Financial reporting quality, ownership structure and investment efficiency: An empirical analysis of Vietnamese listed firms : A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Lincoln University

Investment efficiency (IE) is one of the most researched topics in corporate finance in the last 20 years. In an ideal world, firms invest until the marginal benefit of their investments equals the marginal cost. However, because of market imperfections such as information asymmetry, moral hazard and adverse selection, firms may deviate from the optimal level, which results in inefficient investment. Prior research suggests that inefficient investment negatively affects firm performance and leads to higher costs of equity. Given the importance of efficient investment to firm growth and performance, there has been a significant body of literature on the factors affecting IE. However, there is a limited number of studies exploring IE in newly emerging markets such as Vietnam. In order to enrich the literature on IE in emerging markets, this study examines the impacts of two firm-specific characteristics - ownership structure and financial reporting quality (FRQ) - on the IE of Vietnamese listed firms. This study uses four proxies for FRQ and three measures of ownership structure - ownership concentration, institutional ownership and managerial ownership - to test the effects of ownership structure and FRQ on IE. Using unbalanced panel data of 645 Vietnamese listed firms from 2007 to 2018, the results show that FRQ has a positive influence on IE. In addition, institutional ownership positively impacts IE but there is no significant relationship between managerial ownership and IE of Vietnamese listed firms. Ownership concentration also has a positive effect on the IE of Vietnamese listed firms but its effect disappears after we control for the effects of institutional ownership and managerial ownership. The impact of FRQ on IE is stronger in Vietnamese state-owned enterprises (SOEs). However, the impact of ownership concentration, institutional ownership and managerial ownership on IE shows no difference between SOEs and non-SOEs. Finally, ownership concentration and institutional ownership have no significant influence on the relationship between FRQ and IE. Managerial ownership, on the other hand, reduces the positive relationship of FRQ on IE. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first study that investigates the influence of ownership concentration, institutional ownership and managerial ownership on IE as well as the interaction effect of these three measures of ownership structure and FRQ on the IE of Vietnamese listed firms. The results of this study provide some managerial implications and suggestions for Vietnamese listed firms and policy-makers on how to mitigate firm-level investment inefficiency

Chemical composition and antimicrobial activity of the essential oil from leaves of Magnolia coriacea (Hung T. Chang & B. L. Chen) figlar growing in Vietnam

Leaf essential oil of Magnolia coriacea (Hung T. Chang B. L. Chen) Figlar growing wild in the Bat Dai Son Nature Reserve, Ha Giang Province, Viet Nam was obtained by hydrodistillation and its chemical composition was analyzed using GC/MS. In total, 45 compounds were detected in the essential oil, accounting for 87.1% of the oil, in which 37 compounds were identified accounting for 66.9%. Bicyclogermacrene (12.6%) and spathulenol (17.0%) were the main components of the leaf essential oil of M. coriacea. Antimicrobial activity of the essential oil sample was tested against three microorganism strains using an agar disk diffusion method. The results show that the inhibitory zone diameters ranged from 8.5 to 20.5 mm. Median inhibitory concentration (IC50) and minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the essential oil was determined using microdilution broth susceptibility assay against seven test microorganism strains. Bacillus subtilis had the highest sensitivity with IC50 and MIC values of 185.9 and 512 µg/mL, respectively. 

The effect of intervention on health behaviour and ethical consumption: A cross-national study

ABSTRACT Background To my knowledge, there is very little information on health behaviour and ethical consumption to be studied in Vietnam. Also, the study on the effectiveness of health intervention to the Vietnamese population is limited. Moreover, there is a need to investigate the health behaviour and ethical judgements of consumers across a broad multi-cultural cross-section of the adult population. The present study is designed to address this research need. The health behaviour and ethical consumption are compared for people from a developing country (Vietnam) and a developed country (the UK). Objective The aim of this paper is to implement a study on a sample of Vietnamese participants to examine whether health behaviour changes. Moreover, the purpose of the study will extend to make a comparison of the health lifestyle behaviours of participants from two diverse cultures and economies: citizens residing in Vietnam and citizens residing in the UK. Methods A cross-national survey is conducted among Vietnamese and British population. Data on demographics, ethical consumption, dietary habit and physical activity are collected. The study applies a 2 x 2 experimental design (intervention vs. control) x (baseline vs. follow-up). The between - participants variable is the assignment into either the intervention group or the control group. The within - participants variable is the time in which questionnaires are managed: baseline or 7 days follow-up (i.e. intervention period). The participants are randomly assigned to the intervention or control group. The intervention method to be used is information leaflet which mentions 5 health and lifestyles guidelines. The Mann Whitney u-test is performed with all outcome measures across the control and intervention condition. Correlations of ethical consumption, dietary habit and physical activity are identified using multivariable regression analysis. Results A total of 91 Vietnamese and 30 British completes the baseline questionnaire. The Vietnamese participants are randomly divided into control group (51 participants) and intervention group (40 participants). All the British participants belong to the intervention group. After the intervention period of 7 days, 14 British and 58 Vietnamese complete final questionnaire. Vietnamese spend more money on meat and poultry (p=0.0172), fruit and vegetable (p=0.0034) whereas British spend more money on alcohol (p=0.0008). Vietnamese are more likely than British to have better ethical consumption behaviour (p=0.0404). However, no significant difference is observed in terms of dietary habit and physical activity for the two countries. The designed intervention leaflet does not have influence on health behaviour and ethical consumption for the participants in the study. Nevertheless, more than 80% of participants acknowledge the usefulness of the intervention leaflet and near 50% of participants follow the guidelines occasionally and very frequently. Gender and education are found to have significant impacts on health and ethical consumption behaviour variables. However, there is no correlation of these variables and age and marital status. Conclusions The study provide a valuable basis for the comparison regarding to dietary habit, physical activity and ethical consumption of Vietnam and British. The intervention effect is not found in this study. The association of health and ethical consumption behaviour is observed with gender and education but not with age and marital status

Innovative Firm Performance Management Using a Recommendation System Based on Fuzzy Association Rules: The Case of Vietnam’s Apparel Small and Medium Enterprises

Purpose: This study aims to apply a classification algorithm based-on fuzzy association rules (FARs) to improve the effectiveness of firms' performance prediction problem. Particularly, this study investigates potential FARs exists between inputs and outputs of firms' performance management process. These extracted FARs could be used to help firm’s managers make better dicision to improve firm’s performance.   Theoretical framework: Private enterprise development has been identified as key to Vietnam's economy that was commonly depended on state enterprise. For that, understanding and improving firms' performance and productivity is one of the most important tasks, from both macro and micro perspectives. There have been many studies on Vietnam's firm performance, but mostly relying on econometric methods that limit the understanding with structural equations. This study, instead, attempts to utilize new achievements of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for this task. Among AI techniques, fuzzy association rule is able to address the relationship between input factors and firm performance indicators. For each company, the finding FARs can be used to predict its performance and then change the business plan or react to improve weekness of organization.   Design/Methodology/Approach: The proposal model is applied on data of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) of the apparel industry in Vietnam in the period 2010-2015. The sample consist of a total of 23637 observation of  Vietnam firms in apparel and textile industry and contains 16 main criterias for those firms.   Finding: A recommendation system (RS) is constructed from disclosed FARs and is a key factor in a novel innovative firms' performance management process. The percentage of classified instances using the mining FARs is not quite high (about 82%), but it is not always the case. Vietnam’s apparel dataset includes rare classes of ROA, therefore applying only frequent FARs is not enough. This issue can be fixed by using both frequent and infrequent FARs.       Research, practical & social implications: The proposed model has a great opportunity to use not only in the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) of the apparel industry but other industrial sectors. FARs support the well-understand of firm performance to firm’s manager and help them better to react. Besides, FARs could be used to create RSs that makes alerts about risk automatically.   Originality/Value: The fact, our current study is the first to inspect the ability of FARs on SMEs of the apparel industry in Vietnam. This study provides theoritical potential knowledge and empirical evidence in the application of FARs technology in innovative firm’s management

Vai trò của nhóm nghiên cứu đối với việc công bố quốc tế trong lĩnh vực khoa học tự nhiên và kỹ thuật

Công bố khoa học được xem là một trong những thước đo trình độ phát triển khoa học công nghệ và sức cạnh tranh của mỗi một quốc gia do đó nó luôn là chủ đề gây chú ý đối với toàn xã hội trong những năm gần đây. Nâng cao số lượng và chất lượng nghiên cứu khoa học, công bố quốc tế được xem là một trong những yếu tố quan trọng quyết định đến sự hình thành và phát triển của các nhóm nghiên cứu cũng như quyết định cho sự thành công của các hoạt động khoa học công nghệ của bất kỳ cơ quan tổ chức nghiên cứu, giáo dục nào. Nghiên cứu này được thực hiện nhằm đánh giá vai trò của các nhóm nghiên cứu đối với việc công bố quốc tế riêng trong lĩnh vực khoa học tự nhiên và kỹ thuật

Dynamic characteristics of elastically supported beam subjected to a compressive axial force and a moving load

This paper discusses the dynamic characteristics of an elastically supported Euler-Bernoulli beam subjected to an initially loaded compressive force and a moving point load. The eccentricity of the axial force is taken into consideration. The time-histories for beam deflection and the dynamic magnification factors are computed by using the Galerkin finite element method and the implicit Newmark method. The effects of decelerated and accelerated motions on the dynamic characteristics are also examined. The influence of the axial force, eccentricity and the moving load parameters on the dynamic characteristics of the beams is investigated and highlighted

Optimization for continuous overflow proteolytic hydrolysis of spent brewer’s yeast by using proteases

A large amount of spent yeast as by-product is annually generated from brewing industry and it contains about 50-55% protein with good balance of amino acids. The hydrolysate produced from spent brewer’s yeast may be used in food application. The yield of proteolylic hydrolysis for spent brewer’s yeast and amino acid contents of hydrolysates depend on factors such as temperature, pH value, type of used enzyme and ratio enzyme/substrate, time. Besides, applied hydrolysing methods (batch-, or continuous method) has effected on degree of hydrolysis. With the purpose of how proteolytic hydrolysis having effects on the spent brewer’s yeast for food application in industrial scale, continuous overflow method was used in this study. Bitterness of hydrolysate and the yield of continuous overflow proteolytic hydrolysis process are the two interested factors for protein hydrolysis. In this report, it is dealt with determination for optimal conditions to obtain the highest yield of hydrolysis process and the lowest bitterness of hydrolysate. Response surface methodology (RSM) was used to determine optimal condition for continuous overflow proteolytic hydrolysis of spent brewer’s yeast. The optimal conditions for obtaining high degree of hydrolysis and low bitterness are determined as followings: ratio of enzyme mixture (alcalase 7.5 U/g and flavourzyme 10 U/g), pH at 7.5, hydrolysis temperature at 51oC and hydrolysis time of 9 hours. Under the optimal conditions, the yield of hydrolysis was 59.62% ± 0.027 and the bitterness equivalently with concentration of quinine was 7.86 ± 0.033 μmol /ml

ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS’ LISTENING DIFFICULTIES AND USE OF STRATEGIES AT MIEN DONG UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, VIETNAM

Through the years, difficulties in English listening and listening strategies have been conducted by many researchers. Most of studies have pointed out the common difficulties and strategies which students often have. Focusing on the same subject with a new perspective, this research aimed at understanding English majors’ difficulties in listening and use of listening strategies. A total of ninety eight freshmen English-majored students at Mien Dong University took part in answering the questionnaire and five students answered the semi-structure interview questions. The data gained from the questionnaire were analyzed by SPSS version 20.0 in terms of descriptive statistic. The findings revealed that English-majored students had many difficulties in listening such as the difficulties related to the listener, the content of the dialogue, the speaker, the physical setting and the linguistic factors. In terms of listening strategies, the finding showed that the cognitive listening strategies were used more frequently than metacognitive and socio-affective strategies. Based on the findings, some implications were made to contribute to the administrations, teachers and students at Mien Dong University of Technology.  Article visualizations

EFL STUDENT’S PROBLEMS WITH PARAGRAPH WRITING AT TAY DO UNIVERSITY, VIETNAM

This paper studied problems in EFL students’ paragraph writing. The research participants were first-year students of English in Tay Do University (TDU). To achieve the desired aims of the current study, the researcher combined both qualitative and quantitative methods, using questionnaires, interviews, and observations as the main instruments. The researcher used the package of social sciences (SPSS) for analysis. Research results showed that the freshmen at TDU often encountered problems in writing paragraphs. These accounted for grammatical structures, vocabulary, and coherence. Basing on the research results, students could recognize their difficulties when writing and find some new ways to overcome them. It is suggested that teachers should find and update some new teaching methods so as to develop students’ paragraph writing skills. Article visualizations