Teaching Language in Cross-Disciplinary Contexts

Cross-disciplinarity is more and more important because of the wide specialization demanded by job markets. Separate disciplines are demanded with increasing urgency to integrate their concepts and methods in teaching and research. Only through the intersection of different disciplines can progress and innovation be achieved in specific knowledge areas. It is said that much leading science nowadays progresses not by placing one brick upon the other within a single discipline, but by solving complex problems that cut across many disciplines. Language teaching has to conform to what today’s society demands from professional occupations: a cross-disciplinary role with a result-oriented focus. Cognitive science can provide an adequate model for cross-disciplinary investigation because it integrates linguistic, psychological, philosophical, neurological, computer science, anthropological and historical contributions. Within the cognitive paradigm, a linguistic term does not exclusively exist because of its relations with others but also of culture-based and conventionalized background knowledge. We will use and rely on principles and models of cognitive linguistics to apply and handle language teaching in cross-disciplinary contexts

Linking Relationship Marketing to Customer Loyalty in The E-Banking Context: The Central Role of Customer Satisfaction

This research examines the interrelationships between relationship marketing, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in e-banking’s context. The study was conducted in two phases: In-depth interviews and a quantitative survey with a sample of 690 Vietnamese individual and corporate e-banking customers. The research results show that customer satisfaction mediates the impact of relationship marketing on customer loyalty among individual customers. Meanwhile, instead of customer satisfaction, relationship marketing significantly and directly contributes to the loyalty of the corporate customer group. The significance and magnitude of the effects that the five dimensions of relationship marketing’s effectiveness have on customer satisfaction and loyalty, which include the banks’ commitment, customer experience, process-driven approach, service reliability and application of technology, are also different between the two customer segments. This study theoretically contributes to the research stream regarding the mechanism underlying the relationship between relationship marketing’s effectiveness and customer loyalty in the e-banking context, and proposes practical implications for commercial banks to effectively apply relationship marketing in the virtual business environment

What is in it for the poor? Evidence from fiscal decentralization in Vietnam

Like other developing countries, Vietnam has attempted to push for greater fiscal decentralization in the hope of a more efficient delivery of social services to targeted citizens. The fiscal decentralization initiative is encouraging and merits pursuit, but the present study however, shows that a misstep in the decentralization process can discriminate disproportionately against the poor. Specifically, an increase in the sub-provincial share of the total provincial expenditures is predicted to bring about an appreciable decrease in the lowest-quintile average monthly income. We suggest that the Vietnamese government require provinces to adopt pro-poor allocation norms rather than reclaiming its control over the provincial expenditure assignment. This paper’s empirical findings sound a note of considerable caution that other developing countries should exercise in their fiscal decentralization efforts to avoid creating unintended consequences for the poor

Performance budgeting: Its rise and fall

Among various budgeting theories and practices at the federal level, performance budgeting has played an important role with its long developmental history. Performance budgeting was short-lived as it was replaced by program budgeting in the early 1960s. Looking at the period between the first decade of the twentieth century and the mid-1960s, the present paper seeks to investigate two major questions to which budgetary literature has given short shrift: 1) What forces led to the emergence of performance budgeting and its earlier forms?, and 2) Why did the budgeting practice fall into disfavor at the federal level shortly after a prolonged period to get institutionalized? The paper's investigation of the first question reveals three major factors that gave rise to performance budgeting and its forerunners: the rise of scientific management by Frederick Taylor, increasing public pressure on the government's role and practices, and the expansion of government responsibilities. Three principal opposing forces attributed to the long gestation of performance budgeting and its premature decline are its inherent weaknesses and limitations, the legislature's hostility to it, and the rapid rise of a new budgeting practice

Leaving or Staying: Inter-Provincial Migration in Vietnam

Internal migration has several policy implications for economic growth and development for developing countries in general and for the fast growing low-income country of Vietnam in particular. Little research has been done, however, on inter-provincial migration in Vietnam. This study makes two major contributions to the migration and development literature in terms of the datasets and policy-relevant estimation approach. It is the first paper to use the annual survey data on migration published by Vietnam’s General Statistics Office. This study also adopts a functional form to accommodate the flexibility of income’s elasticity. Income, together with urban unemployment rates, are endogenously estimated with instruments that prove to be strong and valid. The inclusion of policy-relevant variables provides empirical findings that can make migration policy in Vietnam better-informed. Specifically, Vietnamese migrants are influenced primarily by moving costs, expected income differentials, disparity in the quality of public services offered by provinces, and the demographic composition at destination and source. This paper’s findings provide new insight for migration policy options, and suggest that the government adopt a holistic policy approach to maximize the benefits and minimize the costs associated with internal migration