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This study aims to explore residents’ trust in local government councils and to examine the effect of political efficacy and good governance on that trust and on the performance of local government councils in an emerging nation.

Data were analysed using qualitative and quantitative research designs. Firstly, a thematic analysis was performed to explore residents’ trust in local government councils and compare it with the data gathered in the literature review. Thereafter, a partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) approach was used to investigate the hypothesised linkages.

The thematic analysis of the face-to-face semi-structured interviews discovered four themes (trust, performance, political efficacy and good governance). Additional analysis of these themes via the PLS-SEM approach revealed good governance to be the most influential factor in promoting residents’ trust in local government councils. Political efficacy was the second most influential factor. Residents expect local government councils’ officers to demonstrate a strong commitment to the rule of law and comply with all relevant laws and regulations.

Local government councils should openly accept residents’ requests and suggestions, be more flexible in policy delivery and be responsive to policy demands given the relatively small constituencies and greater policy latitudes. Multiple avenues should be available for interaction between residents and local government councils in the mission to achieve sustainable urban growth.

This study is unique in that it advances existing research that is lacking in the context of the Malaysian local government council. The result alerts are crucial in that they alert local government councils to the need for high levels of governance and accountability in terms of resident support to gain more trust and confidence.

The purpose of this paper is to identify individual level perception-based determinants influencing participation in government innovation and to examine the moderating effect of innovation cynicism upon those determinants.

Focusing on the case of Government 3.0, a Korean National Government innovation initiative, this study analyzes survey data regarding local public employee perceptions of the initiative through ordered logistic regression.

Multiple theoretical correlates of perceived desirability, perceived efficacy, performance expectancy, facilitating leadership, peer influence and demonstrable symbols have positive influences on participation in Government 3.0. Surprisingly, cynics of government innovation reported more active participation in Government 3.0 than non-cynics. While cynicism negatively moderates the influence of perceived desirability, performance expectancy and peer influence on Government 3.0 participation, the expected negative moderating effect does not correspond with the influence of perceived efficacy on innovation participation.

The study highlights the importance of innovation cynics, who are probably neither skeptics nor pessimists regarding recent changes but rather are concerned about recurring rhetoric and poor performance of government innovation.

This chapter focuses on the Maoist insurgency in the 75 districts of Nepal and tries to analyze the insurgency in a comparative perspective. We compare the 75 districts with the aim to address the following questions: Why does an insurgency emerge in certain areas? How is it linked to economic, social, or political factors? Why does an insurgency show a robust presence in some districts but fail to do likewise in others? We attempt to answer these questions by conducting multivariate regressions using longitudinal data to test our primary hypothesis that the onset of an insurgency and the continuation are functions of the same factors. We examine insurgency within one country, Nepal, and test our model in Nepal's 75 districts, in a single country context, using available data on the 10-year-long insurgency. We break down the Nepalese insurgency into two parts: the onset and the continuation. Our findings indicate that regions predominantly polarized by caste are more prone to the onset of insurgency than any other factor. Higher literacy rate, a proxy for government efficacy, renders insurgency less feasible, and difficult terrain has no impact whatsoever. However, after the onset, many of the explanatory variables are no longer significant for the continuation of the insurgency and grievances alone tend to be meaningless.

This paper uses a supplemented health belief model (HBM) to explain the risk perception of COVID-19 coronavirus infection by potential and actual domestic and international travelers (from primarily European countries) in the early pre-vaccine phase of the pandemic and its influence on their travel intentions, decisions, and actions. With a health crisis of this magnitude, it is vital to understand the effect of COVID-19-associated containment measures and safety industry strategies in abating public fear and apprehension associated with non-essential travel.

The authors used a sequential transformative design consisting of a (QUAN + Qual) survey to explore the HBM dimensions. The questions in the quantitative part of the survey were disseminated online examine perceptions of the severity and susceptibility of the disease, travel risks and willingness to travel. The questions in the qualitative face-to-face survey examined, how international/cross-border travelers (from Spain and Germany) perceive the benefits and barriers of personal protective behavior and the potential influence of cues to action.

Results suggest that despite potential fear arousal and confusion associated with this infectious disease, people were willing to travel during periodic on-and-off travel restrictions and perceive the benefits of such travel as outweighing barriers like wearing masks, social distancing and other containment measures.

The conceptual model enabled the capture of real-time traveler's feelings about the benefits of traveling in the presence of the coronavirus and their perceptions of COVID-19 safety strategies used at destinations. This study adds to the lack of existing knowledge about potential psychological factors influencing travel decisions and behavior, including self-protective behavior. As borders reopen and we progress towards tourism and hospitality recovery, the results of this study can assist organizations, including health officials and governments, by reminding them of the likelihood of residual public fear when planning their COVID-19 safety strategies.

Given the scarcity of COVID-19 research on people's travel intentions and behavior following periods of social isolation due to lockdowns and border closures, this study captures sample public perceptions at two stages early in the pandemic. It is the first to apply all of the HBM dimensions with the addition of travel risk as a construct to investigate people's travel intentions and behaviors without vaccinations or treatments and to include cues to action in the investigation.

This study looked at the relationship between good governance and trust in government. We used data on government trust across a sample of 29 European countries over the period 2004–2015, as well as six different aspects of governance as captured by the Worldwide Governance Indicators. We also consider GDP growth and income inequality and their correlation with trust in government. The results showed that voice and accountability, which captures freedom of expression and citizen involvement in the democratic process, was significantly related to government trust, across all specifications of our regression models. None of the other indicators yields significant results, although the coefficient for control of corruption is significant in some specifications. We also found that real GDP growth rates have a significant relationship with trust in government. A comparison of the standardised regression coefficients indicated that voice and accountability is a stronger correlate of trust in government than GDP growth. Therefore, our results suggested that good governance was a key determinant of trust in government, over and above economic considerations. We discussed the implications of these findings in light of declining levels of public trust in government around the world.

Individuals tend to seek out communities and organizations that appeal to their beliefs and values. They gravitate to positions and responsibilities that suit their personal aspirations and ambitions, and in such pursuits they succeed best. In The United States of Ambition: Politicians, Power, and the Pursuit of Office, Alan Ehrenhalt (1992) argues that the political process tends to select for those who most believe in it and make a career of it. He suggests that one advantage held by the Democratic party (over the Republican party) is that the Democratic party is more thoroughly a party of active government, so it better attracts “people who think running for office is worth the considerable sacrifice it entails” (p. 224). Not only does the political process tend to attract those who believe in it, it also tends to prosper believers.

Despite the fact that the success of e-government services is contingent on their continuous usage, the continuance intention to use e-government services has received extremely little scholarly attention. This study aims to investigate the determinants of the residents’ continuous intention to use e-government services.

The research model was developed based on the integration of technology continuance theory along with trust, transparency and habit constructs. The authors adopted a survey approach to collect the data. The data were collected using an online questionnaire from 260 residents of Penang in Malaysia.

Results revealed that transparency has a positive effect on both perceived usefulness and trust. Contrary to earlier studies on e-government, perceived ease of use was found to have no significant relationship with residents' perceived usefulness. Similarly, the results also demonstrated that habit was not significantly related to users’ continuous intention to use e-government services. This study also applied importance-performance analysis map analysis and discovered that perceived usefulness has the highest impact on continuous intention to use e-government services, whereas satisfaction was found to have the least effect.

This study used an integrative framework and presented an in-depth knowledge of the basic aspects that contribute to the post-adoption usage process and resident satisfaction, trust and attitude towards e-government services.

During the early SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated masks “may not protect the wearer, but it may keep the wearer from spreading the virus to others”. Health officials revised mask guidelines to include both the wearer and others, but contradiction became a focal point for online debate and credibility. While revised policies eventually became adopted by the public, there was loss time and lives during this critical stage. This study investigates collectivist messaging on public policy support.

COVID-19 public policy hypocrisy was defined as the gap between supporting community policies while rejecting policies more likely to impact the individual. United States participants (N = 1,605) completed questionnaires. Moderated mediation analysis was conducted using SPSS PROCESS.

Those high on collectivism and high on global personal impact associated with lower COVID-19 public policy hypocrisy. These individuals indicated consistent support for community and individual policies, likely requiring personal sacrifices. Indirect conditional effects of lower conscientiousness associated with higher hypocrisy among those collectivistic.

Participants evaluated preference to original public safety ads, representative of basic societal and individual benefits. Those higher on collectivism preferred societal “we” versus individual “me” public safety ads. Implications discuss benefits of personal and communal public health messaging in an individualistic society so businesses can reopen. Entrepreneurs experienced major economic setbacks that effective public health policies could have mitigated.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors affecting the intention of social networking sites (SNS) users to comply with government policy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Based on the theory of appraisal and coping, the research model is tested using survey data collected from 326 SNS users. Structural equation modeling is used to test the research model.

The results show that social support has a positive effect on outbreak self-efficacy but has no significant effect on perceived avoidability. Government information transparency positively affects outbreak self-efficacy and perceived avoidability. Outbreak self-efficacy and perceived avoidability have a strong positive impact on policy compliance intention through problem-focused coping.

The results suggest that both government and policymakers could deliver reliable pandemic information to the citizens via social media.

This study brings novel insights into citizen coping behavior, showing that policy compliance intention is driven by the ability to cope with problems. Moreover, this study enhances the theoretical understanding of the role of social support, outbreak self-efficacy and problem-focused coping.

The Chinese Government encourages firms to diffuse their operational-level environmental management (EM) into their organization’s mission and strategy to develop strategic EM to promote sustainable development. The purpose of this paper is to utilize two concepts of institutional theory (isomorphic pressures and decoupling behavior) to assess how different institutional forces arising from Chinese macro-level factors (market pressure, business turbulence, legal voids, carbon policy, structural-level governmental interference and guanxi with government) influence the efficacy of strategic EM.

In partnership with a major consulting firm in China, the authors collect multi-informant survey data from 183 manufacturing firms drawn from a variety of industries for testing the hypotheses posited.

The efficacy of strategic EM in the sampled firms is confirmed by the positive association with environmental performance. The authors also find that the efficacy of strategic EM is weakened by market pressure, business turbulence and legal voids, whereas it is strengthened by structural-level governmental interference. However, carbon policy and guanxi with government do not impact it significantly.

To extend the findings on the environmental importance of strategic EM, future research can develop and validate a management framework to guide the adoption of strategic EM. With regard to the four valid macro-level factors influencing the efficacy of strategic EM, future research can identify the reasons (e.g. conflict with corporate functions) behind them to aid manufacturers to mitigate their negative influence or enhance the positive influence on strategic EM.

China’s Government and its manufacturers (or those sharing a similar institutional environment) can expand the scope of their EM efforts from operational-level EM practices to strategic EM. The findings on the valid macro-level factors have led to practical suggestions for government bodies and manufacturers to improve the efficacy of strategic EM adoption. Overall, the implications help achieve the higher levels of firm-level environmental performance and alleviate the global pollution problem.

A particular value of this work lies in the demonstration of combining institutional theory (organization decoupling, isomorphic pressures) with practical consideration such as guanxi with government in the particular institutional environment of China to help address an important and context-related problem, environmental performance.