Search results

Farmers' risk attitudes and risk perceptions play an essential role in shaping risk management strategies to address risks and uncertainties. Contract farming is considered as one of the feasible approaches to tackle farmers' concerns. However, risk perspectives under various categories have not been included in studies on farmers' preferences for contract farming in the literature, especially in Vietnam. This study aims to determine factors affecting farmers' choices of different contract farming practices.

The explanatory factor analysis (EFA) and multinomial logit model (MNL) were applied to explore the impacts of risk perspectives on farmers' preferences for contract farming. Data have been collected from 211 rice farmers in An Giang Province, “the rice bowl” of the Mekong Delta, Vietnam.

The study found that farm size, cooperatives, extension, market access and trust have significantly impacted on contract participation while a delay payment was a barrier for farmers' motivation to opt for the contract. Farmers' contract choices were also influenced by their risk attitudes and perceptions under different risk dimensions. The financial, policy and human risk-averse behavior predisposed farmers to single out the full contract while the policy and human risk-loving and production, market and finance risk-averse respondents were in favor of the marketing contract. Moreover, the findings indicated that the more farmers concerned about risk of weather and market, the more choices for the full contract, whereas the risk perceptions of weather and policy encouraged farmers to use the limited contract. By contrast, farmers who perceived the impacts of risk of diseases/pests and human were likely to adopt the marketing contract.

This study just focuses on collecting data from farmers’ perspective. Future studies involving stakeholders such as enterprises and policy makers are strongly recommended so as to design suitable contracts and enforce contract schemes effectively in Vietnam.

The findings also contribute to the literature on different types of contracts and the multidimensional aspect of risk for rice production in Vietnam.

Agricultural systems in Mekong Delta have transformed to cope with climate change. Various researches pointed out that integrated agriculture-aquaculture (IAA) farming systems (i.e., rice-shrimp, rice-fish…) emerged as potential climate adaptive practices. However, limited studies are attempting to assess the sustainability of these agricultural practices. Therefore, it is essential to assess whether or not these systems will be sustainable in the context of climate change and what can be done to make it sustainable. The present study conducted the sustainability assessment of the rice-shrimp system to identify potential areas for improvement as well as policy implication to increase resilience and adaptation of coastal IAA system which could contribute to the understanding of other coastal agricultural deltas around the globe.

This study used a quantitative approach including the assessment protocol of van Asselt et al. (2014), the assessment framework of Vanloon et al. (2005), and the MCA methodology to flexibly and holistically assess the sustainability level of agricultural systems.

Results concluded that rice-shrimp systems have the potential to improve livelihood, food security, and adaptation of coastal farmers. Major improvements should be considered for productivity, efficiency, and equity themes, while minor improvements can be made for stability, durability, and compatibility themes.

This research could be used as a guideline for sustainability assessment in a context-specific case study of IAA, which showed a potential for the application of other climate-smart IAAs in similar contexts around the globe.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to explain access to formal and informal credit in agriculture of Vietnam; and to compare the effectiveness between regular econometrics and machine learning techniques.

The multinomial logit (MNL) regression model and the random forest (RF) technique are employed for comparison purposes. To avoid heteroskedasticity, the robust covariance matrix is computed to estimate the sandwich estimator which in turn provides an asymptotic covariance matrix for biased estimators. Additionally, multicollinearity is tested among independent variables with variance inflation factors less than 3. Adequacy approach and sensitivity analysis are used to determine relevant levels of predictors. For models comparison, statistical evaluation metrics including Cohen’s κ, mean absolute error, root mean squared error and relative absolute error are employed.

The discrepancy between sensitivity analysis and adequacy approach revealed that MNL is more compatible for explaining determinants of credit participation. Due to insignificant differences in the evaluation metrics between models, the winner of choice is undetermined. Among other determinants, collateral, farmsize, income, procedure, literacy and all risk variables stand out to be critical factors when deciding borrowing schemes. While financially literate farmers tend to acquire loans from both sources, borrowing decisions against different risk sources depend on risk type and famers’ own desire to borrow.

Results of the MNL model are more consistent with literatures, which reinforce the role of collateral in the local credit scheme. Besides, financial literacy and farmers’ perception on different risk sources also influence how farmers’ borrowing strategies vary among sources.

This chapter provides information on the development of Vietnamese education under the influence of global forces based on the analysis of relevant education research and policies using Wolhuter’s frameworks. In the process of coming up with ways to develop education in the face of different influences of globalization, besides having reactions with patterns commonly found in countries around the world, Vietnam also has responses that reflect its own political, sociocultural and economic characteristics. The state still plays a controlling role in education at all levels and many culture-related features that have existed throughout the country’s history have hardly changed, namely aspects related to teachers, learners and teaching and learning methods. To sustain its education in the globalized era, Vietnam must make more efforts in various aspects such as the link between education and employment, the logic of education objectives, the feasibility and appropriateness of curricula, quality of education, especially of higher education and equality in education for underprivileged groups.

The Vietnamese Mekong River Delta (VMD) is one of the most affected deltas by climate change in the world. Several studies have investigated factors influencing farmers' climate change adaptation behaviors in the region; however, little is known about the effectiveness of such measures. This paper examines the determinants of adaptation strategies among VMD rice farmers and assesses the impacts of such practices on rice yield.

Endogenous switching regressions were employed using a survey data of 300 rice-producing households in An Giang and Tra Vinh provinces in 2016.

The results show that farmers receiving early disaster warnings are more likely to adopt adaptation measures to climate change. If nonadaptors had chosen to respond, their rice yield would have increased by 0.932 tons/ha/season.

The data sample is small and collected from two provinces in the VMD only; therefore, the results may be specific for the study sites. However, future research can adopt the proposed method for other regions.

The study estimates the production impacts of farmers' decisions on whether or not to adapt to extreme climate events. The proposed approach allows for capturing both observed and unobserved behaviors.

This study aims to examine the impact of transformational leadership on green innovation and green learning in construction supply chains.

A theoretical framework of research hypotheses between transformational leadership, green learning and green innovation is developed. Using a survey questionnaire, data are collected from construction firms in Vietnam. Structural equation modeling is used to test the research hypotheses.

The results indicate that transformational leadership promotes both green learning and green innovation (i.e. green product innovation and green process innovation) while green learning positively affects green process innovation. Furthermore, it is found that green learning mediates the linkage between transformational leadership and green process innovation.

This study contributes to the development of leadership research in construction by showing the significance of leadership at the supply chain level.

Leadership is regarded as a key factor for most organizations' success and competitive advantages. In construction, leadership has been widely studied at the project and organizational levels while its important role is also explored at the supply chain level. Nevertheless, in terms of construction supply chains, there has been still very limited evidence about the effects of transformational leadership. Thus, this study fills the gap in knowledge by empirically examining the relationships between transformational leadership, green learning and green innovation.

This chapter explores the influences of Vietnamese culture coupled with national policies on gender equality on academic women’s advancement into senior leadership positions.

In-depth interviews with 20 mid-level women leaders and five top-level leaders were conducted at four different higher education institutions in the Mekong Delta (MD) in southern Vietnam. In addition, document analysis and participant observations contributed to the overall analysis, which allowed for the cross-check of data from multiple sources to investigate the participants’ understanding, perception, conceptualization, and interpretation of their experiences of advancing in their careers.

Findings show that there is a large gap between the policies and gender practices. Gender equality does not exist in reality, regardless of tremendous efforts from the Vietnamese government and policy makers to ensure it in all spheres of life. Additionally, patriarchal hierarchy remains dominant in the institutional administrative system, and Vietnamese Confucian ideology continues to confine and adversely affect both men’s and women’s perceptions of women’s social roles, status, and forms of social participation. Nevertheless, academic women still develop professionally and find their own ways to advance to a few key leadership positions at their institutions.

The sample of this study is limited to academic women in the MD in Vietnam. Future research should include more women and universities and colleges, from not only the southern part but also other regions of Vietnam. Further, international and comparative studies should be conducted to see differences in experiences of academic women from several Southeast Asian countries as they move up their career ladder.

Because there have not been any empirical studies about women and leadership in academia in the MD, this study serves as a resource and foundation for improving gender policies and practices as well as future research on this topic and gender issues of colleges and universities in Vietnam.

The growing awareness of climate risks associated with food safety issues has drawn the attention of stakeholders urging the food industry to carry out a sustainable food safety management system (FSMS). This study aims to investigate whether the critical success factors (CSFs) of sustainable FSMS can contribute to achieving climate neutrality, and how the adoption of FSMS 4.0 supported by the Industry Revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0) technologies moderates the impact of the CSFs on achieving climate neutrality.

Survey data from 255 food production firms in China and Vietnam were utilised for the empirical analysis. The research hypotheses were examined using structural equations modelling (SEM) with route analysis and bootstrapping techniques.

The results show that top management support, human resource management, infrastructure and integration appear as the significant CSFs that directly impact food production firms in achieving climate neutrality. Moreover, the results demonstrate that the adoption of FSMS 4.0 integrated with the three components (ecosystems, quality standards and robustness) significantly moderates the impact of the CSFs on achieving climate neutrality with lower inputs in human resources, infrastructure investment, integration and external assistance, and higher inputs in strengthening food safety administration.

This study provides empirical findings that fill the research gap in understanding the relationship between climate neutrality and the CSFs of sustainable FSMS while considering the moderating effects of the FSMS 4.0 components. The results provide theoretical and practical insights into how the food production sector can utilise IR 4.0 to attain sustainable FSMS for achieving climate neutrality.

This paper aims to present the findings of a survey into attitudes towards the environment and the pro-environmental behaviours of young adults in Vietnam.

An online survey was administered to university students in Vietnam’s two most populous cities, Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City (N = 391).

The results suggest that environmental considerations are not taken into account in young Vietnamese adults’ purchase intentions. This is more evident in expressive purchases, but also, to some degree, in utilitarian purchases.

For the marketers of environmentally friendly products, this represents at least two key challenges: first, to try to shift the attitudes of young adult consumers towards thinking of environmental friendliness as an attractive characteristic and status-filled activity for potential expressive purchases. Second, making environmentally friendly alternatives of expressive goods more visible and more widely available in Vietnam.

Non-government organisations and governments seeking to protect the environment need to consider this unique dynamic in social marketing campaigns to increase the desirability of pro-environmental product choices and other pro-environmental behaviours.

This paper examines pro-environmental behaviours and intentions of young adults in Vietnam for the first time. The paper establishes that self-expression is more important than the environment, and it is also evident that these young consumers are still vulnerable to perceived social pressure when it comes to expressing themselves.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of culture on the sense of self-efficacy in teaching English as a Foreign Language of a group of university teachers in Vietnam. Research exploring the relationship between culture and self-efficacy is extremely rare despite the acknowledged importance of culture in the formation of self-efficacy beliefs.

This study took the form of qualitative research with diverse, data collection instruments: individual interviews, focus group discussions, observations and journaling.

Findings indicate that certain features of the Vietnamese cultural context impacted on the way the study teachers constructed their sense of self-efficacy. Specifically, under the influence of a Vietnamese sense of belonging, the study teachers tended to rely more on efficacy-building information from other people rather than from themselves. The perception of inequality in power may have heightened negative emotional arousal, thus contributing to a negative sense of self-efficacy among the teachers. The Vietnamese concept of face and the high status of teachers in the social hierarchy in part mediated teachers’ sense of self-efficacy.

The perceived burden of performing both parenting and teaching roles and responsibilities may have diminished the self-efficacy in teaching of female teachers.

The contribution and implications of the study are discussed.