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This paper empirically investigates how cultural variations in individualism and tightness affected the containment of COVID-19 using data from 54 nations during a 30-day period of government intervention.

The authors utilized the hierarchical regression approach to check the effects of three cultural variables – the individualism measure, taken from Hofstede’s six-dimension national culture index, and the measure of cultural tightness, based on the three tightness–looseness indexes calculated by Irem Uz (2015) and their interaction – on the changes in the prevalence rate (ΔPR) and crude mortality rate (ΔCMR) and case fatality rate (CFR) while controlling for the stringency of government responses to COVID-19, median age and population density.

Significant relationships were found between cultural variables and national performance in slowing the spread of the coronavirus, measured by ΔPR, ΔCMR and CFR. After controlling for the stringency of government responses, median age and population density, the authors found that cultural tightness and individualism as well as their interactions remain to be pivotal. Loose and individualistic cultures led to faster increases in PR and CMR and higher CFR. A four-quadrant conceptual framework is developed to categorize and discuss the national differences.

The paper integrated two constructs – cultural tightness–looseness and individualism–collectivism – to form a theoretical lens to guide the authors’ analyses while using the real-time COVID-19 data as a natural experiment for theorizing and testing. This study’s findings have significant policy implications in government responses, strategic planning, cultural adaptability and policy implementations for the world’s continuous battle against the pandemic.

Based on cognitive evaluation theory and gamification affordances, this study aims to understand how gamification affordances influence users’ intention to engage in sustainable behaviour and how new trends in Ant Forest influence its impact on green intrinsic motivation to support sustainable behaviours.

The authors developed a research model to explore the mechanisms underlying gamification affordances, psychological needs and green intrinsic motivation. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to assess the survey data (n = 393) and test the research model.

The results show that different gamification affordances can satisfy users’ needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness, which positively influences their green intrinsic motivation and engagement in sustainable behaviours. However, some affordances, such as competition, might negatively impact these psychological needs.

This research updates information system research on environmental sustainability and the Ant Forest context. The authors provide a new framework that links gamification affordances, psychological needs and sustainable behaviour. The study also examines changing trends in Ant Forest and their implications.

The problem of environmental pollution is becoming increasingly severe, and international consensus confirms the need for eco-friendly consumption. Worldwide, the eco-friendly food market is booming, so understanding consumers’ motivations to purchase these foods is crucial. This paper aimed to construct a model explaining consumers’ intentions to purchase eco-friendly food by combining stimuli-organism-response (SOR) and signalling theories and exploring the mechanisms by which macro- and micro-signals impact perceptions of value and consumers’ subsequent willingness to purchase eco-friendly food.

An online questionnaire was distributed through the Qualtrics platform, and the completed questionnaires were collected in March and April 2023. The study used partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to analyse the 331 valid responses received.

The results indicated that trustworthy eco-labels for high-quality and health-promoting products, as conveyed in macro signals, significantly enhanced consumers’ perceptions of functional value. The peer effect and a moderate level of food anthropomorphism conveyed in micro-signals substantially improved their perceptions of social value, whilst the perceived value of products significantly and positively influenced their purchase intentions.

This study explains consumers’ motivations to purchase eco-friendly products. This provides an explanation for the effect of macro- and micro-signals on value perceptions. By integrating the different dimensions of these signals to create a unified research perspective, the paper provides an integrated model, thereby filling a research gap concerning the influence of two-dimensional signals on purchase intention. By supporting eco-friendly food use, the paper contributes to environmental protection and sustainable development.

Unauthorised file sharing (UFS) in online communities (OCs) is a major intellectual property concern. Researchers have traditionally viewed UFS as digital piracy and have suggested that deterrents, such as legal actions, should be in place. However, previous research has not considered the OC context and cannot explain why OC members share unauthorised files even when there is legislation against this in place. In OCs, UFS exhibits features of public goods contribution. Therefore, the authors claim that public goods contribution motivations can provide a compelling explanation for UFS in OCs.

The authors propose a theoretical model in which two egoistic public goods contribution motivations (namely, warm-glow giving and demand for resources) are tested alongside motivations informed by the sanctions described by deterrence theory, a theory widely used within the digital piracy perspective.

The authors find that warm glow and demand for resources are positively related to UFS in OCs; the effect of warm glow is moderated by users' attachment to OCs. Importantly, the results suggest that although sanctions significantly predict UFS, the effect of sanctions on UFS becomes insignificant in the presence of warm glow, demand for resources and attachment.

The study offers new insights into why users engage in UFS and highlights that public goods contribution should be taken into account in developing anti-piracy policies and practices.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the Vietnamese laws and practices concerning the confiscation of proceeds of crime, especially in view of Vietnam’s obligations to meet the international standards on money laundering and terrorist financing, set by the Financial Action Task Force and relevant international conventions that Vietnam ratified. To limit the scope of this paper, the analysis focuses on the confiscation of proceeds of domestic crimes that do not require international legal assistance. This paper concludes with recommendations for improving the legal framework on criminal asset recovery in Vietnam.

This is a doctrinal study that considers the applicable legal framework. This study is supported by brief case studies of major cases involving the confiscation of proceeds of crime.

Vietnam has a functioning asset confiscation regime but gaps in the law, lack of financial investigation expertise and lack of focused investigative attention on asset preservation and confiscation are hampering its effectiveness. The key gaps can easily be closed with appropriate amendments to the law. These reforms should be combined with a dedicated skills development program to produce sufficient number of financial investigation experts and criminal asset management experts to support the regime. The training should extend to judicial officers to ensure an appropriate understanding of the asset confiscation law. Reforms such as these should follow on a comprehensive review of Vietnam’s law and practices relating to the confiscation and forfeiture of criminal assets. This review should extend to assets linked to the financing of terrorism and proliferation to ensure that Vietnam has a comprehensive regime to deal with criminal assets.

This paper draws on publicly available information regarding the confiscation of proceeds of crime in Vietnam. Little data is available on asset confiscation and that prevents an in-depth assessment of the regime.

This paper highlights gaps in the current asset confiscation regime and proposes reforms and approaches that will ensure a more effective asset confiscation regime for Vietnam.

The purpose of this study is to examine how use of agriculture information systems could impact farmers' intention to convert from traditional to organic agriculture production in the mountainous areas of Northern Vietnam, based on a research framework developed from integrating Diffusion of Innovation Theory and Theory of Planned Behavior. Specifically, the authors aim to test the direct impact of use of agriculture information systems on converting intention and the interaction between use of agriculture information systems and perceived economic benefits, perceived non-economic benefits of organic production and market access on the formation of converting intention.

Data were collected from a sample survey that included 634 agriculture-producing households in Thai Nguyen, Tuyen Quang and Cao Bang provinces of Northern Vietnam. The logistic regression was used for data analysis.

Research findings indicate that perceived economic benefits, non-economic benefits, market access and use of agriculture information systems positively support the converting intention. Moreover, the use of information systems strengthens the links between the converting intention and perceived economic benefits, perceived non-economic benefits and market access.

This research is innovative in incorporating the use of agriculture information systems as both direct contributor and moderator in converting decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the reliability of official Chinese government statistics in general, overview the evolution of China's S&T (science and technology) statistical system while highlighting the main sources of such statistics, point out some of the particular problems related to China's S&T statistics, and provide perspectives about how to best use and interpret these numbers.

Statistics of China's human resources in science and technology has been used to illustrate how such S&T statistics should be interpreted.

While the S&T data collection involving multiple government ministries causes problems, the interpretation of the data, including reconciling data from different sources and piecing information together, poses challenges to drawing an appropriate and overall picture of the development of S&T in China. In order to achieve a better understanding of China's S&T statistics, student researchers of Chinese science and technology have to comprehend the definitions, exhaust all the sources, and find and recognize discrepancies.

This paper represents the first effort to examine China's S&T statistical system, an important source of information regarding China's S&T development.

This study conducts a systematic review using 452 academic and industry articles from an initial set of 60,899 records obtained by 3 databases from 2012 to 2020. The authors compare and contrast blockchains with existing legacy systems. The authors identify existing regulation, accounting standards, guidelines and potential amendments in under-explored areas such as taxation, accounting treatment of crypto-assets/liabilities and detailed auditing procedures. The study aims to highlight the trends, differences and gaps between academic and industry literature. The authors provide a behavioral, social, cultural, organizational, regulatory, ethical, accountability and managerial perspectives of blockchain adoption in accounting. Finally, the study develops two adoption frameworks.

The authors' study follows (Moher et al., 2009) and (Briner and Denyer, 2012) methodology to conduct the systematic review and the steps are mentioned below. The authors construct a final sample of 452 from a preliminary search of three multi-disciplinary databases from 2012 to 2020. First, the authors motivate the review and formulate the research questions. Second, the authors aggregate relevant literature from both industry and academia and implement quality assessments. Third, the authors analyze the literature and construct the final sample of articles. Fourth, the authors conducted textual analysis, keyword frequencies and identify gaps, trends and similarities between academic and industry literature and develop the authors' frameworks

The authors identify 3 (ABDC, B and A* ranked) journals as publishing top article numbers with the highest article count for 2017 with 96 articles in academia and 2019 for the industry with 21 articles. Second-highest publications for academia occur in 2018 with 77 followed by, whereas in the industry, publications occur in the year 2016 with 16 articles. Two co-authors appear most popular with 103 articles. Word clouds, a mind map and article theme counts are used to identify nine key research clusters: data management, financial applications, sustainability, accounting and auditing, business and industrial, education, governance, privacy/security and disruptive technology.

Systematic reviews can have selection biases mainly due to search and selection criteria distortions when constructing the final sample of articles. The authors address selection bias by refining our search keyword combinations by using different permutations and using keywords from articles already collected. The authors employ three databases and review the reference list of articles collected to add more articles that may have been missed into our sample. In addition, to avoid inconsistent coding of domains/themes and interpretations, the authors carefully review our domain identifications and all our analysis twice independently using two research assistants to obtain the same conclusions.

The authors' unique contributions include reviewing additional papers, differentiating between industry, academic articles, common trends and gaps in much scattered prior literature. The authors identify existing accounting standards, guidelines, limitations and possible amendments required in future for blockchain adoption in accounting in taxation, accounting treatment of crypto-assets/liabilities and detailed audit procedures. Blockchains are compared with legacy accounting technologies and two frameworks for adoption developed. The authors' results could impact the understanding of existing regulation, accounting standards, future amendments, areas requiring clarity and future collaborative research between academia and industry across multi-disciplines. Practical implications to academics, professional bodies, regulators and industry practitioners exist.

The authors' study identifies significant implications on organizations, environment, culture and society in general. The authors identify that social engagement projects may be easily initiated and implemented with decentralized accounting information systems. Transparency and efficiency would change organization culture, ways accountants and even employees interact with each other and community. Anonymity in blockchains can be used for criminal activities. Coding of negative social dynamics to smart contracts may persist. Transparency of personally identifiable information may place individuals at risk. Regulation and standards would need to identify equity, ethics in blockchains which notwithstanding energy consumption, and could enable environmental protection increasing societal sustainability.

To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that compares academic and industry literature of 452 articles to identify gaps and similarities from 2012 to 2020 using three multi-disciplinary databases. The authors' study is the first study to in detail existing accounting standards, unclear areas, future amendments for International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) standards on taxation, financial reporting and all aspects of auditing procedures. The authors further categorize prior literature into these key areas and develop two frameworks (DAERPS and DAIS) that are linked to our review results and prior literature. The authors identify the impact of blockchain adoption on key stakeholders, regulation, society, culture, organization, accountability and ethics.