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This paper aims to propose practical recommendations in accordance with the strategic roles played by research and development (R&D) in multinational companies (MNCs).

This study applies a qualitative method to investigate the talent management (TM) practices implemented in MNCs’ R&D units.

The findings identify four R&D strategies and four sectors of TM practices. Furthermore, there exists an alignment between R&D strategies and TM practices.

This paper has several limitations. This qualitative research is exploratory, and larger samples or quantitative methods are needed to ensure the wider applicability of the findings. When possible, longitudinal studies yield superior results in revealing the evolving strategic roles of R&D subsidiaries and their TM practices. The authors used China as the research context, and similar studies in other emerging countries with active R&D activities are required to further validate or complement the findings in this study.

This study has some practical implications for companies with regard to aligning their TM practices with R&D strategies.

R&D units play an increasingly significant role in MNCs and TM is a key issue. However, there is a lack of TM research focusing on R&D employees by taking strategies into account.

Using data from Vietnam to reveal which factors affected the impressive growth of Vietnam's e-commerce during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Drawing on the Stimulus–Organism–Response (S-O-R) framework, the study proposed a conceptual model in which the influence of COVID-19 information overload (IO) on online purchase intention (OPI) was discovered. The authors were also interested in examining the moderator roles of self-construal (SC), perceived ease of use (PEOU) and perceived usefulness (PU) in inducing the intention to make an online purchase.

Perceived threat (PT) and cyberchondria (C) played full mediation roles in the impact of IO on OPI. Moreover, PT was found to be a partial mediator of the relationship between IO and C. Furthermore, interdependent self-construal (IntSC) positively moderated the positive effect of IO on PT. Finally, PU and PEOU showed significant moderated moderation effects, in which PU moderated the effects of PT and C on OPI, whereas PU itself was moderated by PEOU.

Understanding the positive effects of IO, C and PT on OPI can be useful for marketers. In addition, managers should improve the ease-of-use and usefulness of online stores/platforms to attract more consumers to online channels.

Marketers and managers should learn more about how to take advantage of IO, PT and C. For instance, to sell medical supplements, marketer should push up related-health information such as obesity, diabetics, to make consumers perceive a threat to their health and search for ways to improve their health condition. This is the time when advertisements for medical supplements bring into play. This method can be applied in many different fields. The key is that marketers should find out what is the threat that their targeted customers can perceive and then spread out a huge amount of relevant information.

The government should control infodemic and guide people to obtain official information. This helps to restrain the PT and C, which seriously harm people's health and affect their behaviors, such as making unusual or panicked purchases. This study also suggests a considerable concern that residents of Asian cultures, where IntSC is dominant, may perceive threat more than residents of Western cultures.

Limited research addresses the relationship between PEOU and PU when they act as moderators. Current research not only explains the moderation effect of PU under the influence of PEOU but also suggests that PEOU may be more important than PU in emerging markets due to customers' inexperience in online markets or channels. It also explores the factors that influenced OPI in Vietnam during the COVID-19 outbreak and contributes to the scientific literature on Vietnam, especially in terms of discovering the tendency of SC, which has not been mentioned before in research about Vietnamese.