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The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of product market competition on dividend payout and share repurchases in Australia in which a full dividend imputation system has been in place since 1987.

Panel data estimation with industry and year-fixed effects is employed to examine the role of industry competition on dividend payout and share repurchases. The paper uses a sample of ASX200 non-financial firms, including 4,272 observations over the period 1992–2015. To address the endogeneity problem, the authors utilize the event of Australia–United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA), which became effective on 01 January 2005, and perform a difference-in-difference analysis.

The authors find that firms operating in competitive markets are likely to pay more dividends and repurchase more shares to reduce agency costs. The positive relation between industry competition and dividends is stronger among firms where the CEO and the Chairman of the Board are the same person and among firms with higher market-to-book ratio and higher standard deviation of stock returns. The study results are robust when the authors account for the impact of franking credit on dividend payment. In the difference-in-difference analysis, the authors find strong evidence of a casual relation that product competition drives changes in dividend policy.

The findings are consistent with the notion that intense product market competition can mitigate agency conflicts between managers and shareholders and with the information signalling explanation of market competition. As such, regulators may want to introduce policies that encourage more market competition (e.g. market deregulation) to enhance market efficiency.

This study incorporates product market competition in explaining the firm payout policy.

This study combines perceived knowledge, perceived psychologic risk with Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) to examine the influence on tourists' intention to choose a safe destination and willingness to pay (WTP) more for safety measures. An online survey was conducted in 2021 to approach tourists globally. After 10 weeks, we received 365 valid responses. SmartPLS software version 3.3 was applied to run structural equation modelling to test the proposed hypotheses. Research results reveal that intention to choose a safe destination mediates the relationship between perceived knowledge of COVID-19, perceived psychological risk and the WTP more for safety measures while moderating role of educational level is also addressed. In turn, perceived psychological risk mediates the relationship between perceived knowledge of COVID-19 and intention to choose a safe destination. As a result, this study implies that destination managers should take actions to promote their WTP more for safety measures.

This study aims to investigate specific professional competencies of teachers to implement education for sustainable development (ESD) in the contexts of Vietnam.

The authors carried out a Delphi study with eight ESD experts in Vietnam to collect their expertise viewpoints regarding teachers’ ESD professional competencies.

In total, 13 competencies related to three dimensions (content knowledge/cognitive, pedagogical and pedagogical content knowledge, motivation and volition) were highlighted by ESD experts.

The proposed teachers’ competencies were based on the ideas of a small group of experts, and the results need to be tested, refined and confirmed by further work. Besides, in this study, we have not defined the levels of achievement for each competency as well as developed assessment tools.

The specific professional competencies for teachers can be considered as a foundation for developing educational offers focusing on promoting the specific teachers’ professional competencies in basic ESD training.

Studies on educators’ professional competencies for ESD mostly were conducted in western countries. However, competencies do not exist independently; instead, they should be considered in specific contexts of teaching, school, culture and society. This research is among one of the first studies that contextualizes teachers’ competencies in a non-western context.

In recent years, agricultural activities in the Mekong Delta have frequently faced the potential risks of drought, saline intrusion and unusually heavy rainfall because of climate change, leading to a decline in crop yield. Therefore, this study aimed to establish rice planting seasons in An Giang, an upper-located province in the Mekong Delta.

The impacts of seasonal variation on the key rice seasons were simulated using the Food and Agriculture Organization-crop model for the OM6976 rice variety grown in the study area. For the simulation, the model combined crop, soil, weather and crop management data.

The results show that seasonal variation because of changes in weather factors leads to alternation in crop yields across the study area. Specifically, the spring and summer rice planting seasons are advanced by one to two weeks compared with the baseline, and crop yield increased by 5.9% and 4.2%, respectively. Additionally, planting for the autumn–winter rice season on 3 August increased crop yield by up to 8.1%.

In general, rice planting seasons that account for weather factor changes effectively reduce production costs and optimise production.