The consumption of food has a significant impact on the environment, individuals and public health. This study aims to investigate the integrative effects of consumers’ personal and situational factors on their attitude and purchase behavior of organic meat. The consumption of this product has been widely regarded as contributing towards sustainable food practices. The study was conducted in an emerging market economy, i.e., Vietnam. Data were collected using a customized and validated survey instrument from a sample of 609 organic meat consumers at four food outlets in Hanoi. The findings suggested that consumers’ concerns regarding the environment, health, food safety and their knowledge of organic food, all significantly impacted their attitude towards the purchase behavior of organic meat. Interestingly, their positive attitude did not necessarily translate into their actual purchase of organic meat. Additionally, food stores’ green marketing practices significantly enhanced consumers’ actual purchase behavior. Conversely, premium prices of organic meat were certainly a deterrent for the actual purchase of organic meat. The findings of this study have several important implications for organic food producers, retailers, policy makers and socio-environmental organizations that seek to develop intervention strategies aimed at increasing organic meat consumption in Vietnam.

While extensive literature is available on the relationships between transformational leadership, job satisfaction, rewards, and job performance, few studies examine the moderating roles of financial and non–financial rewards on these relationships. This study examines the moderating effects of financial and non–financial rewards on transformational leadership–job performance and job satisfaction–job performance relationships. It also examines the mediating effect of job satisfaction on transformational leadership and job performance. The data were obtained through questionnaires that were distributed to employees (N = 331) of private enterprises in Vietnam. The study uses the SPSS 23.0 software and the PROCESS V3.4 to test the hypotheses. The results demonstrate that transformational leadership significantly affects job satisfaction, which, in turn, is strongly associated with job performance. Job satisfaction also has a mediating effect on the relationship between transformational leadership and job performance. Interestingly, neither financial nor non–financial rewards have any moderating effect on the relationship between job satisfaction and job performance, but financial rewards have a negative moderating effect on the relationship between transformational leadership and job performance. These findings suggest that managers may benefit from combining transformational leadership with financial rewards to motivate employees and improve job performance.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic will have a large impact on the publishing industry. This research aims to investigate the influences of the COVID-19 pandemic situation, utilitarian and hedonic motivations on consumer intention to buy books online. It conceptualizes the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic as situational influences, which involve the closure of physical bookstores, health risks associated with visiting such stores, online shopping trend and additional marketing efforts from online bookstores during the pandemic. Data were collected from 275 Vietnamese consumers using an online survey. Multivariate data analysis reveals that the COVID-19 pandemic situation has a positive and significant impact on consumer intention toward online book shopping. Furthermore, while utilitarian motivation exerts a strong effect on consumer intention to purchase books online, the relationship between hedonic motivation and online purchase intention is positive but insignificant. These findings would assist key stakeholders such as publishers and online bookstores to improve the quality of their websites as well as develop their marketing campaigns.

Promoting sustainable food consumption contributes to the achievement of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. This study investigated the key determinants of consumer intention to purchase organic meat in an emerging market and a unique model was developed by incorporating environmental concern and guilt with the key components of the Theory of Planned Behavior. This model was then validated by obtaining data from a sample of 402 Vietnamese consumers at five food stores in Ho Chi Minh City, using a paper-based survey. The findings reveal that consumers who are concerned about the environment are likely to formulate favorable attitudes and downplay monetary barriers associated with organic food purchase. In addition, while attitudes and guilt about buying conventional meat have a positive effect on organic meat purchase intention, perceived monetary barriers significantly reduce the intention. These findings highlight both the rational and emotional aspects of organic food purchase intention and have important implications for key stakeholders and the encouragement of organic meat consumption.

The development of functional foods is key to promoting a healthy diet and preventing certain diseases. This study aims to examine several key factors that affect consumer attitude and intention with respect to purchasing functional foods in an emerging market economy. A research model was developed by extension of the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), and then validated through obtaining data from 596 Vietnamese consumers who were interested in functional yogurts using an interviewer-administered questionnaire. Multivariate data analysis reveals that while health consciousness and subjective norm significantly enhance consumers’ attitudes towards purchasing functional yogurts, perceived price of functional yogurts exerts a negative impact on such attitudes. Moreover, subjective norm and attitude appear to be key predictors of consumers’ intentions to buy functional yogurts. These findings extend the extant literature relating to functional food purchase and consumption in emerging markets, and they have several important practical implications for functional yogurt manufacturers, retailers, and policymakers. A major implication is that education and communication programs that aim at increasing consumers’ health consciousness and their awareness of functional foods’ health benefits play an integral role in the success of functional food products such as functional yogurts. Research limitations and future research directions are also presented.

Purpose: This paper aims to address gaps in the sustainable technology literature by evaluating the demographics of energy efficient appliance consumption in Vietnam. Sustainable technologies can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address environmental problems such as air quality and climate change. Opportunity is the greatest in emerging markets, where population growth has triggered dramatic rises in electricity consumption. However, their adoption of energy efficient appliances has been slow and understanding why is limited. Design/methodology/approach: Following a literature review, a questionnaire was designed to capture sustainable consumption attitudes and behaviours. In total, 682 interviews were conducted among Vietnamese electrical appliance consumers to investigate the influence of demographics on sustainable technology consumption. Findings: While many respondents were aware of the sustainable benefits of energy efficient appliances, this did not generally translate into responsible purchase behaviour. Of the demographic variables, education had the strongest relationship with sustainability. Those with higher incomes and more children were also more likely to exhibit sustainable consumption attitudes and behaviours. Gender and age were weaker sustainability predictors. Originality/value: This study is relevant to a wide range of sustainable technology contexts. The literature shows contrary findings regarding relationships between demographics and sustainable consumption, and the value of demographics to sustainable consumer segmentation and targeted behaviour change campaigns has been contested by some researchers. This research highlights education as the most significant demographic predictor of sustainable consumption and reveals the consistency of this finding with many other studies. The implications of this for promoting future sustainability are discussed.