Due to the highly competitive nature of the apparel industry, fashion brands attempt to constantly engage consumers through various marketing strategies. Social media was found to drive female consumer purchases for apparel items. In shopping for fashion, consumers have used their personal connections on social media as an information source about different brands and products and to seek approval of their peers before making a purchase decision (Park & Cho, 2012). Cha (2009) found that female consumers look to their social media network connections for emotional connections, opinions, and approval on clothing, perfume, and accessories they are considering purchasing online. Ruane and Wilson (2013) found that female consumers use social media sites for information on where to shop and what merchandise to purchase. In studying the effect of blogs on corporate outcome, the role Millennials play is found to be significant. They are heavily reliant on word of mouth when up to 93% of Millennials has purchased a product after hearing about it from a family member or friend (Hoffmann, 2014). They not only usually read reviews prior to purchase, but also pass their recommendations via social media post-purchase (Hoffman, 2014). This age group constitutes 27% of the US population and in spite of their lower incomes, they spend more money on e-commerce than any other age group ($2,000 annually) (Smith, 2015). Therefore, this study aims to suggest strategies to fashion brands on effective blog campaign, which may eventually provide insights on how marketers can encourage engagement with female Millennial apparel consumers. The study’s objectives are 1) to examine the effect of brand awareness building customer’s brand credibility, brand similarity and blog engagement 2) to investigate the impact of brand responses on customer’s brand credibility, brand similarity and blog engagement, and 3) interaction effect between brand awareness and brand responses on customer engagement through cognitive evaluation in fashion blog context. A 3 (brand response: automated response, personalized response, no response) x2 (Brand awareness: well know, unknown) experimental design was developed through a pre-test of 139 participants. For main-test, experiment conditions and the following survey were completed by the convenience sample of 537 students in a large Southern university. Research findings revealed the significant impact of brand awareness on customer perceived brand credibility and brand similarity which were significant predictors of engagement intention. In contrast, the study indicated the insignificant relationship between brand responses and blog engagement intention. Study’s result not only suggested implications for marketers but also expanded further studies contributing on the body of knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of the Operational Self-Sustainability (OSS) of Vietnamese microfinance institutions (MFIs). This research uses both qualitative and quantitative research methods: (i) qualitative research was via in-depth interviews with ten microfinance practitioners, policymakers and researchers; (ii) quantitative research was conducted by using panel data of 34 MFIs in the period 2011-2015 with binary logistics and OLS regressions. Results are as follows: (i) MFIs’ OSS in Vietnam are mainly determined by five key factors: portfolio at risk (PAR>30), capital structure, gross loan portfolio, scope of activities and legal form; (ii) OSS are most affected by legal status (social organizations have better OSS than formal MFIs or programs/projects), location (MFIs focus in one province have higher OSS than working nationwide or just in one district), capital structure (MFIs with more equity proportion have higher OSS); (iii) surprisingly, average loan size per borrower and age of MFIs do not have statistically significant correlation with OSS. The key recommendations are: (i) MFIs should focus on its professionality and increase its equity; (ii) related stakeholders such as State Bank of Vietnam should promote the enabling ecosystem for microfinance development to enhance poverty reduction and economic development.

The study investigates the factors influencing the innovation activities in the enterprises in the Binh Dinh Province, Vietnam. By employing the dataset from a survey in 200 typical enterprises in Binh Dinh and using the Exploratory Factor Analysis and regression analysis, we found that there are eight factor groups affecting the innovation activities of enterprises. They include management of innovation promotion; market research capacity; leadership inspiring innovation; culture of innovation; human resources for implementing innovation; network connection; disseminating/sharing knowledge; and impact of producing/serving technology. All these factors strongly affect the innovation activities, which plays an important role in promoting the sustainable development of the Vietnamese enterprises, with the statistical significance level at 1%. Moreover, findings also show that, among these factors, the market research capacity is the strongest determinant of the innovation activity in the enterprise. An increase of 1 point of capacity of market research will increase the innovation activities in the enterprise by 0.114 point. It is followed by the management of promoting innovation, leadership inspiring innovation, and disseminating and sharing knowledge, with 0.104, 0.103 and 0.102 score, respectively. On the other hand, network connection is the weakest factor, with the score of 0.07 point.

The study seeks to evaluate the impacts of three types of credit – formal, semi-formal, and informal credits – on the well-being of households in Vietnam’s rural areas. Based on data from the Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys in 2014 and 2016, the research uses the instrumental variable fixed-effect models to estimate the effects of three kinds of credit on household’s per capita income and expenditure. There are some significant findings. First, in rural areas, formal credit is the most popular source with stable and cheap borrowing costs. Informal credit is a complement to formal credit to meet urgent needs. Funding agriculture activities is the most commonly cited purpose of borrowing, followed by purchasing assets. The highest misuse rate belongs to the group of loans for agriculture production. Second, the results show that credit helps smoothen consumption rather than generate income for rural households. Three types of credit have insignificant or negative effects on household’s per capita income. Formal loans significantly improve total expenditure and spending on healthcare and education. Informal and semi-formal credits show a little influence on consumption. Informal loans have a significantly positive effect on healthcare expenditure. In contrast, having semi-formal loans tends to decrease spending on foods.

The purpose of this paper is to ascertain the key factors affecting tax compliance among Vietnamese firms in Vietnam. We employ both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Qualitative research has been carried out through focus group discussions with ten chief accountants and tax officers. Quantitative research has been conducted through interviews with 200 firms (chief accountants or financial directors) in Vietnam. Analysis of the model includes the following stages: (i) Cronbach’s test for reliability of the scale, (ii) exploratory factor analysis (EFA), (iii) confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and (iv) structural equation model (SEM). The results of the research show that voluntary tax compliance is directly affected by the three factors of audit probability, corporate reputation and business ownership. The probability of audit and severity of sanctions have the strongest impact on tax compliance. Therefore, the tax authorities need to strengthen the inspection of tax declarations, tax payments and tax refunds of firms. The paper confirms that enforced tax compliance is directly affected by the three factors of audit probability, sanction severity and social norms. Voluntary compliance and compulsory compliance have an effect on tax compliance, though voluntary compliance has a more powerful impact.