The Organizational Culture of Social Enterprises: a Comparative Study

Objectives Using a quantitative survey-based approach, this study aims to identify an optimal framework to measure organizational culture and utilize that framework to identify cultural differences between social enterprises and traditional enterprises. Summary An extensive review of the literature determines that a quantitative method, assisted by qualitative methodologies, is the optimal approach to studying organizational culture, especially in comparative studies. Thus, this study opts for the Revised Organizational Practices (ROP) scale developed and verified by Verbeke (2000) on the foundation of the 1990 article by Hofstede et al. to measure the cultures of a sample of 22 companies in the United States, both social enterprises and regular companies. An analysis of the collected data confirmed that there are key cultural differences on several dimensions between of these two types of organization. Conclusions As several limitations related to sampling techniques and methodological drawbacks remain that raise some caution on the generalizability of the results, the value of this study lies in its ability to demonstrate the utility of quantitative culture measurement, as well as provide some general ideas on the culture and prevalent management practices in social enterprises. From these results, managerial implications for social entrepreneurs and managers in SE, along with suggestions for future research, are discussed in the conclusion of the paper

Poverty, inequality and potential solutions: A comparative study between Norway and Vietnam

Poverty is among the most widely discussed constructs, yet also notably diverse in terms of definitions, perspectives, and related bodies of literature. With that in sight, this study aims to better understand how poverty is perceived by a variety of stakeholders including poor people, what life lived in poverty feels like, how often inequality caused by poverty occurs, and whether existing welfare structures are sufficiently effective and supportive within the two contrasting national contexts of Norway and Vietnam, using a comparative research design. Employing a theoretical framework consisting of renowned theories including habitus theory, dependency theory, power and agency, and the capability approach, combined with a qualitative research methodology centered around semi-structured interviews and observation techniques, this research uncovered numerous valuable insights from the perspectives of people living in poverty in Norway and Vietnam, as well as other perspectives including NGOs’ and government officials’. Such findings are consistent with the themes highlighted by the proliferated literature on poverty, yet are fundamentally different between the two national contexts, which points to the concept of “relative poverty” in more than one way. In general, poverty traps, lack of agency, and self-blame are key themes highlighted through conversations with the interviewees. The research compared the two countries regarding similarities and differences in how poverty is perceived, understood, and experienced in Norway and Vietnam. The findings showed that poverty is similarly experienced as financially unstable and inadequate, stressful, inescapable, degrading, and socially excluded by those living in it and that welfare systems in both countries are unintentionally discriminating, inefficient and ineffective. There are key differences in these aspects between the two nations, which stem from their varying socio- cultural, economic, and regulatory environments. From these observations, the effectiveness of existing supporting structures and especially social welfare systems in both countries are critically analyzed. Hence, recommendations regarding improving existing welfare programs as well as alternative solutions are made

Blind multi-signature scheme based on factoring and discrete logarithm problem

One of the important objectives of information security systems is providing authentication of the electronic documents and messages. In that, blind signature schemes are an important solution to protect the privacy of users in security electronic transactions by highlighting the anonymity of participating parties. Many studies have focused on blind signature schemes, however, most of the studied schemes are based on single computationally difficult problem. Also digital signature schemes from two difficult problems were proposed but the fact is that only finding solution to single hard problem then these digital signature schemes are breakable. In this paper, we propose a new signature schemes base on the combination of the RSA and Schnorr signature schemes which are based on two hard problems: IFP and DLP. Then expanding to propose a single blind signature scheme, a blind multi-signature scheme, which are based on new baseline schemes

New Blind Muti-signature Schemes based on ECDLP

In various types of electronic transactions, including election systems and digital cash schemes, user anonymity and authentication are always required. Blind signatures are considered the most important solutions to meeting these requirements. Many studies have focused on blind signature schemes; however, most of the studied schemes are single blind signature schemes. Although blind multi-signature schemes are available, few studies have focused on these schemes. In this article, blind multi-signature schemes are proposed based on the Elliptic Curve Discrete Logarithm Problem (ECDLP). The proposed schemes are based on the GOST R34.10-2012 digital signature standard and the EC-Schnorr digital signature scheme, and they satisfy blind multi-signature security requirements and have better computational performance than previously proposed schemes. The proposed schemes can be applied in election systems and digital cash schemes

An Array of Interconnected-opened-ended Multi Wall Carbon Nanotubes Grown on AAO Template

The uniform and high ordered array of interconnected-opened-ended multi wall carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) are synthesized into nanopores of anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) templates by thermal chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method without using metallic catalyst. The morphologies and quality of MWNTs are characterized by SEM, and Raman spectroscopy. The results show that at optimized growth conditions, the high quality interconnected-opened-ended MWNTs are successfully synthesized

On the performance of the time reversal SM-MIMO-UWB system on correlated channels

The impact of spatial correlation on the multi-input multi-output ultrawide band (MIMO-UWB) system using the time reversal (TR) technique is investigated. Thanks to TR, several data streams can be transmitted by using only one antenna in a system named virtual MIMO-TRUWB. Since the virtual MIMO-TR-UWB system is not affected by the transmit correlation, under the condition of the high spatial correlation, it outperforms the true MIMO-UWB system with multiple transmit antennas. The channel measurements are performed in short-range indoor environment, both line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight to verify the adopted correlated channel model.Vietnamese National Foundation for Science and Technology Development (NAFOSTED)/102.02.07.0

Application of PCR-DGGE method for identification of nematode communities in pepper growing soil: Ứng dụng phương pháp PCR-DGGE để định danh cộng đồng tuyến trùng trong đất trồng hồ tiêu

Soil nematodes play an important role in indication for assessing soil environments and ecosystems. Previous studies of nematode community analyses based on molecular identification have shown to be useful for assessing soil environments. Here we applied PCR-DGGE method for molecular analysis of five soil nematode communities (designed as S1 to S5) collected from four provinces in Southeastern Vietnam (Binh Duong, Ba Ria Vung Tau, Binh Phuoc and Dong Nai) based on SSU gene. By sequencing DNA bands derived from S5 community sample, our data show 15 species containing soil nematode, other nematode and non-nematode (fungi) species. Genus Meloidogyne was found as abundant one. The genetic relationship of soil nematode species in S5 community were determined by Maximum Likelihood tree re-construction based on SSU gene. This molecular approach is applied for the first time in Vietnam for identification of soil nematode communities.Tuyến trùng đất đóng vai trò chỉ thị quan trọng trong công tác đánh giá môi trường và hệ sinh thái đất. Các nghiên cứu trước đây đã cho thấy lợi ích của việc phân tích cộng đồng tuyến trùng đất bằng định danh sinh học phân tử đối với việc đánh giá môi trường đất. Ở đây, chúng tôi ứng dụng phương pháp PCR-DGGE dựa trên gene SSU để phân tích năm (ký hiệu từ S1 đến S5) cộng đồng tuyến trùng đất thuộc các vùng trồng chuyên canh cây hồ tiêu ở miền nam Việt Nam (Bình Dương, Bà Rịa Vũng Tàu, Bình Phước và Đồng Nai). Bằng cách giải trình tự các vạch của mẫu tuyến trùng S5, kết quả cho thấy cộng đồng tuyến trùng này có 15 loài gồm nhóm tuyến trùng đất, nhóm các loại tuyến trùng khác và nhóm không phải tuyến trùng (nấm) và trong đó Meloidogyne là giống ưu thế. Mối quan hệ di truyền của các các loài tuyến trùng đất thuộc cộng đồng S5 được xác định bằng việc thiết lập cây phát sinh loài Maximum Likelihood dựa trên gene SSU. Đây là nghiên cứu đầu tiên ở Việt Nam sử dụng kỹ thuật PCR-DGGE để phân tích các cộng đồng tuyến trùng đất trồng hồ tiêu

A NEW SOLUTION METHOD FOR PSEUDOMONOTONE EQUILIBRIUM PROBLEMS

Abstract We propose a new method for solving an equilibrium problem where the bifunction is pseudomonotone with respect to its solution set. This method can be considered as an extension of the one introduced by Solodov and Svaiter in [28] from variational inequality to equilibrium. An application to Nash-Cournot equilibrium models of electricity markets is discussed and its computational results are reported. Bài báo đề xuất một phương pháp mới giải bài toán cân bằng với song hàm cân bằng là giả đơn điệu theo tập nghiệm của nó. Phương pháp này là một sự mở rộng của phương pháp Solodov và Svaiter (xem Index terms Pseudomonotone equilibria, Ky Fan inequality, auxiliary subproblem principle, projection method, Armijo linesearch, Nash-Cournot equilibrium model