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The paper is aimed at examining the mediating role of action and coping plans in reducing intention-behaviour gap as a function of underlying perceived self-efficacy [action self-efficacy (ActS) and coping self-efficacy (CopS)] in organic food (OF) consumption.

A cross-sectional study was designed to examine the moderating role of perceived self-efficacy in the intention–plans–behaviour relationship. To test the theoretical framework, data from 453 valid questionnaires were recruited in Hanoi (Vietnam) and were analysed to test validity and reliability before being evaluated for hypothesis testing by Smart-PLS 4.0.

The results indicate that action and coping plans have significant positive effects on the relationship between intention and behaviour. CopS has a significant positive effect on the two paths of the intention-coping plan-behaviour mediation, whereas action plan (AP) has merely a significant positive link to the intention-AP path.

There are several limitations of the paper, including a small and undiversified-characteristic sample and general OF.

The findings of the study make recommendations for marketers to boost OF consumption in Vietnam.

This is the first study to examine a dual-moderated mediation model in narrowing the intention-behaviour gap, especially in the context of OF consumption. Particularly, the notions of plan and self-efficacy are divided into sub-constructs on the basis of different functions and both paths in the intention-plan-behaviour mediation are investigated. AP and coping plan are served as dual mediators, whereas ActS is regarded as moderator for both paths of intention-AP-behaviour link and CopS is examined as moderator for both paths of intention–coping plan–behaviour relationship, providing a holistic mechanism in translating intention into behaviour.

This study examines the effect of audit quality on earnings management to beat earnings targets among Chinese listed firms, taking into account the firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) practice.

The sample consists of all A-shares listed in the Chinese stock market from 2001 to 2019, except firms in the financial industry. Probit estimator is employed to observe the effect of audit quality, proxied by a binary variable indicating whether a firm is audited by a Big 4 audit firm, on the behavior of earnings management to beat earnings targets. Industry and year fixed effects are incorporated into the models to control for differences among industries and time periods.

The result of this study reveals that audit quality disciplines earnings management to beat earnings targets in Chinese firms. This result holds across different specification and endogeneity tests. The authors further find that auditors seem to be more tolerant to earnings-managed firms that actively disclose CSR activities. However, this moderating effect of CSR disclosure only exists among firms that manage earnings less aggressively.

The findings of this study suggest that market participants should be mindful of the earnings management phenomenon and make their investment decisions after carefully dissecting and confirming the truthfulness of firms’ financial reporting. Regulators should raise the requirement on the capacity of auditing services to ensure the quality of the audit outcome.

This study is the first to investigate the effect of audit quality on earnings management to beat earnings targets in Chinese firms. Moreover, this study pioneers in observing the moderating effect of CSR disclosure on the relationship between audit quality and earnings management.

We study how capital requirements, intended as a measure to ensure security for the financial system, can create moral hazard for banks in dealing with distressed debts.

Over the period spanning from 1993 to 2019, we manually gathered data on 1953 firms, identifying a total of 2,146 distress events, with 804 instances resulting in bankruptcy fillings.

Our analyses at the loan level and the bank level consistently show that loans of distressed firms are much more likely to be extended when the lenders are closer to the capital requirement limit. Exploiting the discontinuity in the predetermined maturity date of loans, we provide causal evidence on the relationship between capital ratios and extension likelihood. Distressed loans that are due just before the report date (end of a quarter) are much more likely to be extended than loans due just after the report date, after controlling for loan and firm characteristics. Additional analyses show that the effects are stronger when external financing is more costly and when the banks are poorly capitalized.

Our paper presents the first causal evidence of capital requirements on lending distortion, contributing to our understanding of the dynamics within the banking sector and providing policy implications for promoting financial stability and regulatory efficacy.

The purpose of this paper is to find out how uncertainties in the characterization of magnetic materials propagate through identification and numerical simulation to the computation of iron losses in electrical machines.

The probabilistic uncertainties in the iron losses are modelled with the spectral approach using chaos polynomials. The Sobol indices are used for the global sensitivity analysis. The machine is modelled with a 2D finite element method and the iron losses are computed with a previously developed accurate method.

The uncertainties propagate in different ways to the different components of losses, i.e. eddy current, hysteresis, and excess losses. The propagation is also different depending on the investigated region of the machine, i.e. Stator or rotor teeth, yokes, tooth tips.

The method does not account for uncertainties related to the manufacturing process, which might result in even larger variability.

A major implication of the findings is that the identification of iron loss parameters at low frequencies does not affect the loss variability. The identification with high-frequency measurement is very important for the rotor tooth tips. The variability in the excess loss parameters is of low impact.

The presented results are of importance for the magnetic material manufacturers and the electrical machine designers. The manufacturers can plan the measurement and identification procedures as to minimize the output variability of the parameters. The designers of the machine can use the result and the presented procedures to estimate the variability of their design.

Although training is essential to continuous improvement, scant literature examines post-training facilitators for continuous improvement. The study aims to explore the relationship between training and continuous improvement, the mediating role of self-efficacy and the moderate role of training transfer climate.

This study utilizes the questionnaire survey of 455 Vietnamese employees to test the link between continuous improvement training and continuous improvement, the moderate role of the training transfer climate and the mediating role of self–efficacy.

Research results reveal that training positively influences continuous improvement. Furthermore, self-efficacy fully intervenes in the link between training and continuous improvement. Finally, the training transfer climate positively moderates this link.

Although the link between training and continuous improvement is suspicious, there is scant research on post-training facilitators of continuous improvement applications. To the best of the author's knowledge, this study is one of the first to explore the moderation role of transfer climate and the mediation role of self-efficacy in the relationship between training and continuous improvement.

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.

Financial ratios are often used to classify firms into different clusters of financial performance. This study aims to classify firms using financial ratios with advanced techniques and identify the transition matrix of firms moving clusters during the COVID-19 period.

This study uses compositional data (CoDa) analysis based on existing clustering methods with transformed data by weighted logarithms of financial ratios. The data include 66 listed firms in Vietnam’s food and beverage and fishery sectors over a three-year period from 2019 to 2021, including the COVID-19 period.

These firms can be classified into three clusters of distinctive characteristics, which can serve as benchmarks for solvency and profitability. The results also show the migration from one cluster to another during the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing for the calculation of the transition probability or the transition matrix.

The findings indicate three distinct clusters (good, average and below-average firm performance) that can help financial analysts, accountants, investors and other strategic decision-makers in making informed choices.

Clustering firms with their financial ratios often suffer from various limitations, such as ratio choices, skewed distributions, outliers and redundancy. This study is motivated by a weighted CoDa approach that addresses these issues. This method can be extended to classify firms in multiple sectors or other emerging markets.

To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the era of Logistics 4.0, machine learning (ML) techniques and simulations have emerged as highly optimized tools. This study examines the operational dynamics of a supply chain (SC) in Vietnam as a case study utilizing an ML simulation approach.

A robust fuel consumption estimation model is constructed by leveraging multiple linear regression (MLR) and artificial neural network (ANN). Subsequently, the proposed model is seamlessly integrated into a cutting-edge SC simulation framework.

This paper provides valuable insights and actionable recommendations, empowering SC practitioners to optimize operational efficiencies and fostering an avenue for further scholarly investigations and advancements in this field.

This study introduces a novel approach assessing sustainable SC performance by utilizing both traditional regression and ML models to estimate transportation costs, which are then inputted into the discrete event simulation (DES) model.

The paper aims to assess the impact of weather-induced shocks on household food consumption in the rural Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD) through the case of Long An province and evaluate the effectiveness of widely used coping strategies in mitigating weather-related shock impacts.

The system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation method is applied to explore information on shock incidence, recovery, and time occurrences. The paper uses a sample of 272 repeated farming households from 5-wave survey data from 2008 to 2016, resulting in 1,360 observations.

The paper confirms the robust negative effect of a natural shock on food consumption. Additionally, using savings proves to be the most potent measure to smooth food consumption. Other favorable coping strategies are “getting assistance from relatives, friends” or “getting assistance from the Government, and non-government organizations (NGOs).” The mitigating effects are also traced in the current analysis.

Using caution when generalizing the results from Long An to the whole VMD is reasonable. The rather limited observations of coping strategies do not allow the authors to analyze any specific strategy.

The proposed approach employs the GMM technique and controls for endogenous coping strategies and thus provides accurate estimates of the effects of weather-related shocks and the mitigation effectiveness in the rural VMD.

Promoted for its inclusivity, agricultural value chain (AVC) financing leverages social capital and mechanisms such as off-take agreements and forward contracts to reduce borrowing and lending costs and risks for both farmers and lending institutions. AVC financing has been defined as the flow of financial products and services to and among the various actors within the AVC to address constraints of production and distribution and fulfill the needs of those involved in the chain by reducing risk and improving efficiency. This paper investigates how farmers' involvement in AVC affects their access to credit.

The authors collected primary data from 400 crop farmers in northern Ghana through a semi-structured questionnaire and analyzed the data, using the multinomial endogenous switching regression model.

Joint participation in AVC increased the amount of formal and informal credit received by 64 and 78%, respectively, compared to nonparticipation. Similarly, participation in AVC horizontal linkage and AVC vertical linkage increased the amount of formal and informal credit received by 40 and 47% and 46 and 74%, respectively, compared to nonparticipation. Irrigation farming, extension visits, knowledge of AVC in the community, access to a storage facility and trust in contract farming significantly influenced farmers' participation in AVC.

The authors’ work offers valuable insights into how different dimensions of value chain participation can impact smallholder farmers' access to credit. This work also underscores the importance of considering both formal and informal credit sources when analyzing the outcomes of value chain participation. The findings could enable formal financial providers to identify, liaise and/or resource informal financial players such as value chain actors to supply both formal and informal credit to farmers in AVCs.