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There is limited research on consumer intention and credit card adoption in the transitional economies of Southeast Asia. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the key elements that influence an individual’s intention of adopting credit cards in the transitional economy Vietnam.

A questionnaire was developed based on the technology adoption literature. After data cleaning, 595 responses were deemed valid. Factor analysis (EFA and CFA) was utilized on split samples, and a structural equation model developed to identify the influential technology adoption factors.

The analysis found strong support for the hypotheses theoretically developed. In the transitional economy of Vietnam, consumer’s intention to adopt credit cards was influenced by “Perceived usefulness (PU),” “Perceived ease of use (PEOU),” “subjective norm (SN),” “perceived self-efficacy (PSE)” and “Anxiety”. However, “perceived financial cost (PFC)” was not a significant factor.

The use of cross-sectional data does not enable the analysis of time sequence of the determinants of consumer intention.

This research provides a body of knowledge on modern banking payment systems and credit card utilization factors in the transitional economy of Vietnam which has relevance for other transitional as well as developing economies of Southeast Asia, and is a good reference source for foreign investors, banks and card service companies.

To date, there are no studies that explore the interaction between “PU,” “PEOU,” “PFC,” “SN,” “PSE,” “Anxiety” and “Behavioral Intention” in the context of the Vietnamese credit card market, nor other transitional markets in Southeast Asia.

Discusses the long existing and confusing problems of establishing the relationship of who is, and who if not, a dependent worker. Reflects developments which have occurred in British law as it affects the employment field, plus an evaluation and analysis of some of the different types of employment relationships which have evolved by examining, where possible, the status of each of these relationships. Concludes that the typical worker nowadays finds himself in a vulnerable position both economically and psychologically owing to the insecurity which exists.

We know a great deal today about the impact of transformational leaders, their actions, typical behaviors and their ways of influencing others (Bass, 1985, 1999a, b; Bass & Avolio, 1990). However, we know relatively little about the psychological substructure, the internal world of these leaders, namely who they are and how they developed this way. These aspects were raised earlier in Bass’s early work (Bass, 1985) but have received little attention so far (Bass, 1998; Judge & Bono, 2000). We argue that the internal world of a transformational leader is characterized by a motivation to lead, leadership self-efficacy, motivation and capacity to relate to others in a pro-social way, optimism and openness to new experiences and viewpoints of others. We further argue that the origins of the ability and motivation to be a transformational leader lie in childhood experiences, and that the development of this ability and motivation can be understood and conceptualized by means of major developmental theories such as attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969, 1973, 1977, 1988). On the basis of these theories, we suggest a researchable conceptual framework for characterization of the internal world and the development of transformational leaders.

There is a growing need to train and support educators to introduce or enhance aspects of sustainability into post-secondary curriculum. The authors provide an overview of integration of curricular sustainability development and education as well as related institutional leadership at the post-secondary level. Turning to educational development for sustainability education, the authors share tools and resources to support educators from any discipline, to introduce, integrate, and/or enhance sustainability in their course, program, or initiative. The authors found very few examples of workshops to post-secondary teachers. For one such example, the Sustainability Education Intensive, a three-day workshop that the authors designed and led at the University of British Columbia. The authors summarize the workshop aspects that two years of participants found helpful, and how workshop involvement affected them as sustainability educators. The authors encourage post-secondary institutions to provide support in the form of workshops, resources, and funding to help educators introduce or enhance aspects of sustainability into their courses and programs. Students are asking for this, and, as they are future leaders, it is important that educators address the numerous environmental, social and economic issues that demand attention.

The overall goal of science is to build a valid and reliable body of knowledge about the functioning of the world and how applying that knowledge can change it. As personnel and human resources management researchers, we aim to contribute to the respective bodies of knowledge to provide both employers and employees with a workable foundation to help with those problems they are confronted with. However, what research on research has consistently demonstrated is that the scientific endeavor possesses existential issues including a substantial lack of (a) solid theory, (b) replicability, (c) reproducibility, (d) proper and generalizable samples, (e) sufficient quality control (i.e., peer review), (f) robust and trustworthy statistical results, (g) availability of research, and (h) sufficient practical implications. In this chapter, we first sing a song of sorrow regarding the current state of the social sciences in general and personnel and human resources management specifically. Then, we investigate potential grievances that might have led to it (i.e., questionable research practices, misplaced incentives), only to end with a verse of hope by outlining an avenue for betterment (i.e., open science and policy changes at multiple levels).

In his review of 30 years of research in Prospect Theory, Barberis (2013) notes that support for Prospect Theory had come mainly from the laboratory. In this paper, I write about a recurring phenomenon in real life that is consistent with Prospect Theory predictions in decision-making loss domain. The 60 cases noted in this paper are associated with specific risk seekers that had cost more than $140 billion (an average of $2.33 billion per case). Given space consider– ations, I provide synopses for 14 cases. A few of these cases have been discussed in the extant literature in connection with internal control, but were not considered from the perspective of Prospect Theory. It is striking that these cases are costly, all participants are young men, and almost all had followed the gambler’s martingale strategy – i.e., double down. While these cases are informative about risk-seeking behavior, they are not sufficiently systematic to be subjected to stylized archival research methods.

Participation is the active involvement of children and young people in decision-making regarding issues that affect their lives. It is crucial in the context of child protection and welfare systems and how they respond to the needs of children and young people. The purpose of this paper is to report on the evaluation of child and family participation in an early intervention and prevention programme implemented by the Irish Child and Family Agency. It provides an analysis of a comprehensive, “whole organization” approach to understand how participation is embedded in policy and practice.

This paper reports on a comparative qualitative case study of the perspectives of managers and practitioners about participation practice, identifying the facilitators and barriers, as well as their perspectives of the sustainability of participation within the agency and its partners. The authors draw on two complementary, theoretically informed studies evaluating participatory practice within the Agency using qualitative interviews with participants.

Overall, managers and practitioners had a positive attitude towards participation and identified examples of best practices. Facilitators included training, access to resources and the quality of relationships. Challenges for meaningful participation remain, such as the need to engage, hard to reach populations. Differences were identified regarding how embedded and sustainable participation was.

This paper provides a critical understanding of participation in practice and how to embed a culture of participation in child protection and welfare.

Website benchmarking theory and the website analysis method (WAM) are benchmark tested across non-commercial tropical tourism websites. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The abridged WAM benchmarks 280 tropical tourism websites from four continental areas (Africa, Asia, Oceania, and The Americas) and presence or absence of website components objectively rank-scores. Across locations significant website benchmark score differences are determined. In all, 20 of these websites are ranked by an eight expert focus group. These experts also seek-out the existence of allocated common website components.

The abridged WAM approach is suitable for benchmarking tropical tourism websites. Website benchmarking scores at-level are determined. At the website, domain, and function levels significant continental area differences exist. Experts cross-check the study. They find it easier to rank websites with fewer components, and show split decisions when determining the existence of common website components.

This study’s abridged version of WAM uses publicly viewable components to show significant differences across website scores, and identifies some missing components for possible future inclusion on the website, and it also supports the WAM benchmarking theory approach.

Website managers/owners can apply WAM (or an abridged WAM) to benchmark their websites. WAM is theoretically supported and it systematically allows comparison against the universal set of components and/or against competitor websites. A full or abridged WAM approach to website benchmarking is preferable to subjective or survey-based approaches.

This study successfully applies the Cassidy and Hamilton (2016) theory and approach to practical website benchmarking.

Work on the design and implementation for solar homes has been expanded to the community scale in several international projects. If low-carbon emission housing is to make an impact on citywide consumption of energy, we must move towards community-scale implementation of solar technologies, both in new housing developments and in existing ones. However, the uptake of solar communities requires new methods for implementation to promote innovation in the building industry, new policies and programmes on energy consumption and energy subsidies, as well as community-scale design guidelines for solar or other renewable technologies.

This research surveys the implementation process of selected solar community projects in Netherlands, United States and Canada. It looks at new policies and programmes that are promoting community-scale solar projects from the perspective of innovation in the building industry. It examines the various actors that are necessary for solar communities within an urban planning framework and identifies five main actor groups.