University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City

This study employs Network Data Envelopment Analysis (NDEA), a Multiple Objective Programming (MOP) approach, to comprehensively assess the performance/efficiency of 103 countries over the period 2000–2024, at global, national, and group levels, in achieving their Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It extends the application of MOP to sustainability assessment, providing deeper insights into both overall SDG performance and stage-specific SDG performance, covering all 17 SDGs and explicitly accounting for their interdependencies. Specifically, we divide the 17 SDGs into two sequential stages: In Stage 1, countries use a virtual governance proxy as a fixed input to produce four economically oriented SDGs; in Stage 2, these economic SDGs are subsequently used to generate the remaining 12 socio-environmental SDGs. Our findings reveal an increasing trend in global SDG performance over time; however, substantial scope for improvement remains, particularly with respect to socio-environmental SDGs and among low- and upper-middle-income countries, where institutional quality-especially government effectiveness and political stability-plays a critical role. Importantly, the study also found a stronger performance in the first stage of economic SDGs than in the second stage of socio-environmental SDGs, supporting the “grow first, clean up later” argument in the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) literature.

Rapid growth in nature-based tourism is increasing pressure on fragile environments and highlighting a persistent gap between tourists’ pro-environmental intentions and their reported on-site behavior. This study examines green mindfulness as an attentional construct associated with sustainable tourist behavior in tourism settings where visitors must interpret environmental cues in real time. Using cross-sectional survey data collected from 500 domestic and international visitors across selected tourism sites in Vietnam and analyzed with structural equation modeling, the study assesses how individual predispositions, service-provider mechanisms, and contextual cues are associated with green mindfulness. Results show that contextual cues are the strongest predictors of green mindfulness, while habitual consumption lowers mindful awareness. Green mindfulness significantly predicts sustainable tourist behavior and is associated with indirect relationships between selected antecedents and reported behavior. The findings contribute to research on sustainable tourism by showing how attentional processes may complement Value-Belief-Norm reasoning in dynamic tourism environments, while also highlighting the limits of cross-sectional self-reported evidence.

Although stress and mental health challenges during crises have been widely documented, limited attention has been given to how strong family bonds may also transmit or amplify stress among family members. This dynamic, often reflected in the idea that the suffering of one member affects the entire group, remains particularly understudied in culturally family-oriented contexts such as Vietnam. This study investigates stress patterns among 988 Vietnamese respondents and examines the factors associated with stress using the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study of crisis impact. We employ the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and integrate Conservation of Resources Theory, the Social Determinants Framework, and the Family Systems-Illness Model in our analysis. The key finding highlights how strong family bonds in Vietnamese culture intensify stress levels when family members become infected with the virus, particularly due to, e.g., caregiving responsibilities and the emotional burden of being physically separated from ill family members. Policymakers, when designing interventions to address mental health challenges, should not only focus on individuals directly experiencing illness but also consider the well-being of other family members. The findings should be interpreted with caution, given the cross-sectional design and the context-specific nature of the study.

This study examined how mindfulness relates to sustainable consumer behavior (SCB) through two psychological pathways, minimalism and self-transcendence, and whether this process is conditioned by collectivism. Prior research reporting mixed findings suggests the need to clarify indirect mechanisms and cultural boundary conditions in the mindfulness-sustainability link. A cross-sectional online survey was conducted with 468 Vietnamese consumers. Measures included mindfulness, minimalism, self-transcendence values, collectivism, and SCB. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to evaluate the structural model, including multiple mediation and moderation pathways. Predictive relevance was assessed using PLSpredict. Mindfulness showed a modest direct association with SCB; however, stronger effects emerged through indirect pathways. Mindfulness predicted higher levels of minimalism and self-transcendence, which independently and sequentially related to more sustainable consumption. Collectivism significantly strengthened the relationship between mindfulness and SCB but did not significantly moderate the mediation pathways. The model demonstrated explanatory adequacy and positive predictive relevance. This study provided preliminary evidence clarifying the role of mindfulness in sustainable consumption within a collectivist cultural context. Additionally, the current study also offered initial support for minimalism and self-transcendence as potential mechanisms linking mindfulness to sustainable consumer behavior, and for collectivism as a contextual factor influencing this relationship.

In Vietnam, the return of case files for supplementary investigation and re-investigation is more than a technical procedural mechanism. It is also a semiotic practice through which courts articulate authority, redistribute procedural responsibility, and reshape the temporal flow of criminal adjudication. This study analyzes that practice not simply as a response to evidentiary incompleteness, but as a meaning-making act situated within the symbolic structure of criminal procedure. Using legal semiotics, legal discourse analysis, and argument-structure analysis, the study examines the 2015 Criminal Procedure Code of Vietnam, relevant guiding instruments, selected judicial decisions, and international fair trial norms as an interpretive frame. The analysis argues that file return performs a dual symbolic role. It simultaneously projects the court as the guardian of legality and procedural correctness, while legitimizing interruption, repetition, and renewed investigation within a system that formally commits itself to fairness, legal certainty, and judicial restraint. Through recurrent justificatory expressions such as insufficient evidence, serious procedural violations, and the impossibility of supplementing proof at trial, Vietnamese criminal procedure develops a distinctive legal grammar of delay and control. The Vietnamese experience thus contributes to a broader question at the heart of legal semiotics: how law generates the appearance of fairness not only through substantive rights or final outcomes, but also through the symbolic organization of procedural time.