BackgroundThe ageing of the population and the increased number of chronic diseases are associated with an increased frequency of end of life care in hospital settings. Residents rotating in hospital wards play a major part in their care, regardless of their specialty. General practitioner (GP) residents are confronted to such activities in hospital settings during their training. Our aim was to know how they feel about taking care of dying patients, as end-of-life care are very different from the clinical activity (...) they are trained to.MethodsWe surveyed all GP trainees of “Ile de France”. The survey was made of 41 questions regarding advanced directives divided in 7 sections about patients’ care, communication, mentoring and repercussion on personal life. The survey was done one time, during two pre-specified days.Results525 residents (53.8%) accepted to fulfill the survey. 74.1% of the residents thought that palliative care could have been better. Possible ways of improvements were: a reduction of unreasonable obstinacy (or therapeutic overkill, two terms defined in French law as curative treatment without reasonable hope of efficiency) (59.6%), patient’s (210 answers, 40%) and relative’s communication (information of patients and relatives about the severity of the disease and risk of death) (199 answers 37.9%). Residents also reported a lack of knowledge regarding end-of-life care specific treatments (411 answers, 79.3%) and 298 (47.2%) wished for better mentoring. Those difficulties were associated with repercussion on their private life (353 answers, 67.2%), particularly with their close relatives (55.4%). Finally, 56.2% of trainees thought that a systematic psychologic follow up should be instituted for those working in “at risk” hospital settings.ConclusionSelf-perception management of dying patients by GP resident emphasize their lack of training and supervision. The feeling of suboptimal care is associated with consequences on personal life. (shrink)

The doctor-patient relationship has evolved to respect “the autonomy and patients’ rights”. One of the cornerstones in such autonomy is the opportunity for patients to draw living wills, also known as advance directives. However, information about AD available to patients remains scarce largely due to the lack of involvement of General practitioners for several reasons. The aim of our study was to evaluate current general practitioner residents’ behavior concerning their role in informing their patients about AD. We built a French (...) nationwide survey from GPR class of 2012 to 2014. Two thousand three hundred ten residents completed our survey. 89.8% declared their willingness to offer patients the opportunity of writing AD. When asked about the usefulness of AD, 73.6% of residents responded that these are a suitable help for patients, but 19.7% considered that AD are essentially geared towards frail patients. Among residents who want to inform patients about AD, 14.7% wanted to involve all patients. Only 20.5% thought that elderly people should be systematically informed about AD. When the question involves other frail people in various disease areas, information seems relevant for 60.1% of GPR considering patient with cancer or malignant hematologic disease and for 56.2% about patients affected by neurodegenerative disease. When considering the routine use of AD, 20.5% of GPR would take them into account only if they are in agreement with the patient’s decision. The results of the survey indicate that GPR would rather choose to decide who should be informed about AD, and when to take AD into account for ethical concerns. (shrink)

Jacques Derrida a introduit la différance et la trace pour déconstruire la métaphysique du présent vivant et le sujet qui en constitue le suppôt. Il a mis la philosophie hors de ses gonds en posant la question de la spectralité (fidélité à Hamlet) et en inventant une pensée intempestive de l'à venir (fidélité à Nietzsche). C'est cette double généalogie (hamléto-nietzschéenne) qui donne son titre au présent recueil : Jacques Derrida, la philosophie hors de ses gonds. Les contributions qui y sont (...) réunies balisent l'immense chantier qu'il a ouvert. Elles visent à soustraire sa pensée aux menaces (forclusion, refoulement, oubli pur et simple) qui pèsent aujourd'hui sur elle, et à renouveler la lecture de ses écrits. Sillonnée par les trains d'affaires fenêtres bloquées, attachés-cases et complets-cravates, l'Europe, jadis aimée d'un dieu, n'est plus désormais qu'un "Espace" fait de plusieurs autres empilés ou entrecroisés (espace économique, espace technologique, espace judiciaire c'est-à-dire policier, espace idéologico-moral), et régi par l'espace virtuel du World Wide Web et de ses Big Data. Soit, au total, l'espace de la répression de la possibilité même de vivre et de penser. Trans-Europ-Repress, dans son jargon désorthographié, dit la chose comme elle est, et accueille des textes ayant assez de force pour dévoiler et combattre la gestion de l'impossible qui accable notre présent et plus encore pour parturier cet avenir d'après-la-fin dont le goût marin se répand dans nos imaginations."--Back cover. (shrink)

Since the 1980s, two different paradigms have reshaped industrial societies: the Neoliberal paradigm and a Research and Innovation paradigm. Both have been conceptualized and translated into strong policies with massive economic and social consequences. They provide divergent responses to the environmental transition. The Neoliberal paradigm is based on economic models and geopolitical solutions. The Research and Innovation paradigm's goal is to manage knowledge differently in order to reorient the evolution of society. Since the mid-1990s, a version of the Research and (...) Innovation paradigm has led to the design of large-scale research and innovation policies. This book examines how these policies have evolved and how they can be extended and reformed to respond to present and future environmental constraints. It studies the transformation of the conception, organization and role of science and technology in the evolution of industrial societies and explores the future of these developments. The book offers three unique lines of enquiry. The first is to focus not specifically on economics, sociology, political science or history, but on knowledge creation from an institutional and reflexive point of view. The second is to establish a convergence between the British school of science and technology studies and the research trends opened by the work of Michel Foucault. Both introduced trans-disciplinary and policy-oriented research associating case studies, long-term perspectives and theory. The third is to consider climate change as the overwhelming challenge of our time. The book is an insightful guide for students, scholars and researchers across the humanities and social sciences, including philosophy, political science, law, economics, business and media. (shrink)

Resumé: Walter Benjamin est de plus en plus présent dans les départements de communication aujourd'hui, et parfois même utilisé dans le discours des communicants eux-mêmes. Pourtant, quelque chose en lui résiste à cette instrumentalisation: c'est que, dans son œuvre, le langage ne sert pas à communiquer un sens prédéfini, mais à exprimer cela même qui est refusé au mot. Le philosophe allemand va jusqu'à liquider la posture révolutionnaire de l'artiste encore pris dans l'idéologie de la communication: il ne s'agit ni (...) de remplacer le contenu, ni de rénover la forme, mais, objectif apparemment modeste mais radicalement plus ambitieux, de changer la technique.: Walter Benjamin is ever more present in today's departments of communication studies, and sometimes even used in the communicants' discourses themselves. But there is something in him which resists this instrumentalization. Indeed, in his work, language does not offer itself to the communication of a predefined sense, but instead expresses what remains inaccessible to the word. The German philosopher succeed in liquidating the revolutionary posture of the artist still caught in the ideology of communication. This is neither a matter of substituting the content, nor of renovating the form, but - an apparently modest but radically more ambitious objective - of changing the technique. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage s’inscrit dans la dynamique de recherche ouverte par un précédent, Le Genre face aux mutations. Masculin/féminin du Moyen Âge à nos jours, publié en 2003 chez le même éditeur, à l’initiative de l’équipe de recherche « Genre, violence, crises » (crhisco/Université Rennes 2). La notion d’événement s’avère ici propice à un élargissement spatio-temporel d’un tel champ d’études sur le genre, en termes de trans-période (de l’Antiquité à mai 1968) et de comparaison (Europe/Afrique/Amériq...

Following Jean-Marc Besse’s identification of landscape as a dynamic, changing, relational and ‘emergent’ entity, I argue in this article that the artistic creative process is a way of ‘doing with’ landscape that fully embraces this peculiarity of landscape. The art of dance, in particular, makes it clear that it is the artist who creates a kind of mutual attraction between the (trans)formative forces of the landscape, suggesting its renewal and thus giving impetus to its metamorphic and transformative nature. Drawing (...) on Tonino Griffero’s neo-phenomenological approach to the characterisation of landscape as an atmosphere, i.e. as an emotional tonality effused in a ‘felt-bodily’ space, I emphasise the role of the affective dimension in the perception of landscape as something ‘to do with’ rather than ‘to act upon’ in artistic practice. To this end, I take as a case study Anna Halprin’s ‘exploratory’ dance, which focuses on fostering an individual and collective search for a harmonisation of the relationship between movement and emotion. Drawing on notions of the ‘felt body’, ‘atmospheric affordances’ and ‘ecstasies of things’, I analyse the role that her outdoor dance studio – designed by landscape architect Lawrence Halprin – plays in placing the creative process at the centre of dance’s very specific way of ‘doing with’ the landscape. (shrink)

Aims and Scope -/- The Vietnamese Social Sciences and Humanities at a Fork in the Road, utilizing an object-oriented structured database on the productivity of Vietnamese researchers, seeks to provide a comprehensive overview of the development of Social Sciences and Humanities in Vietnam from 2008 to 2018. -/- Quan-Hoang Vuong (Ph.D., Université Libre de Bruxelles) is the director of Centre for Interdisciplinary Social Research, Phenikaa University in Hanoi, Vietnam. He is chairman of the Vietnam chapter of the European Association of (...) Science Editors and serves in the NAFOSTED Scientific Council on Basic Research in the Social Sciences and Humanities (2019-2021). Dr. Vuong has published more than 120 academic articles, and book chapters in about 50 refereed journals and books by such publishers as Elsevier, Inderscience, Nature Publishing Group, Springer, Praeger, Wiley, World Scientific, etc. -/- Trung Tran is an Associate Professor of Mathematics Education and works at Vietnam Academy for Ethnic Minorities. He is a member of the Vietnam chapter of The European Association of Science Editors (EASE), a leader of the Vietnamese Science Editors (VSE) Team, and a chairman of Editor's Board of Journal of Ethnic Minorities Research (ISSN: 0866-773X). (shrink)

Rapid urbanization in Vietnam significantly impacts the environment and human well-being. Public parks are crucial for enhancing social and environmental sustainability in urban areas, yet their establishment and expansion require substantial funding. This study investigates the factors influencing Vietnamese urban residents’ willingness to donate to planting projects in public parks, utilizing the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF), which combines Mindsponge Theory’s informational entropy-based notion of value with Bayesian analysis. Analyzing data from 535 residents in major Vietnamese cities, we found that while (...) men visit public parks more frequently, they are less willing to donate to planting projects. Older residents visit parks more often and are more willing to donate, while higher-income individuals show greater willingness to donate. Most motivations—such as relaxation, physical activities, nature enjoyment, socializing, and family time—are positively linked to park visit frequency and indirectly to donation willingness. However, only relaxation and enjoyment of nature are directly associated with willingness to donate. Interestingly, higher education levels and visiting parks for children’s educational activities are associated with lower donation willingness. These findings hint at the possible existence of the free-riding problem, gender inequality, ineffective environmental education, and lack of awareness of public parks’ natural value, as well as opportunities to cultivate an eco-surplus culture through nature interactions in public parks. (shrink)

Cognitive theories of emotion propose that the interpretation of emotion-eliciting situations crucially shapes affective responses. Implicit or automatic biases in these interpretations may hinder emotion regulation and thereby increase risk for the onset and maintenance of psychological disorders. In this study, participants were randomly assigned to a positive or negative interpretation bias training using ambiguous social scenarios. After the completion of the training, a stress task was administered and changes in positive and negative affect and self-esteem were assessed. The results (...) demonstrate that the interpretation bias training was successful in that participants exhibited a tendency to interpret novel scenarios in accordance with their training condition. Importantly, the positive training condition also had a protective effect on self-esteem. Participants in this condition did not exhibit a decrease in self-esteem after the stress task, whereas participants in the negative condition did. These results demonstrate that implicit cognitive biases can be trained and that this training affects self-esteem. Implications of these findings for research on psychopathology and emotion regulation are discussed. (shrink)

We consider structures of the form (Z;+,C), where C is an additive cyclic order on (Z;+). We show that such structures are dp-minimal and in this way produce a continuum-size family of dp-minimal expansions of (Z;+) such that no two members of the family define the same subsets of Z.

Cultural diplomacy is a special form of cultural application to improve diplomatic effectiveness, create, and promote national culture. Since the Cold War until now, South Korea, Japan, and India have been continuously promoting cultural diplomacy based on the dissemination of increasingly interconnected literary and cinematic publications. Cultural diplomacy with Vietnam has also helped South Korea, Japan, and India maximize their role as responsible powers for a typical Southeast Asian country, Vietnam. Through three typical cases in promoting the role of cultural (...) diplomacy to preserve Oriental cultural identity: Japan, India, and South Korea, by using systemic and interdisciplinary methods, the article focuses on four main characteristics that demonstrate the role of cultural diplomacy in preserving Oriental cultural identity in these countries, the quantity, content, implementation situation, and economic - political - social role of cultural products are utilized and promoted in cultural diplomacy of South Korea, Japan, and India. The article shows that cultural diplomacy not only spreads Oriental cultural values, contributing to maintaining economic growth of the Asian countries mentioned in the article, but also helps improve national brand image, enhance the position and national potential in the international stage. (shrink)

Dans un régime comme celui de la République populaire de Chine, où prévaut la suprématie d’un Parti-État unique, la politique et le politique constituent, a fortiori plus qu’ailleurs, la chasse gardée de l’élite dirigeante du pays, à savoir les cadres du Parti communiste. Cet article tente de saisir qui sont les élites politiques aux commandes de la Chine d’aujourd’hui à travers l’analyse du modus operandi de l’École des cadres du Parti de Shanghai. L’étude de cette institution, qui participe à la (...) régulation de la circulation des élites et constitue l’un des lieux privilégiés de la transmission et de l’exercice du pouvoir, permet, par-delà son propre fonctionnement, d’éclairer la nature et le devenir même du régime. S’il apparaît que les forces modernisatrices, en assimilant davantage l’École du Parti à un institut d’administration publique, œuvrent à la professionnalisation du métier de cadre, c’est également et avant tout afin de mieux perpétuer l’hégémonie du Parti-État unique.In a regime where the one Party-State rule still prevails, as is the case in the People’s Republic of China, the polity and politics constitute – here more than anywhere else – the private ground of the country’s ruling elite, i.e. the cadres of the Communist Party. This article attempts to grasp who the political elites in control of contemporary China are, by analyzing the modus operandi of the Shanghai Party School for Cadres. The study of an institution that takes part in the circulation of the elites and hence constitutes one of the privileged playing fields for the transmission and the exercise of power, allows, beyond the understanding of its own working, to shed light on the very nature and evolution of the regime. If the modernizing forces appear to work towards the professionalization of the cadres’ craft by equating the Party School to an institute of public administration, they ultimately do so in order to better perpetuate the supremacy ofthe one-Party system. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted a nudge for public–private cooperation in healthcare to rapidly cope with limited resource. However, Vietnam’s historical reliance on a public healthcare system, combined with a traditional emphasis on socialization in the Polanyian sense, hindered the swift integration of the private sector. This research investigates path dependency in Vietnam’s public health sector, using theories including path dependency, Karl Polanyi’s double movement with legal analysis method to analyze the interplay of historical decisions, and socialist policies in healthcare. Recognizing (...) these institutional and market governance flaws, a deeper understanding of the role of law becomes vital in crafting strategies for a more resilient and sustainable healthcare system in Vietnam. In this article, Ho Chi Minh City is chosen as a case study due to its notable mix of public–private healthcare facilities and its status as a leading area in infection cases during the third COVID-19 wave. The article suggests that there should be a change in the way public and private sectors work together, one that is more in line with market-driven solutions which requires solid legal framework for cooperation beyond merely mobilizing resources. (shrink)

As a generation of ‘digital natives,’ secondary students who were born from 2002 to 2010 have various approaches to acquiring digital knowledge. Digital literacy and resilience are crucial for them to navigate the digital world as much as the real world; however, these remain under-researched subjects, especially in developing countries. In Vietnam, the education system has put considerable effort into teaching students these skills to promote quality education as part of the United Nations-defined Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4). This issue (...) has proven especially salient amid the COVID−19 pandemic lockdowns, which had obliged most schools to switch to online forms of teaching. This study, which utilizes a dataset of 1061 Vietnamese students taken from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)’s “Digital Kids Asia Pacific (DKAP)” project, employs Bayesian statistics to explore the relationship between the students’ background and their digital abilities. Results show that economic status and parents’ level of education are positively correlated with digital literacy. Students from urban schools have only a slightly higher level of digital literacy than their rural counterparts, suggesting that school location may not be a defining explanatory element in the variation of digital literacy and resilience among Vietnamese students. Students’ digital literacy and, especially resilience, also have associations with their gender. Moreover, as students are digitally literate, they are more likely to be digitally resilient. Following SDG4, i.e., Quality Education, it is advisable for schools, and especially parents, to seriously invest in creating a safe, educational environment to enhance digital literacy among students. (shrink)

In Norway, by tradition a Lutheran country, the puritan ethics of a moral minority has a strong influence on the development and manifestations of medical ethics. Those who exert this influence are found primarily among politicians, the clergy, and, last but certainly not least, among nurses and doctors. The focus of interest is not so much on problems of bioethical moral theory or the teaching of bioethics to students, but very much on attitudes and policies with regard to substantive issues (...) traditionally regarded in Norway as burning bioethical issues, such as: medical research ethics, abortion, prenatal diagnosis, euthanasia, definitions of death, and reproductive technologies. (shrink)

Nguyễn Khoa Diệu Biên, née en 1924, conserve un « livre de dédicaces » depuis plus d’un demi-siècle. Dans ce cahier de collégiennes, on peut lire le plaisir de « revivre le bonheur révolu » des années de jeunesse dans l’un des trois collèges de jeunes filles du Việt Nam sous la colonisation française. Témoignage privilégié confronté à des récits autobiographiques ou à des entretiens directs, il révèle des effets encore insuffisamment évoqués de la scolarisation : l’ouverture à la culture (...) occidentale, l’acquisition et l’affirmation d’une autre personnalité et, en même temps, les liens que ces collégiennes gardaient avec l’environnement social et culturel vietnamien ainsi que les soucis patriotes, l’engagement politique anticolonialiste qu’elles partageaient avec la majorité de l’élite intellectuelle. (shrink)

Religious beliefs are defined as thinking, feeling and behaving in accordance with the beliefs and teachings of a religious system. In other words, religious beliefs are indicative of the role of religion in the individual and social life of people, as well as adherence to values and beliefs in daily life, performing religious practices and rituals and participating in activities of religious organisations. Religious beliefs are a set of dos and don'ts, and values are considered one of the most important (...) psychological supports that can provide meaning in all moments of life and save a person from meaninglessness by providing explanatory support in specific situations. In addition, work conscience is defined as a feeling of inner commitment to comply with agreed-upon requirements for work. In other words, work conscience means heartfelt satisfaction and practical commitment to the tasks that a person is supposed to perform properly, in a way that there will be no negligence in performing the duty even if no supervisor oversees the activity. Given the significant role of nurses in hospitals, especially during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the religious beliefs of healthcare employees have become more important. Therefore, the present study aimed to evaluate the effect of religious beliefs on the work conscience of 1800 Muslim nurses in Iraq during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021. Standard questionnaires were applied to assess the respondents' religious beliefs and work conscience. In addition, data analyses (Cronbach's alpha, Pearson's correlation, etc.) were performed in Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). According to the results, religious beliefs have a positive effect on nurses' work conscience (p = 0.822). CONTRIBUTION: The findings of this study showed that the employees of an organisation, especially nurses and healthcare staff, can rely on their religious beliefs and benefit from their advantages in order to strengthen their work conscience during a hard time such as the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

Good people often die badly, and, sometimes, bad people die well. Both are true for complex reasons. We worry that the tropic formulation trades on a simplistic anthropology that belies the complexities of how persons operate in the world. In this essay, we are interested in these complexities and a better theological acknowledgement of them, not least because the fantasy of the good death ill prepares one for real death. We argue that valorizing pious religious death and profane ugly death (...) loses sight of these complexities, which we think should comprise any account Christians give about what persons are and are in their dying—an account that often goes by the name “theological anthropology.” It is the simplistic theological anthropology more than the tropic formulation—the anthropology the trope smuggles in—that concerns us. Our argument proceeds by first examining the fantasy of the good death, measuring it against a historical record with an examination of the Ars Moriendi tradition, and then thinking more broadly about what motivates it. Along the way, we consider a recent film, The Farewell, where good-death fantasies comically run up against death’s reality and where goodness, truth, and beauty show up anyhow. (shrink)

Die alternativ-spirituelle Gruppe Terra Sagrada, die sich den afro-brasilianischen Traditionen des Candomblés und der Umbanda zuschreibt, wird hauptsächlich von Frauen mit einem psycho-sozialen beruflichen Hintergrund besucht und kultiviert. Dieser gegenderten Attraktion der Geisterinkorporation wird sich auf Grundlage von Interviews und Ritualteilnahmen genähert, um den besonderen Reiz dieses Rituals für Frauen zu beleuchten. Neben der Betonung von Körper und Erleben, der Möglichkeit, Selbstwirksamkeit, Kontrolle und Macht zu erleben sowie dem Gemeinschaftssinn ist es vor allem die Vorstellung von Person und Selbst – (...) das sogenannte „innere Team“ –, die die Frauen aus ihren sozialpädagogischen und psychologischen Ausbildungshintergründen kennen und welche nun in diesem religiösen Kontext aktiviert wird. Die Verknüpfung dieser zwei Kontexte ermöglicht die Akzeptanz des Ritualgeschehens und verstärkt die Identifikation mit den spirituellen Vorstellungen der Terra Sagrada. (shrink)

Recent decades have witnessed widespread agrarian transitions in mainland Southeast Asia. This paper examines how agrarian transitions are shaped by multiple drivers of change, and how these interwoven processes have triggered shifts in agricultural extension practices in three countries in the Lower Mekong Basin: Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Drawing on interviews with experts working on the fields of agrarian studies and rural development, this paper argues that agrarian transitions not only put a strain on agricultural extension systems in responding to (...) evolving needs, but they also stimulate the co-production of innovative agricultural extension models to address gaps left by the limited presence of extensionists. The study gains insight into challenges faced by extensionists, including a lack of resources, skills, and capacities to meet growing needs, which simultaneously urged them to excel in their work performance. The paper highlights the proactive role of ‘champions’ in orchestrating collective efforts towards the co-production of innovative agricultural extension models (e.g. Metkasekor), and the formulation of pluralistic extension platforms in enabling such ‘co-learning-to-act’ practices. By translating these insights into the broader contexts of agricultural and rural development in the Mekong region and beyond, this paper aims to make a two-fold contribution. First, it will assert how the ‘business-as-usual’ extension model has failed to adequately address emerging needs as a result of agrarian transitions. Second, it will provide pathways for the recognition and legitimisation of the pluralistic extension approach that fosters stakeholders’ co-learning and productive engagement in extension practices. (shrink)

This paper focuses on learning that takes place outside formal classrooms within groups or teams. Based on the conceptual framework of informal learning, adult learning and lifelong learning, it investigates how two contrasting groups of adult learners in Vietnam, Mekong doctors and Hanoi hairdressers, learn, interact, and collaborate through their informal learning experiences in the workplace. These are two ‘co-present groups’ or two ‘complex systems’. For Vietnamese learners, the challenges of Confucian heritage culture, or the lack of awareness of cultural (...) differences, created obstacles to collaboration and participation. The contribution to this Special Issue argues that co-present group learning applies well to non-Western Confucius-based cultures and other countries with similar values, despite this lack of awareness of cultural differences. (shrink)

L'homme est Gattungswesen (être générique) en tant qu'il se réalise comme un être universel, et ce de plusieurs façons. En tant qu'être vivant, il est ouvert sur la nature tout entière. Par son travail l'homme associe la nature à sa vie en la transformant effectivement en son corps inorganique. Sa pensée atteint les objets universels, c'est-à-dire les genres, les concepts. En tant qu'être pensant, l'individu humain s'identifie au genre humain dans son ensemble. Cependant l'homme n'est pas immédiatement Gattungswesen : il (...) lui faut réaliser, dans le monde du travail, son unité effective avec les autres par une action historique commune menée consciemment. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show the relationship between John XXIII and Robert K. Greenleaf’s understanding of leadership. By taking into consideration Greenleaf’s theory of servant-leadership – from conceptualization to model development – and Larry Spears’ influential rubric of ten servant-leadership characteristics, we will show how servant-leadership theory goes in line with that of John XXIII when both are based on a notion of the common good and human dignity.

The so-called “conciliatory” norm in epistemology and meta-ethics requires that an agent, upon encountering peer disagreement with her judgment, lower her confidence about that judgment. But whether agents actually abide by this norm is unclear. Although confidence is excessively researched in the empirical sciences, possible effects of disagreement on confidence have been understudied. Here, we target this lacuna, reporting a study that measured confidence about moral beliefs before and after exposure to moral discourse about a controversial issue. Our findings indicate (...) that participants do not abide by the conciliatory norm. Neither do they conform to a rival “steadfast” norm that demands their confidence to remain the same. Instead, moral discourse seems to boost confidence. Interestingly, we also find a confidence boost for factual beliefs, and a correlation between the extremity of moral views and confidence. One possible explanation of our findings is that when engaging in moral discourse participants become more extreme in their opinions, which leads them to become more confident about them, or vice versa: they become more confident and in turn more extreme. Although our work provides initial evidence for the former mechanism, further research is needed for a better understanding of confidence and moral discourse. (shrink)

Using a nationwide survey of provincial institutional quality and a sample of private manufacturing small and medium scale enterprises, this paper contributes to the literature by considering for the first time the effects of corruption on the financial performance of Vietnamese private SMEs. Interestingly, contrary to previous findings, we find that corruption when measured by a dummy variable, does not affect firms’ financial performance after controlling for heterogeneity, simultaneity and dynamic endogeneity. However, the intensity of bribery and the majority of (...) the forms of corruption were found to have negative impacts on firms’ financial performance. Hence, a typical approach using only a dummy variable for bribery might not adequately evaluate the impact of bribe intensity or even ignores the negative impacts of some types of bribes on firms’ financial performance. The findings suggest that anti-corruption measures are vital for the development of the Vietnamese private SMEs. (shrink)

Corporate bond appeared in 1992-1994 in Vietnamese capital markets. However, it is still not popular to both business sectors and academic circles. This paper explores different dimensions of Vietnamese corporate bond market using a unique and perhaps, most complete data set. State not only intervenes in the bond markets with its powerful budget and policies but also competes directly with enterprises. The dominance of state-owned enterprises and large corporations also prevents small and medium enterprises from this debt financing vehicle. Whenever (...) a convertible term is available, bondholders are more willing to accept lower fixed income payoff. But they would not likely stick to it. On the one hand, prospective bondholders could value the holdings of equity when realized favourably ex ante. On the other hand, the applicable coupon rate for such bonds could turn out negative inflation-adjusted payoff when tight monetary policy is exercised and the corresponding equity holding turns out valueless, ex post. Given the weak primary market and virtually non-existent secondary market, the corporate bond market in Vietnam reflects our perception of the relationship-based and rent-seeking behaviour in the financial markets. For the corporate bonds to really work, they critically need a higher level of liquidity to become truly tradeable financial assets. Updated entries in 2010 affirm the findings and conclusions. (shrink)

This paper explores the nature of the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and competitiveness. We start with the commonly held view that firm competitiveness is defined by the market. That is, the question of what are the critical competitiveness factors is answered by looking at how companies and financial analysts describe and evaluate a firm. To analyze this, we review the current state of the art on the relationship between CSR and competitiveness. Second, CSR criteria used by financial analysts (...) is identified and compared with company valuation methods. Third, the results of a multi-stakeholder dialogue on CSR and competitiveness of the European financial sector are presented. As a conclusion, we argue that CSR and competitiveness relate through a learning and innovation cycle, where corporate values, policies and practices are permanently defined and re-defined. Thus, we propose that learning takes place as CSR is embedded in business processes, and that once it has been integrated, in turn, it generates innovative practices, and finally, competitiveness. At the end of the paper, we propose that CSR in practice consists of managing inherent paradoxes generated by the tension between CSR and business policies. (shrink)

We present our method for tackling a legal case retrieval task by introducing our method of encoding documents by summarizing them into continuous vector space via our phrase scoring framework utilizing deep neural networks. On the other hand, we explore the benefits from combining lexical features and latent features generated with neural networks. Our experiments show that lexical features and latent features generated with neural networks complement each other to improve the retrieval system performance. Furthermore, our experimental results suggest the (...) importance of case summarization in different aspects: using provided summaries and performing encoded summarization. Our approach achieved F1 of 65.6% and 57.6% on the experimental datasets of legal case retrieval tasks. (shrink)