A recent survey of Australian directors conducted by the Financial Reporting Council found that directors require a detailed understanding of technical accounting issues. With the aim of understanding learner difficulties in learning and applying higher learning material relevant to directors, this study explores the transfer pricing topic taught as a case presentation in an undergraduate accounting program at an Australian university. Before intervention with improvements, this study invited 25 students to take part in the study after they had learned the topic and been given one week to understand it. By adopting a transfer pricing problem presented in their essential reading and interviewing those students to gain further insights, the study found that learners experienced conceptual difficulties at various stages in attempting to learn. Intervention to ease learning difficulties was addressed through instructor training. The intervention improvements included using guided workbooks to develop a better understanding of concepts among learners, and representing the problem at hand with diagrams. After intervention with improvements, this study repeated the same procedures with 25 students who had not taken part in the previous study and found that interventions increased the learning. Results have implications for most directors, who are novices to the detailed technical accounting issues of transfer pricing.

This paper examines how corporate social responsibility is related to the degree of asymmetric information in the Korean financial market. Recent theory argues that there is a negative relationship between a firm's corporate social responsibility and its information asymmetry. To test this hypothesis, we use the environment, social and governance (ESG) score, published by the Korean Corporate Governance Service, to proxy a firm's management practices toward socially responsible activities. In the entire sample of the Korean firms, we find contrasting results; the ESG score shows negative relationships with the price impact measure but statistically insignificant relationships with the dispersion of analyst forecasts. However, the ESG score shows negative relationships with both measures when we exclude chaebol affiliates from the sample. These findings are robust when we examine environmental, social and corporate governance scores separately. This set of results argues for the extant theory, expecting a negative relationship between a firm's engagement in corporate social responsibility and asymmetric information. It further argues for the importance of firm characteristics in determining the influence of socially responsible activities.

This study analyzed the association between IFRS adjustments, measured with the IFRS reconciliations, and the subsequent meeting of target earnings. IFRS adjustments include the amounts to be adjusted intentionally, as well as the differences in accounting standards. This study estimated intentional IFRS adjustments and analyzed their association with meeting target earnings. As the results of our analysis, meeting target earnings was associated positively with intentional IFRS adjustments for the total assets, was negatively associated with them for current assets, and was positively associated with them for non-current assets. Since understatement of current assets can be realized into earnings in a short period of time, it seems that current assets were underestimated intentionally in order to meet target earnings subsequently. In contrast, it is considered that non-current assets were overestimated to make them more likely to meet target earnings either by increasing the firm size or by improving financial solvency. The results of this study imply that IFRS adjustments are useful to manage earnings for meeting target earnings. Since accounting standards may be established and revised constantly, which adjustments for them may occur, the results on IFRS adjustments are expected to have implications for investors, policy-makers, and standards establishment entities.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the nature of controlling shareholders and corporate anti-corruption practice disclosure (ACPD) as well as the mediating role of political background of the chairman or CEO of the firm on the relationship between the two. The content analysis was conducted to extract ACPD from standalone corporate social responsibility reports (CSRR) of 703 China's A-share listed companies. A dummy variable was constructed according to whether a firm disclosed ACPD or not. Logistic regression analysis was used then. Results show that the nature of controlling shareholders has a significant impact on corporate ACPD, with central enterprises disclosing the most frequently, local state-owned enterprises the second and private enterprises the least. Political background of the chairman or CEO has a negative impact on corporate ACPD of state-owned enterprises. These findings have some useful insights in understanding the rent-seeking behavior and information disclosure behavior of corporates in emerging markets. In order to curb the serious corruption problem which is commonplace in developing countries like China, the government should exert certain pressure to strengthen the supervision of information disclosure of listed firms and improve information transparency.

The auditor, an important instrument of corporate governance, ensures the transparency and accountability of the firm to the stakeholders. The objective of this paper is to explore the impact of audit characteristics on firm performance. In this study, external audit quality (BIG4), frequencies of audit committee meetings, and audit committee size are used as the proxies of audit characteristics and firm performance is measured through ROA, profit margin and EPS. A total of 503 firm years are considered as sample size from the listed manufacturing firms of Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) during the period of 2013 to 2017 to find out the impact of audit characteristics on firm performance. In this study, multivariate regression analysis is conducted using the pooled OLS method. Moreover, time dummy and lag model of multivariate analysis are also analyzed as robust check. The multivariate regression results find that external audit quality (BIG4) and audit committee size are significantly positively associated with firm performance. This study also finds that there is a significant negative relationship between audit committee meeting and firm performance. This study recommends that the regulatory authority and audit committee should review the frequencies of audit committee meeting to make it more effective to ensure better firm performance.

The objective of the study is to examine the impact of financial development and foreign remittances on poverty and income inequality in the context of Pakistan. The study used ARDL-Bounds testing approach for robust inferences. The results show that in the short-run, remittances increases poverty and income inequality, which further translated into its long-run impact. The result confirmed the inverted U-shaped relationship between per capita income and income inequality, while the second order coefficient of per capita income substantially decline poverty incidence in a country. In the long-run, the results disappeared and it's turned into U-shaped relationship between income inequality and country's per capita income. Education largely decreases income inequality both in the short and long-run, however, it increases poverty in the long-run. Unemployment rate substantially damaged the pro-poor growth scenario, as high unemployment rate increases both the poverty rates and income inequality, which suffered poor more than non-poor in a country. Financial development has a positive impact on poverty reduction and income inequality in the short-run. The impact of income inequality on poverty incidence is positive both in the short- and long-run, which need pro-poor growth policies and rationale income distribution in a country.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the social system of deposit insurance affected the financial market in Korea. Specifically, we want to know how much the risk-seeking behavior of financial institutions has increased or decreased. The most important feature of the deposit insurance system is to prevent the insolvency of financial institutions and to properly protect depositors. In recent studies, it has been argued that characteristics of deposit insurance bring moral hazard of financial institutions and that financial institutions make unreasonably risky investments. Therefore, in this study, we will first examine whether such previous research can be applied to the Korean financial market. Next, we will examine the appropriateness of the differential premium rate that is currently used for each financial institution in the Korean financial market. In order to test the first hypothesis, we used the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) to calculate the total risk for each financial institution. As a result, significant changes were found in all regions before and after the introduction of the deposit insurance system. As for testing the second hypothesis, we conducted a variance analysis of financial institutions' indexes before and after the introduction of the deposit insurance and we discovered significance of the total risk difference.

The paper aims to combine balance sheet analysis at the firm level with the International Monetary Fund's public debt sustainability assessment framework to assess state-owned enterprises' (SOE) leverage as a contingent liability to the public sector. Based on company data and the interest coverage ratio as a measure of debt at risk, aggregate baseline scenarios are projected to gauge the magnitude of SOE debt as a contingency. SOE's financial and debt ratios are first bootstrapped to generate firm-level distributions and then averaged into a fan chart of the economy-wide SOE contingent liability. Applied to the People's Republic of China as an example, the study finds that by the end of 2015 SOE leverage had grown to a substantial liability. However arbitrary the assumptions underlying these projections, it would appear that even if authorities had to mop up as much as 20% of SOE debt at risk gone bad, this would have been manageable at roughly 2.7% of the gross domestic product in 2016 or 5.5% by 2021. This projection framework is fully amenable to alternative assumptions and settings, which makes it a useful analytical tool to monitor contingent liabilities from non-financial corporate debt that have been building in emerging and advanced economies alike.

This paper examines the impact of financial integration on economic growth in Southeast Asia over the period 1993-2013. This paper further investigates whether the relationship depends on the level of financial and economic development, government corruption, and macroeconomic policy. These questions raise important issues both from a theoretical and a policy perspective. We employ the generalized methods of moment (GMM) in the dynamic panel estimation framework to analyse several factors, including initial income, initial schooling, financial development, inflation, trade openness, corruption, and financial crisis. The study further analyzes the data using the EGLS model to examine the consistency of the GMM model. We found that financial integration has a significant positive effect on economic growth in Southeast Asia. Our findings suggest that increasing financial integration could improve the productive capacity of the economy, including more investments and efficient allocation of capital, and thus enhancing economic growth in this region. More specifically, the results suggest that the government should work towards eliminating corruption and stabilizing macroeconomics in order to enhance financial integration and economic growth. This paper sheds new insights on a better evaluation of the past and present theorizing on the subject of financial integration and economic growth; especially, in Southeast Asia.

This study analyses the relationship between the real estate market and economic growth in Vietnam, a country with a fledgling real estate market. Research data included economic growth rate and growth rate of the real estate market in Vietnam. The research used quarterly data for the period from 2005: Q1 to 2018: Q1. With the characteristics of Vietnam, there has been no real estate index up to now; therefore, the research used data on growth rates of the real estate market. In addition, the real estate market in Vietnam is still young, so the data series is very short, which is a limitation of this research. With qualitative and quantitative methods especially with the Vector Auto Regressive (VAR) model; the results of the study indicate new findings, unlike previous studies, including: (1) The real estate market positively impacts Vietnam's economic growth, most noticeably in the second quarter lag and the fourth quarter lag, and then its trend impacts inversely; (2) The real estate market and economic growth in Vietnam have fluctuated over time with many risks that are affected by the past shocks of these factors. From these findings, we proposed some managerial implications for managing the real estate market with economic growth in Vietnam sustainably.

The purpose of this research is to examine the effect of informational justice on post-recovery satisfaction, and the effect of post-recovery satisfaction on behavioral intentions in e-commerce, including further investigate the moderating effect of service failure severity. Using quantitative method, the population of this research are online customers in Indonesia, with non-probability sampling that will be done by purposive sampling method based on predetermined criterias, which are customers who were doing transactions in the Business to Consumer (B2C) online sites, experienced service failure in the last 6 months, submitted a complaint, and received a response. Sample of 317 online customers were gathered and analyzed using the Structural Equation Modeling. The results of this study indicated that 5 hypothesis are supported with data. As a conclusion, informational justice and post-recovery satisfaction has positive effect, while service failure severity acts as a moderator between post-recovery satisfaction and behavioral intentions. As a managerial implication, online store management needs to ensure the informational justice to make a post-recovery satisfaction. Therefore, online store management needs to ensure the informational justice to make a post-recovery satisfaction, increase repurchase and positive e-word of mouth intention, also work harder to recover services, especially in high service failure severity condition.

This research proposes a model of SERVQUAL scale calibration and uses the SERVPERF model to study the relationship between quality of ATM service and customer satisfaction. The research uses the combination of qualitative and quantitative methodology with the Cronbach's alpha reliability analysis, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) method; Confirmation Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) through SPSS and AMOS 20.0 data analysis software. The survey was conducted with 800 questionnaires with the convenient sampling method. The number of remaining sample for analysis was 779 responses of individual customers using ATM card services of Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank) Vinh Long. The results show that the satisfaction of customers using ATM cards of Vietcombank Vinh Long is influenced by 4 factors with the order of importance as follows: (1) Price; (2) Network; (3) Reliability; (4) Empathy. Thereby, the author suggests some managerial implications to Vietcombank Vinh Long management to enhance the ATM service quality, then improve customer satisfaction. This research still has some limitations: (1) The study does not investigate other influencing factors, (2) The convenient sampling method has not been generalized well, (3) The research is only conducted for Vietcombank.

Due to the rapid development of IT (information technology) and internet, products become smart and able to collect, process and produce information and can think of themselves to provide better service to consumers. However, research on the characteristics of smart product is still sparse. In this paper, we report the systemic development of a scale to measure the perceived product smartness associated with smart product. To develop product smartness scale, this study follows systemic scale development processes of item generation, item reduction, scale validation, reliability and validity test consequently. And, after acquiring a large amount of qualitative interview data asking the definition of smart product, we add a unique process to reduce the initial items using both a text mining method using 'r' s/w and traditional reliability and validity tests including factor analysis. Based on an initial qualitative inquiry and subsequent quantitative survey, an eight-factor scale of product smartness is developed. The eight factors are multi-functionality, human-like touch, ability to cooperate, autonomy, situatedness, network connectivity, integrity, and learning capability consequently. Results from Korean samples support the proposed measures of product smartness in terms of reliability, validity, and dimensionality. Implications and directions for further study are discussed. The developed scale offers important theoretical and pragmatic implications for researchers and practitioners.

The current higher education in Vietnam demonstrates the intense competition among local universities. Undoubtedly, the issue of enhancing the brand value to attract students is now placed at the top to Vietnamese universities. The research aims to identify the objective and subjective factors affecting the brand value of private universities in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam as mediated by students' perceptions. This paper employs the mixed research methods and data were then analyzed by measuring Cronbach's Alpha coefficient for reliability, analyzing EFA, and using PATH model to test the experiment on the research model affecting HUTECH's brand value. Probability sampling used is Stratified sampling and 500 students of 8 faculties of HUTECH surveyed by convenience sampling. Additionally, this paper also proposes some managerial implications on enhancing the brand value of private universities in Ho Chi Minh City. The results indicate that the new factor, namely geographic location is the most influential factor to enhance the brand value of private universities in general and HUTECH in particular. Brand still plays a determinant role in students' trust when choosing a university. Finally, some implications proposed to enhance the brand value of private universities in Ho Chi Minh City in the context of fierce competition in attracting students.

Service quality has been a point of discussion from the decades as it is important for customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention. Various models have been proposed to measure the quality in the service sector. Models are modified in accordance with context and geography to assess the quality of service better. This study aims to investigate the impact of the modified e-SERVQUAL model on the customer perception about the existing relation and potential scope of doing business with a bank which in-turn will decide the performance of the bank. Statistical data was analyzed through various tests like reliability analysis, correlation and regression analysis using SPSS 25.0. The primary data of e-SQ and performance was gathered from 721 internet banking users using 32 item questionnaire, representing 72% response rates, of four selected Islamic banks of Malaysia. E-SERQUAL was modified by adding Shariah Compliance information about banks and products for Islamic banking customers. The finding specified that efficient & reliable services, fulfillment, security/trust, and Shariah compliance information have a significant association with the performance of Islamic banks. The research is original and its implications will be helpful for Islamic banks across the world to enhance the online experience of customers, which will help them to retain the customers in the rapid changing virtual environment.

Service quality is still a new concept to those who works in shipping lines services since it has not been identified as a mandatory factor to increase competitiveness. Most carriers are currently offering services at the same level of price, transit time, equipment, etc. Thus offering a high quality service is the best way for a carrier to differentiate itself from its competitors in the market. The research aims to conduct an assessment on service quality at Wan Hai Lines (WHL) outbound services based on the SERVQUAL model, form of dimension-by-dimension analysis. This study was based on a survey of 135 people. The outcome is the service quality of WHL outbound services can be identified by three dimension(s): Empathy and Responsiveness, Assurance, and Reliability. It would help management to have an overall picture about the current service quality, and to find solutions to improve service quality following the recommendations. WHL managers need to recognize that "Reliability" has the strongest influence on customers' expectations, then come "Empathy and Responsiveness" and "Assurance". Therefore, board of managers should spend time looking carefully at each of the three dimensions, especially for the biggest gap between perceptions and expectations of three dimensions as well. Then the recommendations were raised.

This study examined that what attributes of student satisfaction are more important when students use university cafeterias. Factors that are considered to be more crucial when students use a cafeteria, such as menu, taste, price, and cleanliness, were tested. Based on the research of previous studies, it assumed that the selection attributes of students' cafeteria were menu, taste, price, and cleanliness. With 301 surveyed questionnaires, the study was carried out by AMOS 23.0 and the Structural Equation Model was used for examining the hypotheses as statistical method in this study. In consequence of the hypothesis test on the main effect, the factors such as the menu, taste, price and cleanliness were found to significantly affect satisfaction. Then, the moderating role of gender, age and allowance was analyzed. However, students' university cafeteria selection attributes differed depending on their allowance only. The path coefficients from menu to satisfaction were more significant in the group with a smaller allowance, while the path coefficient from price to satisfaction was more significant in the group with a larger allowance. The study analyzed that the effect of selection attribute of students' cafeteria on the satisfaction, and influence of students' allowance, and provide meaningful implications when they choose the attributes.

The study aims to identify Service Quality factors that affect purchase decision on Click and Collect service through the mediating variable of customer emotions at Mobile World stores in Ho Chi Minh City. This study employs a mixed methods research design. Data were collected through online self-completion questionnaire distributed to 316 customers who used to experience Click and Collect service at the Mobile World stores in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The theoretical model was tested through two-stage regression analysis (PATH model). The findings show that factors of service quality such as Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance, Empathy, Tangibility, and Emotions affect the decision to purchase online and receive products directly at Mobile World stores in Ho Chi Minh City. Responsiveness and Assurance have a significant positive impact on the customer's emotions. Consequently, these factors should be considered and addressed when conducting multi-channel services. Obviously, employees must first be trained to be able to deliver the promise of the retailer to their customers. Based on the results of the study, the authors provide managerial implications for retailers in Vietnam in the multi-channel retail environment to develop Click and Collect at retail stores across the country and the world.

Researchers have confirmed the relationship between ambidexterity learning and innovation performance, but according to the resource-based theory, the relationship between ambidexterity learning and innovation performance is also affected by the internal resources of the organization. Internal resources are an important factor affecting the transformation of learning outcomes into performance. In addition, few scholars have pointed out whether different types of learning have different effects on different types of innovation performance. This study collects data from 170 High-tech enterprises in Shandong, china, and discusses the effects of exploitative learning and explorative learning on management innovation performance and technological innovation performance. This study further examines the moderating role of slack resource on the relationship between ambidexterity learning and innovation performance. Results show that ambidexterity learning has positive effect on innovation performance. Compared with exploitative learning, explorative learning has a greater impact on management innovation performance; compared with explorative learning, exploitative learning has a greater impact on technological innovation performances. Slack resource has positive moderating role between the relationship of exploitative learning, explorative learning and technology innovation performance. But Slack resource has no moderating role between the relationship of exploitative learning, explorative learning and management innovation performance.

The purpose of the research is to verify how task characteristics for business and technology characteristics, economic feasibility, technology readiness, organizational factors, environmental factors of cloud computing affect the performance of cloud computing adoption through Fit and Viability. The research aims to verify the relationship among the success factors for adopting cloud computing based on the Fit-Viability model. Respondents who work for IT companies which is using cloud computing in South Korea were chosen. The data was analyzed by the structural equating model. As a result, Task characteristics and Technology characteristics affected Fit in a positive manner, while Technology readiness, Organizational factors and Environmental factors also positively impacted Viability. Fit and Viability both affected the successful adoption of cloud equally. In particular, Environmental factors were proven to have the biggest impacts on Viability, and affected highly indirect impact on the Performance of cloud computing adoption through Viability. Entering the era of the fourth industrial revolution, corporations have established digital transformation strategies to secure a competitive edge while growing continuously, and are also carrying out various digital transformation initiatives. For the success of adoption of foundational technologies, they need to understand not only the decision-making factors of adopting cloud computing, but also the success factors of adopting cloud computing.

The paper aims to investigate the relationship between firm size and organizational actions on adopting social media for corporate reputation management. The sample group of 198 companies is selected with a simple random sample method from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) listings: Sixty nine companies were from the Fortune 500 listings, seventy one companies from the NYSE midsize capitalization and fifty eight companies from the NYSE small capitalization listings. This study employs cross tabulations and Chi-square analysis, and the Kruskal-Wallis that enables the comparison of three samples that are independent. The results of the study show that (1) large firms have more social media ownership than small firms, (2) large firms respond to social media posts at a greater frequency and quickly than small firms, and (3) firm size is less likely associated with response styles to social media for online reputation management. The results show that reply time and response styles of organizations to social media customers in the 2015 survey has no significant change compared to that of 2011. There appears to be a pervasive lack strategic framework as most firms in the study were found not to be adequately monitoring or leveraging social media communication for their reputation management.

The purpose of this study is to investigate empirical evidences of productivity of life insurance institutions in Malaysia. Therefore, this study attempts to explore the productivity of the life insurance institutions in Malaysia. The overall findings show that the total factor productivity (TFP) has progressed by 2.5% per year during the study period from 2012 to 2016 in the Malaysian insurance industry. However, TFP change has declined from 2012 to 2015 and observed a negative growth in 2015-16 (3.3%). The highest productivity progress was documented during 2012-13 at a rate of 11.7% while the minimum productivity progress was during 2014-15 (only 0.2%). The results also indicate that the decomposition of TFP found that overall progress could mainly be attributed to technological change (TC). However, technical efficiency change (TEC) and pure technical efficiency change (PTE) have negative impact on TFP. The findings also show that most of the insurance companies have a steady growth. Therefore, this study will contribute new insights for the policy makers and insurance institutions to take appropriate steps in developing relevant policies for increasing productivity of insurance institutions in Malaysia.

Studies looking at many aspects of SNS addiction have dramatically increased in recent years. Most of the SNS addiction research has focused on individual behaviors. There is little academic research about SNS addiction in the workplace. This study, therefore, plans to examine the organizational behaviors related to SNS addiction in the workplace. We investigate whether negative behaviors in the workplace induce SNS addiction, and how SNS addiction influences the organizational or social attitudes of employees. We also explore the possible mediating effect of SNS addiction. We use an online survey and collected 285 responses from office workers in South Korea. The results tested by a structural equation modeling indicate, first, that both abusive supervision and workplace bullying have aroused SNS addiction among employees; second, employees' SNS addiction increases both from work-to-family-conflicts and family-to-work-conflicts; and third, SNS addiction fully mediates the relationship between abusive supervision and workplace bullying, as well as the relationship among abusive supervision, workplace bullying, and work-family conflicts. The study finds that abusive supervision and workplace bullying are important antecedents of SNS addiction, and that SNS addiction affects conflicts in both work-to-family and family-to-work situations. Therefore, companies should be cognizant of potential mediating influences in monitoring employees' SNS usage in order to improve their work environments.

The study aims to investigate corporate social responsibility (CSR) best practices of the world automotive industry - Peugeot, BMW, Ford, Hyundai and Toyota among others - and recommend that they plan their business strategies and managerial responses accordingly. Based on the comparative research and case studies, this research finds that all five automobile manufacturers have taken very similar measures and actions in order to establish and maintain a high level of CSR practices. Sustainability was a core value in all five companies and served as a guiding principle in every aspect and approach of their business. This study finds that all five companies have CSR strategies in place to increase energy efficiency as well as reduce the usage and wastage of water in their production and plants. This research also finds that all companies monitor their suppliers and their own production process to ensure that they maintain their CSR standards. More impressively, this sustainable management practice is transferred along the companies' supply chain through education and training. Their suppliers and business partners are closely monitored to make sure that their high CSR standards are respected and followed. However, we find that there also are some differences in terms of their CSR deliveries and activities.

Many studies have shown that job performance and leadership are important in our society. In addition, to improve the quality of work or to improve the work efficiency is still a lot of challenges for each leader. In Vietnam, there are few specific studies on the impact of leadership styles on employee engagement such as: transformational leadership styles, business leadership styles and leadership styles. In the field of higher education, the fewer studies on these issues. A study is conducted to test the impact of leadership styles on the engagement of cadres, lecturers and staff at public universities in Vietnam. Using adjustment techniques, inspecting the scales and theoretical models representing the relationship among the influential factors. The research is based on a sample of 309 cadres, lecturers and staff currently working in universities in Vietnam and used Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to test the relationships among the variables. The study results show that the scales of the variables: transformational leadership, transactional leadership, laissez faire leadership, job satisfaction and organizational engagement attain the validity and reliability in the research. The study results also show transformational leadership, transactional leadership and laissez faire leadership are directly and indirectly affected by job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

This study examines the relationship between R&D intensity and disclosure. R&D activities are essential in bringing innovation to companies. However, R&D activities are naturally uncertain and increase information asymmetry. Thus, firms with high R&D activities are more likely to have the incentive to communicate the potential of R&D investment to the market through voluntary disclosure and, concurrently, resolve information asymmetry. Meanwhile, incentives to less voluntary disclosure exist because of the proprietary cost and the risk of competitiveness loss. Furthermore, the uncertainties inherent in R&D activities caused the possible decrease in the information accuracy. For the two opposing views, this study investigates the relationship between R&D intensity and disclosure frequency using the Regulation Fair Disclosure data in Korea. Moreover, the relationship between R&D intensity and usefulness of the information disclosed is also examined. Using firm sample listed in the 2011-2016 Korea Stock Market, results show that firms with high R&D intensity make disclosures more frequent. Subsequently, the analysis using forecast sample shows that management forecast error is higher in firms with high R&D intensity. This research contributes to the existing literature by presenting evidence that R&D intensity is a significant factor affecting manager's disclosure behavior and information usefulness.

This paper explores community-based flood disaster risk governance by applying a sensemaking approach. The conceptual sensemaking framework consists of individual experience, dialogue, and socialization components, which together comprise an interconnected system. This study presents a method for applying this framework by using a concerns table and a SWOT analysis to examine the concerns of residents living in a flood plain. A series of community-based workshops on flood risk reduction was conducted with residents of the flood-prone Muraida community in Shiga Prefecture, Japan. During the workshops, residents' concerns regarding flood risk surfaced. This study used an idiographic approach to examine the proceedings of the workshops. SWOT issue analysis was used to examine the strengths and weaknesses in the Muraida community's internal capacities, and examine the opportunities and threats in the external capacities (e.g., local government). Additionally, a SWOT strategy analysis was conducted to identify strategies for knowledge sharing and development of cooperative countermeasures that can be undertaken between the Muraida community and the local government. The results show that the concerns table can not only summarize the main concerns of all workshops, but also provide an understanding of alternative flood risk countermeasures that can be carried out.

Indonesia's most eastern provinces enjoy special autonomy status but still suffer from the highest poverty level in the entire nation. Using the Williamson index to test the Simon Kuznets theory, this study examines development equality at pre-and post-special autonomy in the provinces of Papua and West Papua. It uses gross domestic products per capita and population from 29 regencies/cities in Papua and 13 regencies/cities in West Papua to measure the Williamson index in addition to in-depth interviews with legislative members and document analysis to validate the findings. The study found that the regional development gap before special autonomy is relatively smaller than that existing after special autonomy. The Kuznets' curve is not proven in the special autonomy era, meaning that the imposition of autonomy status has led to the creation of a higher development gap in these provinces. Although the special autonomy status has prompted an increased opportunity for political participation by the indigenous people, greater challenges are posed by the lack of human resources, poor government administration, difficult geographical access and the issue of land acquisition. Continuous development initiatives followed up with adequate supervision, greater transparency and law enforcement from government bureaucrats and legislatures are recommended to reduce the inequality.

The paper aims to investigate empirical causes of poverty of the Khmer ethnic people and suggest policy implication to help the Khmer ethnic people escape poverty in Tra Vinh province and the Mekong Delta. The study has been conducted with direct interviews with 300 Khmer households living in seven districts and cities in Tra Vinh province and with the use of multivariate regression. The research results show that a number of causes that affect poverty of poor households include lack of capital for production, lack of means of production, poor health and lack of labor, large families, lack of job opportunities or unemployment, and lack of willingness to escape poverty and education. Thus, there should be poverty reduction policy for the poor househlods in the coming time. Based on the current situation and regression results, the authors propose a number of recommendations: 1) Focus on preferential loan policies for poor people 2) Provide occupational training programs for improving incomes for the Khmer ethnic households 3) Build up special infrastructure in the Khmer ethnic areas 4) Focus on promoting cultural and belief institutions in areas of the Khmer ethnic people and 5) Improve and build up healthcare clinics services and facilities.

The purpose of the study is to analyze the main approaches to assessing human capital and develop proposals for its most objective assessment of it at the different levels of manifestation - individual, microeconomic and macroeconomic. The article considers the basic approaches to the evaluation of human capital, used in practice: retrospective (costly) and prospective (income based). Cost based methods involve measuring the value of human capital based on the total costs associated with its formation. The proposed additional evaluation criteria, in particular, the use of the expert approach and the developed indicators of a qualitative assessment of the human capital of the enterprise will allow development that is more efficient and use of available human resources. Human capital is becoming a major factor in the formation and development of an innovative economy and knowledge economy. Accordingly, the proposed additions to the assessment of human capital at the country level are aimed at assessing it from a new angle, taking into account the current global trends in the formation of an innovative economy and digitalization. They meet qualitatively new requirements for human capital as the main productive factor in the creation of new highly efficient technologies that promote the active development of the social sphere, science, education, health, etc.