This study examines the effect of brand commitment on brand passion. It also investigates the role of some selected promotion-mix elements (i.e., advertising and public relations) in brand passion. A model depicting these relationships was tested with a sample of 386 consumers in HCMC, Vietnam. The results show that attitudes toward advertising and public relations have positive impacts on brand passion, and subsequently brand passion is a key factor influencing brand commitment. These findings imply that a firm is able to enhance brand passion through advertising and public relations. In so doing, the firm will enjoy the benefit created by committed consumers of its brands.

This paper explores correlation between growth of stock market and economic growth in Vietnam by examining causal relationship between VN-Index and the GDP. The results show that there is no evidence of a causal relation between VN-Index and economic growth. This finding allows several implications of restructuring of the Vietnamese economy.

The paper aims at exploring effects of currency devaluation on Vietnam?s economic growth. Our approach is to employ smooth transition regression (STR) to estimate relationship between real exchange rate, money supply, and public expenditure with Vietnam?s GDP in 2000-2012. The results show that currency devaluation can increase output if growth of money supply is less than 24.46%, and it may produce negative effects on the output when the money supply grows higher than the above threshold.

This research aims to identify the importance of factors that influence customer intention of purchasing electronic air ticket (e-ticket). The research compares the difference in purchasing intentions based on e-ticketing between demographic groups of age, income, educational level, and online shopping experience. With the sample size of 295 travelers, the regression models and ANOVA tests are used to process and explain data. The research detects four components, namely, perceived system usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived behavioral control, and security of transaction that influence the consumer intention to buy e-ticket. The paper then recommends managerial solutions to the development of an electronic ticketing system in particular and e-commerce in general.

This aims to investigate factors influencing the effectiveness of the ISO 9000 quality management system of HCMC-based enterprises. There are 210 respondents who are workers and managers of HCMC-based companies using ISO 9000. Measurement scales are established upon seven factors: (1) managers? commitments, (2) roles of middle managers, (3) participation of employees, (4) internal information system, (5) collaboration of customers and providers, (6) professional consultants, and (7) quality management documents. Research findings indicate that the variable ?roles of middle managers? should be left out and the remainders, save for ?quality management documents?, have impacts on the effectiveness of the ISO 9000 quality management system. Additionally, some suggestions are also extended to enterprises which have employed or plan to employ ISO 9000 to boost the efficiency of their quality management system.

Analyzing the business performance or efficiency of commercial banks plays an important role in enabling bank executives to make organizational decision and policies that may facilitate the profitability and enhance the bank?s performance. In this paper, the authors employ multiple methods to evaluate the business performance of Vietnam?s commercial banks and extend some suggestions for applying analyzing methods and improving their performance.

This study was conducted to find evidence of short-term underpricing of initial public offerings (IPOs) and factors that explain the level of underpricing based on IPO samples in the period between January 2005 and July 2012 in Vietnam. The authors found certain evidence to support the underpricing, with the underpricing rate set at 38% and 49%. Having bootstrapping regression model employed, the results showed that the two factors ? the exceeding purchase ratio and the starting price of the auctions ? negatively correlated as expected with underpricing rate while impact of market conditions appeared relatively weak. Other factors such as size, listing lateness, company age, state ownership after IPOs did not correlate with the underpricing levels in Vietnam

This paper carries out an empirical assessment of the effects of a set of policy determinants of Vietnam?s exports to its five major Asia Pacific trade partners (China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and US) over 23 years from 1989 to 2011. In doing so, a gravity model is employed, which includes two sets of variables: one for gravity variables, and the other for policy-related variables. The latter includes four policy variables: real exchange rate, trade liberalization, anti-corruption activity, and WTO membership status. The effects of real exchange rate and anti-corruption activity are each specified as a linear function of the degree of trade liberalization to capture the indirect effects of trade liberalization on Vietnam?s exports over time. The effect of trade liberalization on Vietnam?s exports is specified as linear dependent on its WTO membership status to capture its direct effect and the additional effect attributable to Vietnam?s accession to WTO on its exports. We find that Vietnam?s trade liberalization has direct and indirect positive impacts on its trades, and its accession to WTO has a positive effect as well, contrary to some criticism otherwise.

The paper discusses methods of identifying the optimal lending rate for microfinance institutions and focuses on the application of internationally-acclaimed CGAP (Consultative Group to Assist the Poor) model to identifying the lending rate for microfinance institutions. The paper also aims at providing a scientific overview that may help readers understand microfinance institutions, their operations in Vietnam and ways of applying CGAP lending rate identification model to local conditions and offer one more option to policy makers and other institutions. The research employs quantitative methods and data presented by M7 group at the workshop ?Identification of Sustainable Interest Rate for Microfinance Institutions? held in H? N?i in March 2012.

Sri Lanka is an island in the Indian Ocean located to the south of India and separated from Indian subcontinent by a small straight. The island has been one of the major tourist attractions since antiquity. End of the protracted civil war is a blessing for the recent surge of tourist arrival and the rapid expansion of tourism facilities on the island. Although small, the island is rich in religious and cultural diversity with an immense attraction to the tourist. Buddhism is the main religion of the overwhelming majority of people even though Hinduism, Christianity and Islam are practiced side by side by several followers. The rich cultural heritage rotating around the religious practices, tolerance and beliefs ranges from historical monuments and ancient cities through meditation, yoga, folk music and dances, festivities, ceremonies and rituals. Special sites with multi-religious attractions reflect the diversity and uniqueness of a rich culture. North Central province is rich in religious and cultural resources than any other province in Sri Lanka. Only a small fraction of these vast resources has been utilized by the tourism industry so far. The promotion of the religious and cultural tourism products in the province will open new avenues for tourists as well as many people of the province.