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Given the seriousness of environmental issues, academic research has proposed social norms as an effective policy tool to encourage a wide range of pro-environmental behaviors, including green consumption. However, tangible evidence of the effectiveness of the social norm approach for green consumption behaviors is unreconciled, raising controversy about such a strategy. Considering that social norm interventions are only effective when targeted at the right consumers, this study aims to focus on exploring the role of individual difference factors, namely, social power value-, social face value- and independence orientations, in clarifying the effects of social norms on green consumption behaviors.

The study uses hierarchical ordinary least squares regression to test the hypotheses with survey data from 269 consumers in Southeast Asia.

The study reveals that perceived social norms positively predict green consumption behaviors, providing additional evidence for the effectiveness of the social norms. It also finds that the perceived social norms have a stronger impact on the green consumption behaviors of consumers who value social power and social face. However, the effect becomes weaker for consumers with a strong tendency toward independence.

This study highlights the importance of individual difference factors in explaining the effectiveness of social norms. The current findings also offer insightful implications for designing more effective social influence approaches for constructing green consumption culture.

While consumers are increasingly concerned about the environment and commit themselves to environmental protection, they are still reluctant to act. This phenomenon, to date, has remained a puzzle and gained much attention from practitioners and researchers. As a contribution to the understanding of the phenomenon, this study aims to examine the role of downward social comparison as an explanation for the inconsistency of the relationships between two types of pro-environmental attitudes, namely attitudes toward the environment and attitudes toward sustainable consumption, and two sustainable consumption behaviors including electricity-saving behavior and unneeded consumption reduction.

Hierarchical multiple regressions were employed to test the hypotheses with survey data from 381 consumers in a large city in a Southeast Asian country.

The regression results support our expectation that downward social comparison negatively moderates the relationships between the two attitude variables and the two sustainable consumption behaviors.

Our findings provide some insights into the complexity of the attitude-behavior relationship and offer some practical recommendations for governments and policymakers in designing more effective behavioral interventions for the sustainability of human society.

This paper employed the self-determination theory (SDT) to examine the synergistic impacts of intrinsic, extrinsic and prosocial motivations in promoting sustained pro-environmental consumption behaviors (PECB). To provide evidence for the study’s theoretical framework, the authors focus on the behavior of reducing single-use plastics.

A mall-intercept survey for consumption of single-use plastic products in three big cities of Vietnam (Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh city) was conducted to test the theoretical framework. In total, 468 consumers completed the questionnaires. Data were analyzed with SPSS and AMOS.

Intrinsic and prosocial motivations are found to be significant predictors of sustained PECB. More importantly, beyond the direct effects of intrinsic and prosocial motivations, the authors also found positive interaction effects between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and between intrinsic and prosocial motivation on encouraging sustained PECB.

This research offers a new insight for encouraging sustained PECB. Different from the extant perspectives which usually deal with initiating PECB, the authors emphasize sustaining the behavior. Moreover, this research examines the interaction effects between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations and between intrinsic and prosocial motivations in sustaining PECB.

This paper aims to examine the economic efficiency of Vietnamese 172 higher education (HE) institutions within the 2012–2016 inclusive period through the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach. The authors also compare public and private, multidisciplinary and mono-disciplinary, non-autonomy and autonomy, non-international and international HE Institutions’ efficiency.

This study derived from an unique dataset from the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) of Vietnam. The data set comprises financial and academic annual reports of higher education institutions (HEIs). The authors achieved totally 204 Vietnamese HEIs, and the sample for analysis is 172 after the elimination of missing units, accounting for 84.3% entire of Vietnamese HEIs. The authors estimate the efficiency scores relying on these selected inputs and outputs by using the DEA method.

Overall, HEIs in Vietnam decreased their operational efficiency during the 2012–2016. It also seems that public universities operate in the absence of market mechanism so that they tend to be less efficient than their counterparts in private sector. Based on our analysis, the authors observe that the HEIs including the international programmes have higher efficiency scores rather than these without international programmes.

This study contributes to the theoretical aspects as follows. First, it enriches the existent efficiency literature on HE using the DEA approach. This stands out among similar studies in Vietnam in terms of duration (from 2012–2016) and data size (172 entities). Second, the research is the first to examine HEIs in terms of disciplinary (mono or multi-disciplinary) and autonomy (autonomous and non-autonomous), internalization (international programmes). These aspects have been silent in previous studies of HEIs in Vietnam.

While interior public space can be one of the most important criteria in designing high-rise residential buildings in urban environments in practitioners’ opinion, this study aims at investigating the importance of this criterion from consumers’ lifestyle standpoint. In particular, this study aims to examine the effects of different lifestyle orientations on consumers’ preference for this housing feature. Three relevant lifestyles are investigated including independence, family-orientation and homebody.

Survey data were collected from 331 owners of high-rise apartments in three residential buildings in urban areas.

The research results revealed significant and positive effects of independence and homebody lifestyle orientations on consumers’ preference for interior public spaces. Interestingly, a family-oriented lifestyle was found to negatively moderate the effect of a homebody lifestyle on the preference, providing evidence for possible exclusive impacts of different lifestyle orientations on the preference.

This study emphasizes the exclusive impacts of different lifestyles on consumers’ preference for housing features that need to be considered by developers and marketers when designing consumer positions and marketing strategies.

Media information is often considered critical to foster pro-environmental consumption behaviours (PECB). However, empirical evidence was inconsistent about the impact of environmental information exposure on the behaviours. Thus, the study aims to clarify that impact by investigating three different types of environmental information. Moreover, the study posited that consumers who hold different environment-related values may be receptive to and influenced differently by these types of information.

Survey data were collected from 259 Gen-Y consumers in urban areas. The data were analysed for measure reliabilities and validities before hypotheses were tested using ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions.

The results revealed that the environmental problem-, action- and effectiveness-related information exposure affects pro-environmental personal norms (PNs) which then influence the behaviours. More importantly, the influences of action-related information and effectiveness-related information on PNs were moderated differently by egoistic values held by consumers.

The study contributes to the literature by highlighting the importance of information-value congruence in designing effective media campaigns.

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 paper is to show the adaptation of participatory concept: “from passive to active community” which is the key point to achieve successes of the case study project – a cultural village in Tam Thanh, Tam Ky, Quang Nam, Vietnam. Its achievements result from the employment of three principal steps including identifying core issues in the community, creating changes in human perceptions and living conditions, and demanding operation and maintenance of the community further. The project can seem to be an outstanding showcase for the applicability and possibility of other community projects around Vietnam.

The paper uses the previous community projects developed in Vietnam. However, they are less effective for the community in long-term due to ignoring/underestimating the role of local people. The case study is an impoverished residential neighbourhood in Tam Thanh, Quang Nam. The authors along with the colleagues observed and conducted the workshops on site to understand the problems, values and expectations of people and the land. The paper likes as a summary for achievements and lessons extracted from that field study. The comparison to the previous projects shows the efficiency of participatory design with the active involvement of the local community.

The practical experiences to find successes for the community projects in Vietnam: collaboration of experts, architects, volunteers and local people; classification of roles for groups of participants; the involvement of the local government. engagement of a collaborative relationship with the community under the patience, comprehension and sympathy of all members of the community; and role of the architects involving the projects should be supported for people’s participation to come up with the idea instead of proposing strict ideas.

The appropriate approaches on the right subjects and right time are the key of successes and sufficiency for the community projects, particularly to the impoverished neighbourhoods or places with sensitive issues. The Tam Thanh village is a typical example and its experiences can be disseminated for the other projects. It indicates the active and respectful involvement of like-minded people (experts, volunteers, sponsors, managers and in particular local people) is very important to achieve the final expected destination in the purpose for/by/with the community.

The huge effect of community projects is directly on the local people. The approaching and understanding them is challenging. An achievable community project is that the real needs of the people are provided; they are aware of their roles and benefits; and finally, the values are retained and developed sustainably in long term. The community projects are characterised by the participation of many people in many different stages: analysis, design and implementation. Therefore, for the experts, volunteers and managers, they learn to listen to the voice of the local people and to avoid the forced thoughts and underestimation of local people’s involvement.

The value of the study is that the nature of participatory design method is shown through activities and results of the community project in Tam Thanh. The delivery from theoretical features to practical works is not easy and needs observation and understanding of local culture and life. Depending on each specific location, the application of this design theory is flexible and adaptive. An idea for every project is initiation; however, the participation of local people is key to the project’s achievement.

Women migrant street vendors are considered a vulnerable group in societies, thereby being hard hit during a crisis. This research aims to examine effects of COVID-19 social distancing on their businesses, consumption, health and general lives; solutions and mitigation strategies that they adopted in response to these adverse effects; and their recovery of socioeconomic lives after social distancing.

The data were collected from the women migrant street vendors in urban Vietnam. Descriptive statistics, probit model and ordered probit model were used for empirical analysis.

Women migrant street vendors faced immense challenges during social distancing. They also lacked solutions to sustain their businesses and were forced to resort to various mitigation strategies. Their socioeconomic lives were also slow to recover after social distancing. In addition, those experiencing greater business loss faced more adverse effects during social distancing and have more difficulties in the recovery of socioeconomic lives after social distancing.

This research highlights the importance of redesigning social policies to support women migrant street vendors during crises. It also emphasizes the need to formalize and legalize their activities to foster sustainable and inclusive development in the long term.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is among the first attempts to explore the effects of COVID-19 social distancing on the women migrant street vendors and to examine how they respond to these adverse effects.

Drought and salinity intrusion aggravated by climate change threaten agricultural livelihoods in Viet Nan's Mekong Delta. In response, authorities have built water management infrastructure for irrigation and salinity protection. This study assessed the impact of one such project, the Ba Lai dam in Ben Tre province, on the livelihoods of aquaculture farmers.

This study uses the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework to assess the impact of the Ba Lai dam on the livelihood capitals of 18 farming households in four communes, located both upstream and downstream of the dam.

The authors find that, apart from some positive effects, the dam has also brought negative environmental consequences, such as increased water pollution. The authors also find that farmers have responded to the changes by adapting their livelihood practices.

The samples were relatively small, encompassing four communes in Ben Tre province. On the other hand, this case study is instructive to the many ongoing infrastructure projects in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta.

The project have caused an increase in water-related social conflict.

The case of the Ba Lai dam provides a cautionary example for infrastructure-based water management plans, both in Viet Nam and more broadly. The study suggests the need to strengthen community participation and prioritize impacts of farmers' capital assets when constructing water management infrastructure for climate change adaptation.