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This paper aims to investigate “corporate governance” of the English East India Company (EIC) in the late 17th century through a case study of the Tonkin factory (1672–1697).

The paper draws upon British primary materials relating to the Tonkin factory to examine and analyze the EIC’s style of management in Tonkin (Vietnam) and Bantam (Java). Qualitative and comparative methods are applied to the analysis of reports, records and letters written by EIC staff.

The paper finds that the EIC faced principal-agent problems as it had difficulties administering its distant agents and subsidiaries in the 17th century. London was strategically weakened, both by the limiting power of regional headquarters and by its use of experienced factors. Before 1682, London failed to temper the Bantam Council’s influence, and there were serious internal conflicts and power struggles between English Tonkin employees seeking to improve their positions. After 1686, London successfully forced Madras to adopt a noninterventionist stance in Tonkin’s business, but it faced the problem of “adverse selection.”

This paper provides evidence from the Tonkin factory (1672–1697) to show the EIC’s governance in the perspective of the agency theory.

The new era of supply chain management is characterised by key change drivers, e.g. Industry 4.0, and post-COVID-19 VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) business environment, in addition to the rising requirements for sustainability, responsiveness and customer centrism. An important and topical question in this context is what supply chain managerial competence logistics managers need to possess in order to enhance their individual performance in the new era. This question is addressed in this paper, which also explores the nexus of supply chain managerial competence expectation and possession upon which human resource development strategies are proposed accordingly.

The survey research design is adopted to empirically examine logistics managers’ supply chain managerial competence in the new era, and the forward-backward translation process was strictly followed. Data were collected through a survey conducted with owners or managers of Vietnamese firms whose business is in the logistics and related business areas, and 269 valid responses were used for analysis.

Results indicated that the proposed profile of four groups (foundation, core, specialist and technology-IT) and 38 competencies are valid and important to the individual performance of logistics managers in the context of Vietnam, which supports the tenet that logistics managers in the new era need to have a well-rounded profile of competencies, including those derived from contemporary change drivers. It was also found that the foundation competency group is perceived as more important than others, which is context specific given the current logistics development in Vietnam. Besides, it was also revealed that respondents in this research currently possess those competencies at a level which is lower than their perceived importance. An Importance-Possession (IPM) Matrix of Competency Development was mapped accordingly.

The generalisation of this study would require further empirical examination from similar studies in other contexts, i.e. in other manufacturing and service sectors as well as in other developing and developed countries where logistics development is at different stages.

This research provides insights into the current competency profile of logistics managers in Vietnam, which can assist senior management with human resources development in their firms. Specifically, it is essential that Vietnamese logistics firms focus on providing education and training opportunities, both internally and externally, to enhance the level of possession of all competencies whose gaps between perceived importance and possession are the largest across the groups, especially those in the Maintaining Sustainably and Growing quadrants of the IPM.

Firstly, this research introduces an improvised framework of logistics managers’ supply chain managerial competence adopting the contingency approach, contributing to expanding the body of knowledge on how the competency profile of logistics managers should be developed. Secondly, the IPM matrix of competencies introduced in this research can be used as both the conceptual and managerial tool to classify and prioritise competencies for various purposes, e.g. education, training and policy implementation based on the nexus of supply chain competence expectation and possession.

The research aims to assess the relationship between ecological innovation, green productivity, sustainable development and agricultural productivity in Vietnam. The agricultural sector of Vietnam has been observed with new opportunities which have fostered its productivity and growth.

The study uses a range of methods where initially, the researcher used descriptive analysis, cointegration and unit root tests. Secondly, Quantile Autoregressive Distributed Lag (QARDL) is used to assess the short and long run effects. The QARDL methodology is employed to capture the relationship between variables. Through this approach, the researcher is able to examine the scale of the interaction between dependent and independent variables.

The unique findings drawn through statistical techniques are also a great addition to the context of literature related to Vietnam’s agricultural productivity. Practical insights can also not be denied as the study provides beneficial guidelines for Vietnam’s agricultural sector to refine agricultural productivity.

Scholars are advised to use strong literary techniques to overcome these limitations and give a more thorough investigation into the same ideas. The availability and dependability of data was one of the primary challenges in carrying out this study. Vietnam has made significant advances in the collection and documentation of agricultural data, but there might still be gaps in the availability of thorough and current data on ecological innovation, green production and sustainable development.

Vietnam’s unique socioeconomic, cultural and environmental features influence how ecological innovation, green productivity, sustainable development and agricultural production are interconnected. Consequently, consideration should be taken when applying the results to various scenarios.

Supply chain collaboration is increasingly important in today’s competitive business environment. While prior research has acknowledged the role of relationships in facilitating collaboration, few studies have considered inter-personal and inter-organisational attributes simultaneously. This study addresses this gap by investigating these two levels of the manufacturer-supplier relationship in Vietnam’s fishery industry and their impacts on supply chain collaboration.

The study employed a quantitative approach. A questionnaire was distributed to 635 fishery manufacturers in Vietnam by the drop-and-collect method. EFA and CFA were used to assess the reliability and validity of the measurement model, while CB-SEM was employed for structural model assessment and hypothesis testing.

Supply chain collaboration encompasses incentive alignment, collaborative communication, decision synchronisation, and information sharing. All antecedents, including commitment, inter-organisational trust, reciprocity, and inter-personal trust, positively affect collaboration. Inter-personal trust positively influences the other antecedents, and inter-organisational trust enhances commitment. Furthermore, there are partial mediating effects among these relationship attributes. However, no significant moderating effect regarding firm size is observed.

The study extends the social exchange theory to encompass both inter-personal and inter-organisational relationship attributes. Additionally, it pioneers in investigating the interrelatedness of these antecedents. By addressing the research gap in the Vietnamese fishery supply chain, it offers valuable insights for both academics and practitioners, contributing to theoretical understanding and practical implications in supply chain collaboration.

The purpose of this paper is to examine factors that shape the adoption of mobile phones for vegetable marketing by Vietnamese smallholders.

A structured questionnaire was given to 185 smallholders randomly chosen from 345 vegetable smallholders in the Vinh Thanh district of Vietnam. Descriptive statistics, inferential statistics and a binary logistic regression were applied to analyse the data.

The research results show that the smallholders’ adoption of mobile phones for vegetable marketing is significantly affected by their number of extension contacts, distance from smallholders’ homes to local markets, community-based organisation participation, gender, training/credit programme participation, age, education level, income and farm size (χ² = 143,111, p < 0.000).

A combination of factors related to socio-economic, situational and institutional characteristics of smallholders should be considered when promoting smallholders’ uptake of mobile phones for vegetable marketing in developing nations.

This research provides useful insights into the determinants of mobile phone adoption for vegetable marketing by smallholders and highlights areas that need to be considered when designing policies to improve the uptake of information and communication technologies in developing countries.

“The world needs science, science needs women” is the message given by UNESCO in the program for the development of women in science” (UNESCO, 2017). In Vietnam, women’s participation and achievements in scientific research is considered a great and important resource for industrialization and modernization. Even so, are there gender differences in scientific achievement in the social science research institutes in Vietnam? What factors influence the scientific achievement of female social researchers? The answers will be based on data from a 2017 survey with a sample of 756 researchers, of which 77.6% were female. The survey was conducted by the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, a leading, ministry-level national center for the social sciences in Vietnam. This chapter analyzed the scientific achievements of researchers through their position as principal investigators of research projects and their publications, and factors that may impact this. Bivariate and multivariate analyses of factors that may affect the scientific achievement of researchers found that gender differences in academic achievement in the social sciences in Vietnam was still prevalent. Female researchers’ scientific achievements were lower than those of their male counterparts. The contribution to science of Vietnamese female researchers was limited by many different factors; the most important were the academic rank of the researchers and gender stereotype that considered housework the responsibility of women.

This research aims to examine the effect of organisational culture on supply chain collaboration and firms’ competitive advantage in the garment industry in Vietnam.

Underpinned by the relational view and the organisational culture theories, the conceptual framework was proposed. This study obtained data from a survey of 192 managers in garment firms in Vietnam. A structural equation modelling was employed to examine the relationship between organisational culture, supply chain collaboration and competitive advantage.

There was a significant positive relationship between organisational culture in terms of group and development types and supply chain collaboration. Besides, the results revealed a significant positive relationship between supply chain collaboration and competitive advantage in terms of cost and differentiation. Furthermore, the cost competitive advantage was also found to have a significant positive effect on differentiation competitive advantage.

This study is perhaps one of the first empirical attempts to examine the relationship between organisational culture, supply chain collaboration and competitive advantage in the garment industry in Vietnam. Moreover, this study extends the application of the relational view and organisational culture theories in explaining these relationships in a new research context.

The consolidation behavior of prefabricated vertical drain (PVD)-installed soft deposits mainly depends on the PVD performance. The purpose of this study is to propose a numerical solution for the consolidation of PVD-installed soft soil using the large-strain theory, in which the reduction of discharge capacity of PVD according to depth and time is simultaneously considered.

The proposed solution also takes into account the general constitute relationship of soft soil. Subsequently, the proposed solution is applied to analyze and compare with the monitoring data of two cases, one is the experimental test and another is the test embankment in Saga airport.

The results show that the reduction of PVD discharge capacity according to depth and time increased the duration required to achieve a certain degree of consolidation. The consolidation rate is more sensitive to the reduction of PVD discharge capacity according to time than that according to the depth. The effects of the reduction of PVD discharge capacity according to depth are more evident when PVD discharge capacity decreases. The predicted results using the proposed numerical solution were validated well with the monitoring data for both cases in verification.

In this study, the variation of PVD discharge capacity is only considered in one-dimensional consolidation. However, it is challenging to implement a general expression for discharge capacity variation according to time in the two-dimensional numerical solution (two-dimensional plane strain model). This is the motivation for further study.

A geotechnical engineer could use the proposed numerical solution to predict the consolidation behavior of the drainage-improved soft deposit considering the PVD discharge capacity variation.

The large-strain consolidation of PVD-installed soft deposits could be predicted well by using the proposed numerical solution considering the PVD discharge capacity variations according to depth and time.

This study seeks to evaluate gender diversity within family members and analyze its effects on financial distress in firms listed in Vietnam.

The research employs a Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) regression model to assess the impact of gender diversity on corporate board performance, including factors such as the presence and proportion of female directors, female directors with family ties and the gender of CEOs. The study covers 152 listed companies on the HNX and HOSE exchanges from 2015 to 2022. The GMM model is chosen for its robustness in dealing with endogeneity issues and its ability to provide consistent estimates in the presence of potential correlation between explanatory variables and unobserved effects. This approach allows for a more accurate evaluation of how gender diversity influences operational efficiency and how these companies manage financial difficulties within the sample period.

Our research shows that diversity on the Board of Directors (BOD) as well as female CEO employment not only does not reduce the financial distress of businesses but also increases this situation. However, being both a female and a family member of the BOD is negatively related to financial distress. This can help female members who have connections with the family contribute to the work of adjusting and monitoring the business's operations to suit the family's goals, contributing to improving the operational efficiency of the business. BOD maximizes profits and contributes to promoting the company's sustainable development goals. From there, limited ability to travel and financial exhaustion.

The empirical results obtained from this study contribute to building a solid knowledge base, supporting businesses in the policymaking process and providing empirical evidence to enrich learning materials.

This study provides empirical evidence on how gender diversity influences the financial challenges of businesses, especially within the context of publicly listed companies in Vietnam. It stands out from previous literature by specifically focusing on listed companies in Vietnam. By analyzing the impact of gender diversity on financial difficulties, this study also clarifies how various factors can influence management and business development.