Search results

The purpose of this study is to examine a mechanism through which subjective financial literacy can exert negative effects on the retirement saving intention and behaviors, which has not been well understood in prior research. Particularly, the authors draw on the relevant risk literature to introduce financial risk tolerance and risk perception as important mediators that transfer subjective financial literacy into reduced retirement saving intention which in turn affects the saving behaviors.

The authors test the model with a sample of 347 adults using factor analysis and structural equation modeling.

Consistent with the notions about the negative side of subjective financial literacy, the authors find supporting evidence for the proposed indirect effects of financial literacy on retirement saving intention via risk tolerance and risk perception. In addition, the authors observe that an individual's retirement saving intention strongly predicts their retirement saving behaviors.

The study offers insights into the mechanisms that subjective financial knowledge might also inhibit individual's responsible financial behaviors (e.g. retirement saving).

The 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has significantly disrupted the traditional ways for organizations to function, mandating their prompt adaptation and reaction to issues related to employees, operations, and communication. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to report on a total quality management (TQM) implementation as a sample motivational case to support the need for a new work from anywhere (WFA) stakeholder framework that can be used by other companies as they build, maintain, and continuously improve a WFA culture and environment for successful Quality 4.0 and COVID-19 initiatives.

Quality 4.0 that specifies an adaptive quality environment can help organizations quickly identify and respond to problems during the COVID-19 pandemic. Analyzing a Lean Six Sigma implementation through the lens of Quality 4.0 in a case study, the authors propose a new stakeholder engagement framework for companies to build, maintain, and continuously improve the culture and environment for facilitating social interactions.

The authors’ proposed framework consists of three major phases: (1) identify and plan stakeholder management, (2) manage stakeholder engagement, and (3) sustain stakeholder engagement. The first phase entails organizations supporting a culture of trust, engaging, and empowering stakeholders, identifying stakeholders, planning for stakeholder management, and inquiring about problems in the process. The second phase requires engaging stakeholders via participatory buy-in. The third phase focuses on monitoring stakeholder relationships, including modifying strategies and plans.

This study bears some valuable implications for practitioners. First, the stakeholder management process should be established upon a culture that promotes trust, engagement, and empowerment. Second, the authors identify tools that can assist in the execution of WFA activities. Third, the organizational team needs to actively manage the WFA stakeholders and then sustain the stakeholder relationships. Finally, the implementation of the framework herein can be supported and strengthened by tools and techniques that promote participation and buy-in from stakeholders to ensure the project team hears, trusts, and values their contributions.

This study contributes to the existing literature and provides practical guidance for managers to effectively manage the workforce and engage stakeholders.

This study aims to revisit the link between employee welfare and firm financial performance using a large sample. Besides, the study explores mechanisms behind the link and heterogeneous effects of employee welfare on firm performance across firms and industries with different characteristics. These findings help partly explain mixed results in previous works.

This study utilized KLD database data from 2001 to 2015 to capture the firm-level employee welfare, then analyze the link between employee welfare and firm financial performance. The findings are further verified using clustered standard errors ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis along with robustness testing, which supports the validity of our conclusions.

The research result confirms a positive association between employee-friendly practices and firm performance indicated by Tobin's q. Regarding the mechanisms linking the two, the study shows that higher employee welfare is positively associated with firm productivity and innovation investment, while it is negatively related to the cost of finance. Further, consistent with agency and modern management theories, the effect of employee welfare on financial performance is more pronounced for human-intensive (i.e. R&D-based) firms and firms with better corporate governance.

This study contributes to the existing literature on the association between employee welfare and firm performance in several ways. First, using the index of employee welfare from KLD can alleviate inherent limitations in previous studies. Second, the authors provide and validate the possible mechanisms linking employee welfare and firm value. Third, the authors also extend the literature by providing new insights into the employee welfare–firm performance nexus through a contingency perspective.

This study focuses on Vietnamese international students who returned from their overseas doctoral education to home universities in Vietnam (henceforth Vietnamese overseas-trained returnees). The purpose is to explore the experience of these returnees “doing research” (i.e. being research active) when resuming a lecturing role at a Vietnamese regional university. In the context of research now receiving heightened attention in both the wider global higher education (HE) discourse and the Vietnamese HE sector, this study is timely and provides valuable insights.

In total, 76 Vietnamese overseas-trained returnees from varied disciplinary backgrounds completed a questionnaire on their research motivation and their perceived constraints doing research. Eighteen subsequently took part in semi-structured interviews. The study draws on the notion of human agency from the sociocultural perspective to understand the coping strategies of the Vietnamese overseas-educated returnees in response to the challenges they encountered.

The results show that the returnees' motivations to conduct research varied, fuelled by passion, but constrained by multiple factors. Time constraints, heavy teaching loads, familial roles and lack of specialized equipment are key inhibiting factors in re-engaging in research for these returnees. Addressing them necessitated a great deal of readaptation, renegotiation and agentive resilience on the part of the returnees in employing different coping strategies to pursue research.

The paper argues for a subtle understanding of the returnees' experience of re-engaging in research that is both complex and contextual. Implications are drawn for research development in the regional Vietnamese HE context and perhaps in other similar settings.

There is little empirical knowledge about how Vietnamese returned graduates – university lecturers – continue doing research after their return. Also underexplored in global discourse is research on foreign-educated returnees doing research, while they are an important source of human resources. The present study, therefore, fills these research gaps.