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In popular thinking, debt evokes notions of vulnerability and bondage, while irregular migration for sex work conjures up the hazards of human trafficking and modern slavery 1 . These perceptions inform ‘safe migration’ policies aimed at ordering and regulating migration and combating informality to increase migrants’ safety and well-being; the assumption being that illegality puts migrants at risk of abuse. This article challenges these assumptions with an ethnographic study of brokerage practices in the quasi-family networks that facilitate the irregular and circular migration of Vietnamese sex workers to Singapore. In these networks, brokers sell a migration package on credit to their clients, the migrant sex workers, who repay it through sexual labour. This package includes all the services necessary for the women to migrate temporarily and work safely in Singapore. Most crucially, it serves as an entree into the broker’s business and social network, as a way of forming an enduring relationship. Without denying the power of debt to create inequality, obligation and exploitation, this article shows that debt can also be a profitable, non-coercive and reciprocal device for brokers and sex workers alike, a vector of ‘safety’ which limits some of the risks they encounter in a repressive and uncertain host environment. This finding stems from a novel framework in economic anthropology, the ‘socio-economy of debt’ (Guerin, 2018), which complicates moral views of debt through an empirical examination of the materiality, power dynamics and social and moral meanings of debt arrangements and relationships.

This study focuses on assessing the suitability and condition of various bankruptcy risk models applied to construction companies listed on the Vietnam Stock Market. In this study, the panel data were collected from the disclosed financial statements of the companies from 2012 to 2017. Through the assessment, bankruptcy risks are predicted for the companies that are experiencing initial signals such as delisting, compulsory supervision. In the next step, interviews were conducted to justify which of the following factors may indicate the companies at the risk of being bankrupted: asset management, capital structure, business size, and/or state management.

To examine the associations of excessive internet use with depression, anxiety, and sleep quality among high school students in northern Vietnam, a country experiencing rapid economic growth.A cross-sectional study was conducted in a high school in northern Vietnam from July to September 2019. Symptoms of depression and anxiety were respectively assessed using the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale and the Vietnamese Anxiety Scale. Sleep quality was measured using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Internet use and demographic characteristics were obtained using structured questionnaires. A multiple logistic regression was performed.In total, 678 participants with an average age of 16.1 (standard deviation 0.9) years were included. Nearly one-third of the adolescents (30.7%) exhibited excessive internet use (4 h/day), 19.6% experienced depressive symptoms, 14.5% presented anxiety symptoms, and 58.8% reported poor sleep quality. Compared to non-excessive internet users, excessive internet users (4 h/day) experienced significantly higher levels of depressive symptoms (p = .001), anxiety (p = .008), and poorer sleep quality (p.001). Students who were female and with fair/poor self-rated health experienced higher depression, anxiety, and poor sleep quality (p.05). After adjusting for demographic and health-related factors, students with excessive internet use were 58% more likely to experience poor sleep quality (odds ratio, 1.58, 95% confidence interval [1.06, 2.35]).Excessive internet use in Vietnamese high school students was significantly associated with poor sleep quality, but not with depression or anxiety.

Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate the effects of maternal nutritional supplementation (MNS) in conjunction with a breastfeeding support program on birth outcomes and breastfeeding performance. Methods: A total of 228 singleton Vietnamese mothers aged 20–35 years at 26–29 weeks of gestation with pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) < 25.0 kg/m2 were randomized to the intervention (n = 114), receiving MNS (252 kcal/day) daily up to 12 weeks postpartum and four breastfeeding education and support sessions or to the control (n = 114), receiving standards of care. Results: The intervention was 2.09 times more likely to exclusively breastfeed over the 12 weeks than the control (95%CI: 1.05–4.13, p = .0358), after controlling for potential confounders. Infant’s breast milk intake was significantly higher in the intervention than the control among mothers with baseline mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) < 50th (p = .0251). Infants in the intervention had significantly higher birth weight (p = .0312), birth weight-for-age (p = .0141) and birth head circumference-for-age (p = .0487), and higher head circumference-for-age z-score (p = .0183) development over the postnatal period, compared with the control. Conclusions: Use of MNS and breastfeeding support improve birth outcomes and exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) rate in Vietnamese mothers. Additionally, it promotes breast milk production among mothers with lower baseline MUAC.

This study aims to appraise the potential impacts of the European Union - Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) on Vietnam’s agricultural exports to the European Union (EU). The authors apply the SMART model to quantitatively estimate how tariff elimination under this agreement affects trade value between two parties, with the base year of 2018. By simulating the zero-rate tariff scenario for 17 two-digit HS codes of agricultural goods, the authors analyze the total change in export, trade creation, and trade diversion effects of the whole sector. The four important product groups that witnessed the highest change, including HS 04 (dairy produce, birds’ eggs; natural honey; edible products of animal origin), HS 08 (edible fruit and nuts, peel of citrus fruit or melons), HS 09 (coffee, tea, maté, and spices) and HS 20 (preparations of vegetables, fruit, nuts or other parts of plants) are further classified into products with 4-6-digit HS codes to find out the specific product lines that benefit the most. The SMART outputs reveal that EVFTA positively affects the export of agricultural products from Vietnam to the EU market, with trade diversion dominating trade creation effects. Based on these findings, recommendations are proposed to the state authorities as well as domestic enterprises to promote the export of farm produce.

E-learning has been a trend of higher education. Accounting students need to know how to apply flexible learning methods as they are required to study and practise in a technological environment. Nevertheless, studies on e-learning based on cloud computing for accounting students in Vietnam are still limited. This study aims to find out factors affecting the behavioral intention, the direct influence of habits, the beneficiary motivation, and the favorable conditions for the acceptance of using elearning based on cloud computing. By using data collected from a survey of 696 students and applying the theory of adopting extended UTAUT model, the estimation results from the linear structure models show that there are six determinants of accounting students’ behavioral intention, in which the performance expectancy has the strongest impact, followed by effort expectancy, price value, facilitating conditions, hedonic motivation, and social influence. Additionally, our findings suggest that despite not affecting the behavioral intention to use e-learning, habits directly impact the application. The hedonic motivation and the facilitating conditions are found to have direct and significant impacts on the use of e-learning based on cloud computing.

Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection in men is a serious issue because it is associated with genital warts, anogenital cancers, and HPV transmission to their sex partners. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence and genotypes of HPVs in Vietnamese male patients hospitalized with sexually transmitted infection (STI) symptoms between 2016 and 2020 by using PCR and reverse dot blot hybridization analysis. HPV DNA was detected in 191/941 (20.3%) penile cell samples. The HPV patient's mean age was 30.3 in the range of 16- and 69-year-old. The highest HPV prevalence (84.7%) was found in patients between 20- and 39-year-old. A total of 313 HPV genotypes were identified. Multiple-infection rate was 42.9%. The most common high-risk (HR)-HPV genotypes were HPV-16 (8.0%), HPV-51 (7.7%), HPV-52 (4.8%), HPV-56 (4.2%), and HPV-18 (3.8%). Furthermore, HPV-11 and HPV-6 genotypes were the two most common low-risk (LR)-HPV genotypes with the rate of 36.7% and 21.4%, respectively. Notably, HPV-52 was found circulating in Vietnam for the first time. In conclusion, this study results showed that HPV prevalence in Vietnamese male patients was common and diverse. In addition, regarding public health and cancer prevention, the inclusion of the HPV vaccination into the national vaccination program for both men and women is recommended. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

One of the strategic objectives of the Vietnamese government in achieving universal health coverage (UHC) is to develop a sustainable, equitable, and effective health financing system. This study aimed to examine the incidence and intensity of catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) and impoverishment in Vietnam at different thresholds of expenditure. The data were obtained from six national representative Household Living Standards Surveys from 2008 to 2018. We found that the incidence and intensity of CHE declined significantly over study years. Additionally, we found a substantial reduction in the incidence and intensity of medical impoverishment in Vietnam. The increase in the poverty gap in 2012 and 2014 was because non-poor households became poor after out-of-pocket (OOP) health payments. However, the rise in poverty gaps in 2008, 2010, 2016 and 2018 was attributable to the worsening state of existing poor households after healthcare payments. In addition, we found that the CHE rate and impoverishment were more concentrated in the poor quintile groups. Furthermore, we found that the Red River Delta had the highest CHE rate, whereas the Northern Midland region experienced the strongest poverty impact of OOP payments. Generally, in Vietnam, the health financing system has had no considerable success in reducing inequality across quintiles and regions. Finally, our findings revealed that health insurance showed positive impacts on households’ financial protection against CHE and impoverishment, after enacting both the first Health Insurance Law in 2009 and the Revised Health Insurance Law in 2015. The results suggest that the health insurance scheme should be reviewed to continue reducing CHE and impoverishment, promoting equity and enhancing the performance of the health financing system in Vietnam.

Background HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) have disproportionately affected communities of men who have sex with men (MSM). We describe HIV and STI prevalence and testing patterns among urban Vietnamese MSM. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional community-based study of MSM in Hanoi, Vietnam in 2016. Participants self-reported experiences of social stigma in healthcare settings and previous HIV and STI testing. STI testing included HIV, herpes simplex virus-2 (HSV-2), syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia. Results 205 MSM participated in the study. STI prevalence was HIV (10%), HSV-2 (4%), syphilis (13%), gonorrhea (34%), and chlamydia (19%). More than half (55%) of participants tested positive for at least one STI. Most participants had been previously tested for HIV or another STI (72%), with 24% previously receiving a positive result. Perceived and enacted social stigma in healthcare contexts was negatively associated with previous HIV or STI testing (adjusted prevalence odds ratio (aPOR): 0.22; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.10–0.48). Discussion High prevalence of STIs was observed among Vietnamese MSM, and perceived and enacted stigma was related to HIV and STI testing. Our findings reaffirm the importance of regular STI screening among this population as well as additional outreach to promote safe HIV and STI healthcare engagement.

Summary: Background & aims: Disease-associated undernutrition is common among hospitalized adults around the world, but risk is expected to be even greater in regions of food insecurity, as in Southeast Asia. Our study, which was based in a large Vietnamese hospital, aimed to determine the prevalence of undernutrition and its associated health and economic burdens. Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of medical records for a cohort of 1600 adult patients who were admitted to the University Medical Center (UMC) hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam over a 2.5-year interval. Undernutrition or its risk was identified as [1] a diagnosis of malnutrition by a physician, and/or [2] a body mass index (BMI) < 18.5, and/or [3] a score ≥ 3 on the Nutritional Risk Screening (NRS)-2002, and/or [4] in-hospital use of oral nutritional supplements, as recorded in the patient's medical chart. Our study also tracked comorbidities and their severity and compiled data on hospital length of stay and infectious complications during the hospital stay or within 30-days post-hospitalization. We determined costs for the full study population, and we also stratified results by admission source. Results: We found that 2 of every 3 hospital study patients were undernourished or at risk for malnutrition, based primarily on BMI < 18.5 kg/m2 or NRS-2002 score ≥ 3. The highest prevalence of malnutrition risk occurred in patients undergoing gastrointestinal surgery (84.8%), and the lowest among cardiology patients (48.9%). On average, patients were 80.2 years of age, predominantly female (58%), of Kinh ethnicity (95%), with 2.1 comorbid conditions, and public health insurance (84%). Infectious complications occurred in 4% of patients, and hospital length of stay was 8.4 (±4.6) days. Of patients contacted in post-discharge follow-up (N=987), 20.6% had been readmitted to the hospital within 30-days post-discharge. The average total episode cost was 31.6x106 (±28.1x106) VND. Conclusions: Among hospitalized patients in Vietnam, we found that disease-related undernutrition is highly prevalent, which can worsen patient outcomes, increase healthcare resource use, and elevate healthcare costs. To address these problems, we propose use of a nutrition-focused action plan that aims to enhance awareness of nutrition gaps and improve professional training for identification of undernutrition and for delivery of needed nutrition care.

Through a narrative analysis of 33 interviews with Vietnamese early career academics, we explore whether a Confucianist/collectivist academic context in Vietnam has a key influence on academics’ identity work, within the embrace of encroaching managerialist practices. We show how these academics from 11 universities negotiated identity alignment and identity tensions between such cultural orientation and managerialism. On the one hand, a Confucianist ethic underpinning higher education in Vietnam is likely to encourage academics to engage in managerialist practices, as it promotes harmony and loyalty to their respective university and its global, ‘excellence’ goals. On the other hand, a cultural underpinning of collegiality can create tension with the individualist nature of managerialist practices. Our recommendations for universities in a similar context are to adapt the more individualistic performative approaches borrowed from the West by crafting their own collegiate, soft managerialist hybrid practices.

Le livre Vietnamese Organized Crime in the Czech Republic (Le crime organise des Vietnamiens en Republique tcheque), paru en 2020 aux editions Palgrave MacMillan, s’inscrit dans la collection Crime Preventions And Security Management. Cette serie propose des analyses scientifiques relatives a la criminalite et a la gestion de l’ordre public. Le volume consacre aux reseaux et organisations criminelles vietnamiennes en Republique tcheque presente le resultat de recherches longitudinales socio-a...

This paper investigates factors affecting cash holdings of materials firms listed on Vietnamese stock exchanges. By analyzing data collected from 51 companies in a period of 7 years (from 2013-2019), using FGLS procedure based on fixed effect estimation, the study shows that leverage, profitability, cash conversion cycle, cash flows, and growth opportunities significantly affect the level of cash holdings of Vietnamese materials companies. This study adds more insights in the field of liquidity management in general and cash management in particular by determining factors influencing cash holdings. Outcomes from this research would help managers, investors, and consultants in making corporate governance decisions.

Intensive shrimp production is a potential pathway to increasing export quantity and meeting Vietnamese national export targets set for the 2020–2030 period. Vietnamese farmers need to efficiently manage their shrimp farming to compete in global markets. This study aims to investigate input- and output-specific technical and scale inefficiencies in Vietnamese shrimp farming practice and their determinants. The research used a survey among 200 shrimp farmers from Ca Mau, Kien Giang, and Soc Trang provinces in Vietnam, and applied a two-stage approach with a Russell-type (input–output) directional distance function for measuring input- and output-specific technical inefficiency, and a bootstrap truncated regression for exploring the determinants of inefficiencies. Results show that main drivers of technical inefficiencies in Vietnamese intensive white-leg shrimp farms are inappropriate management of energy (inefficiency of 32%), seed (inefficiency of 22%) and shrimp yield production (88%). Furthermore, male farmers experienced in shrimp farming, with proper training and applied plastic-lined ponds are generally better in managing pond areas, use of seed, feed, and labor. Technological innovations, better post larvae quality and their stocking management can help to improve shrimp farming performance.

The purpose of this paper is to unpack the meanings and implications of mobility through the experiences of a group of Vietnamese women who decided to do doctorates in Australia. Drawing on the Deleuzian concepts of rhizome and becoming, our analysis of interview data suggests that mobility is made of multiple connections and is in constant movement, extending often reductive “push-pull” discussions of academic mobility. Each aspect shaping mobility connects to another that is multiscalar and multitemporal, where family, education ideologies, gender norms, economic globalization, neoliberalization within higher education, and the histories and biographies of mobile people come together. Power relations are immanent within structures associated with these connections and the women and mobility come together to create aspirations for educational, professional, and personal becoming. The paper offers a more nuanced understanding of international academic mobility rather than relying on economic perspectives and invites innovative approaches in supporting international doctoral students.

PurposeThis study seeks to investigate the impact of supply chain integration (SCI) practices on economic performance in Vietnamese enterprises.Design/methodology/approachBased on data collected from 144 Vietnamese enterprises, this study employs partial least squares path modeling to analyze the direct and indirect relationships among external integration, information integration, process integration and economic performance.FindingsAnalytical results indicate that of the three SCI practices, external integration has a significant and positive impact on economic performance. Process integration and information integration, on the one hand, reveal insignificant direct impact on economic performance, and on the other, show significant indirect effect on economic performance through external integration.Originality/valueThis study sheds new light on the contribution of SCI to economic performance in developing economies and offers suggestions for not only local management but also foreign investors on the efficient allocation of resources to achieve higher economic performance.

This paper examines how critical thinking is perceived and transmitted in\ud higher education (HE) classrooms using two Vietnamese undergraduate\ud programmes as case studies. The analysis of semi-structured interviews\ud with teachers, supervisors and institutional leaders from both\ud programmes reveals transmission of critical thinking is impacted upon by\ud power relations from not only outside, in the form of cultural and political\ud ideologies, but also within the pedagogic discourse itself. Guided by\ud Bernstein’s concepts of pedagogic device, classification and framing, the\ud discussion centres on how organisational and pedagogic decisions on\ud critical thinking prepare Vietnamese students to think, or not, ‘the\ud unthinkable’. While teachers cannot unilaterally alter official curriculum\ud texts to make critical thinking accessible to all students, it is the former’s\ud engagement, or not, in the re-organisation of curricular texts and the\ud use of particular pedagogic practices that can bring about change.

Objective: Teaching is often described as one of the most emotional-laden professions, and teachers experience a wide range of emotions while teaching. In times of the COVID-19 pandemic, the crisis...

Rationale: The Southeast Asian tuberculosis burden is high, and it remains unclear if urban indoor air pollution in this setting is exacerbating the epidemic. Objectives: To determine the associations of latent tuberculosis with common urban indoor air pollution sources (secondhand smoke, indoor motorcycle emissions, and cooking) in Southeast Asia. Methods: We enrolled child household contacts of patients with microbiologically confirmed active tuberculosis in Vietnam, from July 2017 to December 2019. We tested children for latent tuberculosis and evaluated air pollution exposures with questionnaires and personal aerosol sampling. We tested hypotheses using generalized estimating equations. Measurements and Main Results: We enrolled 72 patients with tuberculosis (27% with cavitary disease) and 109 of their child household contacts. Latent tuberculosis was diagnosed in 58 (53%) household contacts at baseline visit. Children experienced a 2.56-fold increased odds of latent tuberculosis for each additional household member who smoked (95% confidence interval, 1.27-5.16). Odds were highest among children exposed to indoor smokers and children

The internal capital adequacy and assessment process (ICAAP) was first introduced in the second pillar of Basel II in 2004 to offset the deficiencies of Basel I and capital adequacy regulations in the first pillar of Basel II. This process is aimed at identifying and measuring risks generated in banks’ activities, and then provides the requirements for internal capital levels and methods to raise capital to deal with these risks. In fact, the implementation of Basel II and ICAAP in Vietnamese commercial banks has attained notable achievements, but it also revealed some major weaknesses. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the implementation of ICAAP in Vietnamese commercial banks in eight components of the ICAAP addressed by Basel II using the survey method and then to simulate the implementation of ICAAP in a Vietnamese commercial bank. From the facts and the simulation of the ICAAP framework in this study, the authors offer some suggestions for Vietnamese commercial banks to implement ICAAP effectively in their banking operations.

PurposeThis article explores factors influencing the participation of industry professionals in Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) in three Vietnamese public universities. The impact of the unique socio-cultural background of Vietnam on WIL is also addressed.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative approach that included three focus groups and 15 individual in-depth interviews was applied. In total, 30 key university and industry WIL stakeholders were involved. Thematic analysis was employed to identify enablers and inhibitors to the participation of industry professionals in WIL in Vietnamese universities.FindingsIndustry professionals faced more challenges than support when involved in WIL in three Vietnamese public universities. Four enablers of their participation in WIL stemmed from industry and nine inhibitors emerged from a variety of sources. The overwhelming number of inhibiting factors indicated difficulties associated with implementing WIL.Originality/valueThe rationale behind limited industry involvement in Vietnamese universities has not been explored previously. A holistic understanding of all key WIL stakeholders’ perceptions of factors influencing industry participation in a non-Western tertiary context may provide leads for higher education policy in Vietnam and add to the international literature.

This study investigated the overall survival (OS) at 1-year, 3-years, and 5-years after colorectal cancer (CRC) diagnosis and examined the prognostic factors of mortality among patients with CRC in Vietnam's central region.This ambidirectional cohort study included patients newly diagnosed with CRC at a tertiary hospital in Vietnam's central region between 2013 and 2019. Survival duration was calculated from the surgery date or the first day of CRC-specific treatment until the date of death or the study's end date, July 31, 2020. Kaplan-Meier methods and log-rank test were used to estimate and compare the OS between the subgroups, respectively. The Cox proportional-hazards (PH) regression analysis was applied to estimate the magnitude of the effects between prognostic factors and outcome.The median follow-up was 24 months (interquartile range: 13-43 months). The OS rate dropped significantly to 84.7%, 56.19%, and 45.01% at 1-year, 3-years, and 5-years after diagnosis, respectively. The median OS was 48.59 months (39.34 -57.93 months) for the rectum and colon cases. In the multivariate analysis, a higher mortality risk was observed in patients with an advanced-stage CRC (HRadj, 3.04; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.79-5.18), who were underweight (18.5 kg/m2; HRadj, 1.65; 95%CI, 1.03-2.65), and had elevated preoperative carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) level (5.0 ng/mL; HRadj, 1.63; 95%CI, 1.03-2.59). Additionally, younger patients (50 years) had a poorer OS than the middle-aged group (60-69 years).Our findings indicate that50% of Vietnamese patients with CRC survive until 5-years after diagnosis. Several individual factors that contribute to the poor OS of patients with CRC, including young age, underweight, and elevated preoperative CEA level, should be evaluated and managed. Early diagnoses through active routine examination of or screening programs for high-risk groups should be prioritized.

Background Delays in diagnosis and treatment from first noticeable breast cancer symptoms are associated with poor outcomes. Understanding the reasons and barriers for patients’ delay in seeking medical care is critical to mitigating the problem. Methods In‐person surveys were conducted among 462 women, aged 18–79, with incident breast cancer cases, recruited from two cancer hospitals in North Vietnam. Delay, defined as the time interval between symptom recognition to the diagnosis and initiation of treatment equal to or exceeding 3 months, was categorized as follows: no delay (, A case cohort study found that delay in diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer is common among Vietnamese women and is affected by financial and physical barriers, psychological barriers, and lack of proper knowledge. Proper policy needs to be developed accordingly to address this public health issue.

Highlights • HPV infection in men having sex with men (MSM) was studied in two cities of Vietnam • Prevalence of any HPV and HPV16/18 among MSM was 32.3% and 11.0%, respectively • High-risk HPV infections in MSM were associated with risky sexual behaviours • A targeted HPV vaccination strategy would be beneficial for MSM in Vietnam, Objectives Men who have sex with men (MSM) are at risk of human papillomavirus (HPV)-related cancers, while published data are scarce. This study determined HPV prevalence and risk factors in MSM in Vietnam to inform HPV prevention strategies in this key population. Methods A cross-sectional study of 799 MSM aged 16-50 years was conducted in Vietnam in 2017-2018. Information was collected on risk behaviours, and knowledge of HPV and anal cancer; rectal swabs were taken to detect anal HPV infection. An in-house polymerase chain reaction and Genoflow HPV array test kit were used for HPV detection and genotyping. Results The median age of the study participants was 25 years (range 18-52). Overall prevalence of any HPV and HPV16/18 infection was 32.3% and 11.0%, respectively. A higher prevalence of high-risk HPV infection to all 14 types tested was found in Ho Chi Minh City (30.9%) than in Hanoi (18.4%). High-risk HPV infection was associated with inconsistent condom use and history of engaging in sex under the influence of drugs (adjusted odds ratio (aOR), 2.27; 95% CI, 1.48-10.67), as well as having multiple sexual partners (aOR, 1.01; 95% CI, 1.00–1.02). Conclusions High-risk anal HPV infections in Vietnamese MSM were significantly associated with risky sexual behaviours. A targeted HPV vaccination strategy would have substantial benefit for MSM in Vietnam.

U.S. Vietnamese have high cervical cancer incidence and low human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine initiation. Using the P3 model, we explored practice-, provider-, and patient-level determinants of U.S. Vietnamese parents’ HPV vaccine decision-making for their adolescents. We conducted a cross-sectional, online survey (04/2020–12/2020) with U.S. Vietnamese parents who had ≥ 1 adolescent ages 9–18. We assessed HPV vaccination outcomes (initiation, willingness to initiate, completion) and provider recommendation. Modified Poisson regressions were used to identify practice-, provider- and patient-level correlates of outcomes. The sample (n = 408) was 44 years old on average; 83% were female and 85% had a Bachelor’s degree. Around half of adolescents were female (51%) and 13–18 year old (54%). Only 41 and 23% of parents had initiated and completed the HPV vaccine series for their child, respectively. Initiation was associated with receiving provider recommendation (either low- or high-quality), while willingness to initiate was associated with receiving high-quality recommendation. Both initiation and willingness to initiate was negatively associated with parental perception that their child was too young for a “sexually transmitted infection (STI)-preventing vaccine.” Provider recommendation was associated with higher parental U.S. acculturation and the child being older and female. Provider-facing interventions should promote high-quality, age-based, gender-neutral HPV vaccine recommendation. These and population- and individual-facing interventions should recognize the need for additional parental education, particularly related to misconceptions regarding STI prevention. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10865-021-00265-3.

Over the past decades, the Vietnamese government has strategically encouraged the import of the ‘Western’ curriculum through the so-called Advanced Programmes. It is envisioned that by learning from the more advanced systems such as Australia, Canada, the US, and the UK, Vietnamese universities will be able to overhaul their outdated curriculum and embark on a shortcut to the league of global rankings. Drawing on 21 interviews with Vietnamese and foreign staff and students in two Advanced Programmes imported from the US, this article reviews these programmes’ twelve-year implementation to explore the challenges arising and the roles of local academics in implementing and mediating the curriculum. The research revealed considerable challenges in imparting ‘Western’ knowledge to the local context due to ideological and practicality differences. However, it is the process through which academics mediated between the international content and local students’ needs that enables practical internationalisation of the imported curriculum.

The need for sustainable development underscores the role and importance of integrating environmental concerns in non-environmental policies because it is evident that environmental regulations only are insufficient to manage all environmental issues. Law enforcement on environmental protection in Vietnam clearly demonstrates this situation. Vietnam’s legal system of environmental protection is incompatible or overlapped with other sectoral laws and in fact many environmental matters have been implemented in accordance with sectoral laws while disregarding environmental considerations due to the lack of specific and explicit environmental provisions or requirements in sectoral laws and regulations. From that situation, the paper emphasizes the need to integrate environmental protection requirements into the sectoral laws of Vietnam and proposes some fundamental criteria and procedures to integrate environmental requirements into sectoral laws.

Addressing the fact that studies on self-care of Vietnamese middle-aged women remain scarse, our presenting study aims to investigate the relationship between supportive resources utilized by Vietnamese middle-aged women and their types of self-care. Data were collected from survey interview with 512 middle-aged women (aged from 40 to 60 years old) in Hanoi city and Quang Ninh province. A series of linear regression was performed on the six types of self-care, including: physical care, supportive relationships, mindful awareness, self-compassion & purpose, mindful relaxation, and supportive structure. Three types of supportive resources and other covariates (age, education, and residence area) were entered into these models as key predictors. The study results show that the use of different level of resources was associated with different types of self-care practice. The use of micro-resource system significantly predicted all six types of self-care among Vietnamese middle-aged women. The mesenchymal and peripheral resource systems significantly predicted physical care only among Vietnamese middled-age women. The macro resource system was significantly associated with the practice of mind-relaxing and supportive structure. In addition, people who were older, had better education and lived in urban areas tended to participate more in physical care. Women with a higher education level and living in urban areas were predicted to utilize more supportive relationships and mindful relaxation. Women living in urban areas, having a higher level of education practiced mindful relaxation significantly more than their counterparts. Using more supportive structure was significantly more among women living in urban areas, in older age groups and having higher education levels. The key findings suggest the promotion of active support from the micro-level system, as well as advocate for social policy development to help less privileged groups of women access and use mezzo and macro resources more effectively.

Due to the lack of insight into the impact of budgeting practices at the micro-levels in emerging countries in Asia, this study examines the effect of budgetary participation on managerial performance in Vietnam. Drawing from the framework of decision-making, nomological network, and self-determination theory, this study proposes that the link between budgetary participation and managerial performance is mediated by autonomous motivation and information sharing. It is also proposed that high autonomous motivation induces information sharing. Data collected from 153 managers working in Vietnamese public schools were used to test the proposed model. The results from PLS-SEM analysis show that only information sharing mediates the relationship between budgetary participation and managerial performance, while autonomous motivation does not because data fails to support the positive relationship between autonomous motivation and managerial performance. Budget participation also leads to higher autonomous motivation, and autonomous motivation improves information sharing.

The article mentions the impact of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic on online learning in Vietnamese higher education in 2020. This is a qualitative case study, by using in-depth interviews to explore the changes in the perception, methods, and orientation of online learning of students and lecturers at a key pedagogical university when experiencing the three COVID-19 outbreaks in Vietnam. The findings show that the COVID-19 pandemic has a positive impact on the developmental orientation of online learning at the Vietnamese higher education level. Even though at the time of an outbreak, opposition and dissatisfaction with online learning occurred;but through the three outbreaks, together with the efforts of lecturers and students, online learning in Vietnam has recorded remarkable achievements. This is a prerequisite for the development of online education and the innovation of digital technology in education. © 2021 The Author(s). Open Access - This article is under the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

This study adopts the bibliometric approach to identify the key characteristics in the relationship of demographic factors (age, gender, affiliations, and locations), scientific productivity, and the collaboration among development economics researchers in Vietnam during the period 2008–2020. Overall, the number of publications and authors in development economics are rising steeply with the average annual growth rate of nearly 23% and 26%, respectively. Moreover, the ‘quality’ of the research appears to be high as 59% of the articles are published in journals in the first and second quartile according Scimago journal ranking. However, the citation counts for these studies indicate their impacts are far more languishing in comparison. In terms of research trends, this study identified three emerging areas of studies that are relatively under-researched, namely natural resources, technology, and urbanization. As for publishing practices, There is also a positive sign for the adoption of open science among Vietnamese researchers in this field. The findings are useful for predicting future research trends. In addition, the study provides several implications for policymakers in Vietnam to enhance research capacity.

Paraphrase identification is a crucial task in natural language understanding, especially in cross-language information retrieval. Nowadays, Multi-Task Deep Neural Network (MT-DNN) has become a state-of-the-art method that brings outstanding results in paraphrase identification [1]. In this paper, our proposed method based on MT-DNN [2] to detect similarities between English and Vietnamese sentences, is proposed. We changed the shared layers of the original MT-DNN from original the BERT [3] to other pre-trained multi-language models such as M-BERT [3] or XLM-R [4] so that our model could work on cross-language (in our case, English and Vietnamese) information retrieval. We also added some tasks as improvements to gain better results. As a result, we gained 2.3% and 2.5% increase in evaluated accuracy and F1. The proposed method was also implemented on other language pairs such as English – German and English – French. With those implementations, we got a 1.0%/0.7% improvement for English – German and a 0.7%/0.5% increase for English – French.

Previous studies on classical reception related to the Vietnam War have overlooked the experiences of Vietnamese communities, whether national or diasporic, as they focussed instead on those of American combat veterans. While that scholarship has yielded important insight, it nevertheless has contributed to the disremembering of Vietnamese people that is at the core of the dominant American subjectivity of the Vietnam War, which relegates Vietnamese people to the margins of history as either enemies or victims – or worse, forgotten. To build on this scholarship, this paper closely reads three poems (‘Telemachus,’ ‘Trojan,’ and ‘Odysseus Redux’) in Ocean Vuong’s 2017 poetry collection, Night Sky With Exit Wounds, through the lenses of memory theory and queer of colour critique. I demonstrate how Vuong queers the Homeric Odyssey by subverting the canonical narrative: Odysseus returns home dead, leaving Telemachus to explore his inheritance of war as a queer refugee. Through this queer mythology, Vuong explores the conflicting layers of his intergenerational trauma, which pit refugeehood and queerness not only against each other, but also against Americanness. Overall, this paper argues that Vuong reworks the Homeric Odyssey in order to create his own ‘postmemories’ of the war that challenge historical erasure by defiantly placing the queer refugee at the centre, rather than the periphery, of an American narrative.

Given the importance of research communities and research mentoring activities in developing research skills, universities around the world have paid special attention to improving these two dimensions. However, developing research communities and research mentoring culture in Vietnamese universities largely remain at a nascent stage because these universities often have a short history of conducting research and limited research capacity. Drawing on a sociocultural perspective, this qualitative case study explores the experience of Vietnamese scholars in developing their research skills via their research communities and their perspectives towards domestic and international research communities. Interview data show that participants were active in establishing their own networks and tended to look outward, searching for support from international communities and mentors, since their institutes lacked collegiality and research collaborations. To develop institutional research communities and positive research culture, universities’ managers should consider factors including collective values, researcher individualism, and research traditions.

This study explores how much the Vietnamese public trust their government during the COVID-19 pandemic and how public trust in government translates into support and compliance with government’s policy and regulation. The findings of the study show that there is a significant positive correlation between accessible, trustworthy communication and public trust in government. The findings also demonstrate a significantly moderate positive correlation between public trust in government and policy compliance. The more the public trust the government, the more likely they comply with government’s policy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Although blended learning (BL) has emerged as one of the most dominant delivery modes in higher education in the 21st century, there are notable barriers and drawbacks in using BL for English language teaching and learning in Vietnamese universities. This study reports on research into the use of BL, conducted through semi-structured interviews with 30 English as a Foreign Language (EFL) lecturers from 10 different universities across the two major cities of Vietnam. The findings revealed that EFL lecturers identified eight groups of barriers and four groups of drawbacks to the successful implementation of BL. The most significant barriers included: lack of infrastructure and technology, institutional policies and support; lack of knowledge, experience and investment in using BL; lack of technological competence and information technology (IT) skills and lack of teaching time to employ web-based technologies and online resources in classrooms. Meanwhile, the most crucial drawbacks were: lecturers’ workload, ineffective use of BL, time consumption and demotivation. The authors point to the underlying factors contributing to these barriers and drawbacks and make implications for how some of these can be effectively addressed through constructive changes to policy and practice.

This study explores the changes in university autonomy policies and their effect on the development of higher education in Vietnam. The research reveals that the Vietnamese government is encounteri...

With globalization of supply chains, adopting social sustainability practices (SSP) has become critical to improving sustainable development of organizations in emerging economies producing and exporting goods to developed countries. Yet, comprehensive research on SSP adoption by these companies, such as the handicraft organizations in Vietnam, is scarce. To supplement the inadequacy, this study takes an integrated supply chain perspective to examine holistically the critical factors affecting SSP adoption by Vietnamese handicraft organizations. Data were collected from a countrywide survey of 310 handicraft organizations with SSP adoption in Vietnam. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was employed to test the hypotheses. The findings reveal that organizational behavior and readiness impact directly on SSP adoption, whereas stakeholder pressures show some indirect impacts. The results also validate the mediating roles of organizational behavior and readiness in the adoption of SSP. By combining the technology-organization-environment framework with the institutional theory, this study successfully explains the diverse SSP adoption behaviors in Vietnamese handicraft organizations. It is the first attempt to explore the critical role of internationalization readiness in SSP adoption in the Vietnamese context. The research outcomes provide insights and references for sustainability practitioners and policymakers to promote SSP adoption that extends across the entire supply chain.

Knowledge transfer effectiveness is considered one of the most important factors for ensuring the success of any enterprise, especially for multinational enterprises. However, in the case of Japan, the effectiveness of knowledge transfer between Japanese managers and foreign employees is not high. This limited effectiveness is understood as linked to the cultural distance between Japanese managers and foreign employees. The main goal of this study is to explore the impact of organizational culture on knowledge transfer in Japanese enterprises. Quantitative survey research was conducted with 365 respondents, who are Vietnamese labourers working in Japan. Analysis showed that two factors had a positive impact on the effectiveness of knowledge transfer: cultural openness and managers' communication ability. The study draws on these results to make recommend improvements in the knowledge transfer process between Japanese managers and Vietnamese employees.

Background COVID-19 vaccines have been speedily developed and deployed. The more vaccine doses are delivered to users, the more common adverse events following immunization (AEFI) are reported. This study aimed to identify factors affecting AEFI in Vietnamese people receiving the COVID-19 vaccine AZD1222 developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University. Methods In July 2021, an online cross-sectional survey was conducted among Vietnamese who have been vaccinated with COVID-19 vaccines. The questionnaire collected demographic characteristics, medical history, types of injected vaccines, common AEFI, and post-vaccination activities from respondents. The effects of host-related factors on AEFI including 24 specific symptoms were also explored. Results After screening, 1028 participants who were Vietnamese, over 18 years old and received at least one dose of AZD1222, were included in the study. Only 40/1028 (3.9%) participants reported not having any AEFI, whereas 25/1028 (2.4%) reported to have severe symptoms. The most common AEFI were moderate fever (69.4%), muscle aches (68.6%), followed by fatigue/ sleepiness (62.5%), body aches (59.4%), headache (58.5%), pain at injection site (58.3%) and chills (45.7%). Data analysis showed that females complained about AEFI particularly gastrointestinal symptoms more frequently than males. Age of participants and number of doses were also important factors affecting AEFI as the increase of age or number of vaccine doses was associated with the decrease of self-reported AEFI frequency. Conclusions This study provides a detailed assessment of risk factors associated with AEFI in Vietnamese people vaccinated with AZD1222. It seems that gender, age and vaccine doses are important factors affecting AEFI.

Task conflicts among group members have a significant impact on team creativity, so it is critical to identify which conflict resolution styles should be used. This paper aims to examine how various conflict management styles influence team creativity via task conflict. The empirical research was conducted using the Structural Equation Model (SEM) for a sample of 257 employees working for Vietnamese organizations. The results show that dominating style increases task conflict while combining and obliging styles reduce it. To take advantage of the creativity-related benefits associated with task conflict, team leaders should develop an open atmosphere that encourages participants' integrating styles, rather than dominating styles. The negative influence of obliging style reflects Vietnamese culture's high collectivism. The study provides various approaches for task conflict management and also highlights the role of controlling task conflicts in enhancing team innovation. It implies that employees will be able to work better as a team in practice if conflict management strategies are used in a flexible manner. It helps them to build a good connection and successfully implement new ideas. Further research should extend the conclusion of this analysis in various contexts to generalize the findings. Doi: 10.28991/esj-2021-01303 Full Text: PDF

National cultural identity is a system of traditional values, aesthetics, and lifestyle of a nation, which forms typical, progressive, and distinctive features. Cultural identity helps us to understand different cultures among ethnic groups. The national cultural identity represents the vitality, creativity, and development of the nation. The nation's culture is the foundation of society, the goal, and the driving force for economic and social development. However, it has not yet received due attention in education in Vietnam. The purpose of this study is to find out students' perceptions and evaluations of the importance of education on national cultural identity. A questionnaire survey was distributed to 247 students at An Giang University. Through descriptive statistical analysis with SPSS, the research results show that the majority of students have a rather high opinion of the need to educate the national cultural identity; The proposed content and form of education on national cultural identity has a rather high average value. However, the contents, forms, and methods of educating national cultural identity have not been clearly defined and are still limited. The findings of this study have theoretical and practical implications for Vietnamese higher education. Proposals presented to university administrators and educational policymakers were discussed. Research results are also the basis for conducting further studies on culture. Traditional culture is distilled and transmitted so that the process of integration and globalization contributes to the creation of civilization, an opportunity for each country and nation to enrich their culture.

Over several decades, the Vietnamese government has increasingly cut its investment in the public higher education system and has also introduced a cost-sharing mechanism. Under this scheme, Vietnamese public universities have been seeking other sources of revenue. Despite the bold emphasis on the need for revenue diversification in higher education in Vietnam, there is little empirical evidence of the status quo of Vietnamese public higher education finance. The purpose of this paper was to fill this research gap by using the Hirschman–Herfindahl Index to estimate the degree of financial diversity in 51 public universities in Vietnam between 2015 and 2017. Our findings revealed that all institutions in this study were unsustainable due to their weak financial diversity. Suggestions for policy makers and university leaders that may enhance financial sustainability include the adoption of performance-based financial allocations and the implementation of capacity-building programs for universities with regard to fund-raising and entrepreneurship skills.

Motorcycles dominate current transport activities in Vietnamese cities; however, historical data show that bikes and public transport were popular as recently as 30 years ago. Because the transport infrastructure in Vietnamese cities makes it unsafe for cycling and inconvenient for public transport, many cyclists and public transport users switch to private motorized vehicles, particularly motorcycles, as soon as they can afford to make the change. The preference for motorcycles in Vietnamese cities has resulted in an increased risk of road traffic accidents and a degradation of air quality. Reducing the share of motorcycles on Vietnamese roads by improving public transport would be expected not only to improve public safety but also to have a positive impact on the environment and public health. However, efforts to improve the public transport have not yet been properly integrated into the local government system in every city. As the result, each city has different outcomes in mitigating the motorcycle-related challenges. This study examines travel behaviors in five major Vietnamese cities—Hanoi, Hai Phong, Da Nang, Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), and Can Tho—and compares the impact of improved public transport on mode choice, emissions, and traffic safety. It is found that improving public transport would result in an 21.11 percent reduction in transport emissions by 2030 in Hanoi, as well as reductions of 12.5 percent in Hai Phong, 17.37 percent in Da Nang, 9.75 percent in HCMC, and 15.21 percent in Can Tho. The differences in these percentages are due to the heterogeneous modal shifts among cities. The provision of improved public transport is also shown to reduce the risk of road traffic accidents. The risk of a traffic fatality in Hanoi decreases by 49.6 percent, while in Hai Phong, the reduction is 43.8 percent; the risk in Can Tho, Da Nang and HCMC decreases by 18.7 percent, 19.8 percent, and 26.3 percent, respectively. As public transport investment is beginning to be adapted to the city context, our results indicate that investment capital on improving the public transport system would partly contribute on reducing emissions and traffic accidents in Vietnamese cities.