Unleashing the power of consultations and partnerships through Aboriginal participation

What are the extent to which and the means by which Canada＇s Aboriginals are involved in consultation and more importantly, partnerships with other political actors to achieve indigenous-based change？ This paper examines this question in the larger framework of new public management （NPM） theory. NPM postulates that consultation involving public sector engagement with citizens （community engagement/ participation） will improve the quality of decisions regarding the content and delivery of policies and programs. The degree to which the public is empowered to engage with the public sector can be measured along a public participation spectrum, developed by the International Association for Public Participation （IAP2）, which measures varying degrees of public participation resulting in different forms of consultations and/or partnerships （inform, consult, involve, collaborate and empower）. This paper will examine the existing literature on public consultation and public participation which will help identify the level of Aboriginal involvement in the policy process. More specifically, this paper will examine the Government of Alberta＇s 2004 ＂Grades 10-12 Social Studies Consultation＂ and the Government of Canada＇s 2008 ＂Environment Canada＇s Aboriginal Consultations on Wastewater＂, each of which involved government initiatives to carry out consultation with various Aboriginal actors. Ultimately, this paper argues that the different levels of governments in Canada have only employed the first two stages of the public participation spectrum （＂inform＂ and ＂consult＂） and therefore, have not empowered First Nations communities to become meaningful partners in the policy-making process and the democratic process at large.     

Determinants of firm compliance to environmental laws: a case study of Vietnam

This paper seeks to develop a model of firm compliance behavior to environmental laws with specific focus on firms operating in Vietnam. Using an institutional approach, the paper employs Scott’s (Institutions and organizations, 2nd ed., Sage, Thousand Oaks 2001) “Three pillars of institution” as the generic theoretical framework for the synthesis of literature on compliance across fields. This study used a questionnaire-based survey to examine the validity of the factors identified in the literature. The method was face-to-face interviews with the managers of 63 enterprises operating in Vietnam. The hypotheses were tested using mean importance ratings, t-test of the means, and factor analysis. Almost all the listed factors determining compliance were found to be applicable to the responding companies. The level of importance placed on different factors were analyzed using Anova test and were found to vary across companies with different sizes and business structures.     

The Effect of Having Children on Women’s Marital Status: Evidence From Vietnam

In developing societies, women living without a husband face significant social-economic hardship. Previous evidence suggests that teenagers in Kenya are willing to get pregnant in hopes of marrying the father of their children. In this paper, we study the relationship between having children and women’s marriage outcomes more generally. Using the 2009 Vietnam Census data and twins as an instrument, we find that having more children reduces the probability of staying unmarried and divorced. Intriguingly, those with more children are also less likely to report widow status, perhaps suggesting that among widows, children increase the likelihood of getting remarried.     

Household Entrepreneurship and Social Networks: Panel Data Evidence from Vietnam

Using a unique panel of household businesses for Vietnam, this paper sheds light on the links between households’ and entrepreneurs’ social networks and business performance. We address two related questions. The first question asks if we can find evidence of a differentiated effect of employment of members of the family versus hired workers on the business performance. A second question tackles the respective effects of various dimensions of social networks on business technical efficiency. The hypothesis is that, beyond the channel of labour productivity, entrepreneurs that are confronted with an unfavourable social environment may produce less efficiently and realise a lower output than what could be possible with the same amount of resources. We find evidence of a marginal productivity differential between family and hired labour and highlight results consistent with the presence of adverse social network effects faced by households running a business, in particular ethnic minorities. We also stress the importance of professional networks for successful entrepreneurship.     

Participation in change,job characteristics,and hedonic well-being of senior public managers: The moderation effect of change information

This study contributes to Hobfoll's Conservation of Resources theory by testing a moderated mediation model of the relationship between participation in change and senior managers’ hedonic well-being. Using data collected from 266 Australian senior managers employed in the Commonwealth and State public sector, we tested the interaction of participation in change and change information with job satisfaction, an example of hedonic well-being at work. Findings from the path analysis produced two new insights. First, both participation in change and information about change are key resources that senior managers can deploy to protect and enhance their job satisfaction. Second, information about change has a buffering effect on the indirect relationship between participation in change and job satisfaction through job control. These two findings have practical implications indicating that it is important to train and equip senior managers in the adoption of effective strategies to acquire job resources in assisting them deal with change induced job demands.     

Determinants of foreign direct investment in Southern Central Coast of Vietnam: a spatial econometric analysis

Economic Change and Restructuring - This paper examines the determinants of foreign direct investment in the Southern Central Coast (SCC) region of Vietnam over the period 2007–2016 by a...     

Contracting personalization by results: Comparing marketization reforms in the UK and Australia

Market instruments are increasingly used to drive innovation and efficiency in public services. Meanwhile, many governments recognize the need for services to be more personalized and ‘user-centred’. This was a key aim of major welfare-to-work reforms in both the UK and Australia over the past decade, which sought to achieve personalization through increasing service delivery by for-profit providers, contracted via Payment-by-Results. Drawing on three surveys of frontline staff, we show the impact of recent UK and Australian marketization reforms on frontline practices to consider whether the reform mix of increased commercial provision tied to Payment-by-Results has enhanced service personalization. We find that the UK's ‘black box’ model was associated with some increase in frontline discretion, but little evidence that this enhanced personalization, either compared to previous programmes or to Australia's more regulated system.     

Political economy of financial crisis duration

Public Choice - Over the last four decades, banking crises around the globe have become longer. Along with the unprecedented government responses to the Great Recession of 2007–2008,...     

Becoming and being urban in Hanoi: Rural-urban migration and relations in Viet Nam

The discourse of the rural-urban migrant is that of a sojourner in the city, a man or a woman who will almost inevitably return to his or her rural roots and re-engage with farming and village living. In this paper we ask whether rural-urban migrants can ‘become’ urban and shed their identification as temporary denizens of the city. We develop a conceptual framework that provides five entry points to explore this process of becoming urban, and then apply the framework drawing on the experiences of migrants to Viet Nam's capital, Hanoi. We argue that even when migrants do return to their homelands they do so with altered priorities and on different terms. The experience of migration was not infrequently transformative and life-changing. While migrants may not ‘become’ urban in the fullest sense, their homeland had become a space of familial origin and emotional identification, not a place where people necessarily sought to reside, work, raise their children and build their lives.