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The purpose of this paper is to debate the evolving relationship between libraries and users, and to justify the idea of participatory library and the use of the “participatory library” term. The paper also discusses the development trend of the participatory library and calls for empirical research on this area.

Various sources of literature are collected and examined. Together with the inclusion of personal ideas and experience, a wide range of opinions on the contemporary library is compared and synthesised.

The paper presents changes in the relationship between libraries and users in various periods of library development. It indicates an excessive attention on Library 2.0 while neglecting the participatory nature of the contemporary library. It also suggests that the term “participatory library” should be used as this term reflects the true nature of the contemporary library, and calls for empirical work on participatory library.

This discussion is moving forward and challenging our thinking about the participatory library. It provides librarians, library managers, scholars, and the library community with a fresh perspective on the contemporary library.

This paper aims to provide an overall picture of the application of Web 2.0 technologies in Australasian university libraries. The focus of the research was what types of Web 2.0 technologies were applied in such libraries as well as their purposes and features.

Content analysis was used in terms of quantitative approach. A checklist as the main research instrument was developed based on other checklists and questionnaires, and synthesized ideas from literature. Data were collected by accessing all Australasian university library web sites within two weeks. Then, Microsoft Excel was utilized as a main tool to synthesize and analyze data, and present results.

At least two‐thirds of Australasian university libraries deployed one or more Web 2.0 technologies. Only four Web 2.0 technologies were used for specific purposes and with some basic features. The general Web 2.0 application indexes were still low as the mean application index was 12 points and the highest index was 37 points (out of 100).

A combination of content analysis with survey and/or interview may enable future researchers to analyze other aspects (e.g. the application of internal wikis or the use of instant messaging for reference services) of Web 2.0 that a single method of content analysis could not gain.

This unique study explores the application of Web 2.0 in a wide scope including any Australasian university libraries that deployed any types of Web 2.0 technologies. This study is useful for Australasian university libraries in evaluating/deploying Web 2.0. Library managers, librarians and other university libraries may also find this helpful once they want to implement such technologies in their libraries.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate issues surrounding Web 2.0 technologies and their relevance to libraries by general discussion and examples from library practice.

A broad narrative account of Web 2.0 developments combined with illustrations of how one library in particular reacted to these developments.

It was found that all libraries need to evolve a Web 2.0 strategy to promote this aspect of their services, but that they will need to devise solutions to specific problems as part of this strategy. These include the range of Web 2.0 platforms that are on offer and the authentication and workload issues associated with this diversity. A single, unified library system‐based approach to Web 2.0 is offered as a viable alternative to using disparate external services.

This paper does not resolve the difference between a multi‐platform Web 2.0 strategy and the single, unified library system‐based approach, although a preference for the systems‐based approach is suggested. The relative strengths and weaknesses of these two approaches is worthy of further research.

At the level of practice, this viewpoint article offers two alternative Web 2.0 strategies which can be applied quite readily in everyday library work.

This paper tries to offer a clear range of options for librarians interested in pursuing Web 2.0 services, facilitating successful service enhancement in the working library.

The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of board characteristics on environmental performance in manufacturing firms of the emerging East Asian markets. The authors adopt a triple perspective of environmental performance that focusses on three major environmental areas including resource reduction, emission reduction and product innovation.

The authors consider three main board characteristics, namely, board size, board independence and board leadership structure, and investigate their impacts on a multidimensional construct of environmental performance. Specifically, both linear and quadratic functions are applied to address a possibility of the non-linear relationship between board size and environmental performance. The authors use fixed-effects estimations on a sample of manufacturing firms in the emerging East Asian countries between 2011 and 2016.

The study explores an inverse U-shaped relationship between board size and environmental performance. The authors also reveal that manufacturing firms are more likely to have better environmental performance when the proportion of independent directors on board increases. However, the separation of CEO and board chair roles has no impact on environmental performance.

The findings have important implications by identifying the role of a board of directors in implementing environmental protection strategies and by providing a foundation for corporate efforts to enhance sustainable development.

The study provides complete understanding of environmental performance as a multidimensional construct and sheds light on the influence of board characteristics, especially the inverse U-shaped influence of board size, on environmental performance in the East Asian manufacturing industries.

The objective of the paper is to examine the profile and determinants of urban poverty in the two largest cities in Vietnam – Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh. The paper also investigates the dynamic aspect of urban poverty in Vietnam.

The authors use regression and data from the 2009 Urban Poverty Survey to examine the determinants of poverty in Vietnam. To analyse the poverty dynamics, an approach by Carter and May is used to decompose poverty into structural and stochastic poverty.

Using the poverty line of 12,000 thousand VND/person/year, the poverty incidence is estimated at 17.4 percent for Hanoi and 12.5 percent for Ho Chi Minh (HCM) City. There is a large proportion of the poor who are found stochastically poor. Hanoi has higher rates of structural poverty than HCM City. The proportion of structurally poor and stochastically non‐poor is rather small. Overall, the poor have fewer assets than the non‐poor. The poor also have poorer housing conditions, especially substantially lower access to tap water than the non‐poor. Heads of the poor households tend to have lower education and unskilled work than the heads of the non‐poor households.

In cities of Vietnam, a large proportion of the poor are found stochastically poor.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between dynamic capabilities and sustainable business performance in Vietnamese small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), focusing on the mediating role of digitalization strategies. Specifically, the authors seek to explore whether and how the three critical characteristics of dynamic capabilities (DCs) – sensing, seizing and transforming capabilities – are linked to business model innovation (BMI) or sustained performance and what dimensions contribute to their development and adoption in digitalization strategies.

The authors analyse a sample of 596 Vietnamese SMEs using a validated measurement framework to explore the three clusters of DCs activities and their contributions to digitalization strategies, BMI and sustainable business performance across economic, social and environmental dimensions.

The study highlights the pivotal role of sensing, seizing and transforming capabilities in the adoption of digitalization strategies, BMI, as well as in promoting sustainable business performance. Firstly, sensing capability profoundly influences product digitalization strategy, whereas seizing capability has the greatest impact on process digitalization strategy. Secondly, sensing and transforming capabilities significantly contribute to BMI. Thirdly, both process and product digitalization strategies exert a significant positive influence on sustainable business performance, especially the environmental dimension. Finally, the study exhibits the indirect impacts of seizing and sensing capabilities on sustainable business performance through product and process digitization strategies.

This study extends recent research by investigating the DCs underlying a firm’s digitalization strategies and contribute to ongoing calls for further investigation in the DCs literature. This research design, which draws from a validated measurement framework, responds to recent calls to broaden the toolkit used in DCs research. The practical implications of this study can benefit SMEs in Vietnam and beyond as they seek to enhance their digitalization strategies and achieve sustainable competitive advantage.

The purpose of this paper is to trace the way in which a popular ritual became one of Vietnam’s most important festivals, elevated as a celebration of national heroism and charts its gradual transformation in modern society.

This research focuses on the combination of a fertility rite and narratives of St Gióng based on nationalism or heroism created a special festival reflecting many traditional cultural characteristics of Vietnam and the Việt people and the transformation of St Gióng from a mythological to a national symbol of heroism in anti-invader history was recorded in texts.

The paper casts light on the mythologization and historicization of St Gióng in Vietnam’s particular historical context by decoding the Gióng symbol as a core element of the folktales and myths about St Gióng to understand the formation and development of St Gióng in the cultural history of Vietnam.

The paper is not exploring the Gióng symbol within a larger cultural context of nationalism and ethnosymbolic approach in a comparison of national symbolism and heroism.

The paper includes implications for advised scholars to conduct further exploration of the symbol and myth of not only St Gióng in Vietnam but also Kubera in India and Vaisravana in China to connect Kubera, Vaisravana and St Gióng under the connection of literal myth and heroic symbol.

The paper shows how processes of historicizing myth and mythologizing history are important features of Vietnamese socio-historical research.

The paper shows how a fertility rite became a historical festival and the figure of St Gióng became a symbol of patriotic heroism.

This study examines the motivational forces of self-transcendence and self-enhancement values in consumers' green apartment purchase intention since the values have been seen as the key determinants of environmental beliefs and concerns that motivate pro-environmental behaviour adoption amongst consumers regardless of external barriers. Additionally, this study identifies the role of environmental content in strengthening the effects of self-transcendence value.

Survey data were collected from 234 residents of three high-rise apartment buildings in Hanoi, Vietnam. Measure reliability and validity were tested by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) before hierarchical ordinal least squares regression (OLS) was conducted to test the hypotheses.

The research results reveal a significant positive relationship between self-transcendence value and consumers' green apartment purchase intention. However, environmental problem-related content exposure was found to weaken the effect of self-transcendence value on the purchase intention whilst the effect was reported to be strengthened by pro-environmental action-related content exposure.

Theoretically, this study emphasizes the importance of interaction effects between external factors and personal values in explaining consumer's decisions and behaviours. Practically, the research results provide valuable insights for marketers and developers into fostering the adoption of green building apartments amongst consumers.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of monitoring local authorities on the quality of governance and public services reported by citizens in Vietnam, using the Vietnam Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI) surveys.

PAPI randomly selected 200 locations in 93 districts of 30 provinces to conduct its survey in 2010, and subsequently rolled out the survey nationally in 2011 and 2012. Using 2011 and 2012 survey data, the authors compare the quality of governance and public services reported in provinces and districts that were covered in the 2011 PAPI survey with those that were not surveyed in 2010. Theories suggest that local authorities may improve their behavior if they have been surveyed and are, thus, aware that they are being monitored, leading to higher quality governance.

In this paper, the authors find that governance quality reported in later years by citizens in the surveyed provinces and districts of the 2010 PAPI survey was significantly higher than the quality reported by citizens in locations that were not surveyed in 2010. Monitoring appears to improve a wide range of governance aspects, including local participation in village decisions, transparency of local decision-making, accountability, administrative procedures and public service delivery.

The main innovation of this study is to use a randomized survey on governance as a natural experiment to measure the impact of monitoring on the quality of governance and public services, as reported by citizens.