Public Investment Management of Higher Education in Vietnam : Current Issues and Policy Recommendations

Purpose: The aim of the paper is to provide a comprehensive insight on public investment management practices in higher education and experiences of developed countries, to analyse the current approaches to public investment management in Vietnam and to propose applicablepolicy recommendations.Design/methodology/approach: Case study based on literature of public investment in higher education and analysis of legal documents, reports and data regarding Vietnam’s current practices in the field.Findings: Public investment management practices of Vietnam still follow the traditional approach, which has shown various weaknesses and drawbacks in terms of efficiency, lack of unification, and incapability of higher education institutions to seek for autonomy and alternative operational resources.Research and practical limitations/implications: Lack of quantitative data and survey tools to enhance the practical implementation of the study.Originality/value: This paper can become a reference resource for policy makers in terms of promoting reforms in the public investment system for higher education in the future.Paper type: Case study

The Role of Soft Skills in Promoting Effective Communication and Cooperation among Students in a Multicultural Classroom Environment

This study was conducted to examine the importance of soft skills in promoting successful communication and cooperation among students in a multicultural classroom environment. Soft skills, including effective communication, active listening, empathy, and teamwork play an important role in building positive relationships and fostering cross-cultural understanding. Through the study of documents and the results of interviews with 12 students from 8 universities in Hanoi, the research results demonstrate that students who actively participate in the development of soft skills demonstrate a greater level of awareness and appreciation of their role in a multicultural environment. Based on the results of the study, a number of collaborative learning strategies, cultural exchange programs and real-world problem-solving activities are encouraged to raise students' awareness and understanding of the importance of soft skills

Model Updating for Large-Scale Railway Bridge Using Grey Wolf Algorithm and Genetic Alghorithms

This paper proposes a novel hybrid algorithm to deal with an inverse problem of a large-scale truss bridge. Grey Wolf Optimization (GWO) Algorithm is a well-known and widely applied metaheuristic algorithm. Nevertheless, GWO has two major drawbacks. First, this algorithm depends crucially on the positions of the leading Wolf. If the position of the leaderis far from the best solution, the obtained results are poor. On the other hand, GWO does not own capacities to improve the quality of new generations if elements are trapped into local minima. To remedy the shortcomings of GWO, we propose a hybrid algorithm combining GWO with Genetic Algorithm (GA), termed HGWO-GA. This proposed method contains two key features (1) based on crossover and mutation capacities, GA is first utilized to generate the high-quality elements (2) after that, the optimization capacity of GWO is employed to seek the optimal solutions. To assess the effectiveness of the proposed approach, a large-scale truss bridge is employed for model updating. The obtained results show that HGWO-GA not only provides a good agreement between numerical and experimental results but also outperforms traditional GWO in terms of accuracy

Pandemic Effect on the Industry 4.0 Readiness: A Case Study in Vietnamese Industry

The COVID-19 pandemic has seriously affected the global supply chain because many links in the chain have been broken or severely delayed. Different epidemic response policies from other countries also have had a significant impact on logistics activities and the operations of businesses. The considerable influence of this pandemic also has caused companies to change their strategies for risk management and apply advanced technologies to handle disruption in the future. This study explores the pandemic’s impact on the decision to apply Industry 4.0 technology in the production process using qualitative research. The leaders from 4 selected manufacturing firms were interviewed with open-end questions and thematic and cross-case analyses were applied to analyze their strategic orientation to use Industry 4.0 technology in their businesses during and after COVID-19. The results show that COVID-19 influenced the decision to implement Industry 4.0 technology in international and local companies within the global market. In contrast, the pandemic has not affected the decision to implement Industry 4.0 technology in a local company with a local market. The following policy recommendations are based on these findings. The government should establish a policy to provide vital support to local SMEs because their employee capability is too low to implement Industry 4.0 technology and deal with the pandemic crisis. Moreover, executive training for giving essential knowledge for Industry 4.0 should be provided to the owners of SMEs