concentrated outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Americas were the main exporter of global financial market risk, while Europe played a role in risk absorption.