volume-20-number-4

Editor-in-Chief: Romeo B. Lee

Preliminaries

Year: 2020, Volume 20 Number 4

Page: 1–16

Abstract

This paper examines comprehensive and foundational insight into the long-term relationship between a firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR)-related announcements, CSR visibility, and firm value in Japan. I employed an OLS regression analysis of Tobin’s q as a proxy of firm value with the original news dataset I collected from newspapers for CSR-related news announcements and CSR visibility. The regression results suggest, firstly, the positive relationship between a positive news announcement and firm value in the long-term, whereas the impact was found to be explained by CSR visibility in the longer-term. Secondly, the study showed that annual CSR visibility has a positive impact on the firm’s value, which supports the idea that firms can attract more long-term investors, financial capital, and political supports by strengthening CSR visibility. Managers and public relations officers may want to be aware that both a positive CSR-related news announcement and CSR visibility have a positive impact on firm value basically, whereas the impact is gradually occupied by CSR visibility, not the announcement. Accordingly, managers are also advised to emphasize not only on “what they do” but also “how to show” their CSR activities in their long-term strategy.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility (CSR), visibility, firm value, long-term analysis, legitimacy, Japan

Page: 17–31

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate socioeconomic inequality and its relation to unmet health needs among older adults living alone in Thailand. Descriptive analyses with F-tests and chi-squared tests, and logistic regression analyses were conducted with the national health census 2017 data. The results indicated that older adults living alone, compared to those not living alone, had significantly low socioeconomic conditions and high unmet needs. They were more likely to be lower-income, older, female, lower-educated, unemployed, and chronically-ill people. Particularly for income, the proportion of people with income below the national poverty line among older adults living alone (38.75%) were almost two times and four times larger than those living with only one family (19.39%) and more than one families (10.98%), respectively. Additionally, we found that the residence type “living alone” and income were the most significant determinants for the unmet needs. Based on the results, we recommend that the government reinforce the current pension and community health volunteer programs. Particularly for the pension program, a simulation analysis that we conducted proposed that the current pension allowance (600–1,000 Baht) should be raised up to 3,500 Baht, which could substantially alleviate the unmet needs.

Keywords: older adults living alone, residence type, living arrangement, unmet health needs, socioeconomic inequality

Page: 32–43

Abstract

This paper examines the macroeconomic determinants of CO2 emissions in Australia by applying the autoregressive distributed lag bound testing approach to cointegration. Findings reveal that CO2 emissions, energy consumption, financial development, and trade openness are cointegrated only when CO2 emissions are considered as the dependent variable. Under this situation, energy consumption and economic development lead to environmental degradation, whereas financial development improves the environment quality in Australia in the long run. The impact of trade openness on CO2 emissions is positive. However, this impact is lower than that of economic development and energy consumption. Moreover, bidirectional causality is found between CO2 emissions and economic development in the short run.

Keywords: CO2 emissions, economic activities, financial development, trade openness, ARDL Bound Testing

Page: 44–62

Abstract

Policymakers are overwhelmingly worried about reinforcing new trends for academics’ knowledge sharing through publishing research work in indexed journals. By being the first, this study investigates the issue from the behavioral perspective along with perceived trust construct while inundating previous studies discovered from different factors, including technological, environmental, and cultural. A total of 315 valid responses were received from Malaysian private universities’ academics through a self-administrated questionnaire survey. Covariance-based structural equation modeling was implemented to test the hypotheses. The results indicate that perceived trust has a significant positive impact on attitude, but a negative effect on intention. Furthermore, attitude and subjective norms can positively stimulate academics’ intention to publish a paper. Likewise, perceived behavioral control has a positive and negative impact on academics’ intention and publication behavior, respectively. Thus, a positive rapport had been established between intention and actual behavior. In lieu of these, the insightful results received from this study would help policymakers design a successful behavioral intervention program in higher educational institutions settings to accelerate academics’ knowledge sharing. Future directions and policy implications are discussed accordingly.

Keywords: Publications, indexed journals, knowledge sharing, higher education institutions, Malaysia

Page: 63–76

Abstract

Parental involvement plays a crucial role in the achievement of positive educational outcomes of children. However, the level of involvement among parents varies based on the confluence of individual, familial, and societal factors. Anchored on such premise, this paper aims to investigate the influence of the different socioeconomic related variables to parental involvement, such as monthly income, subjective assessment of living condition, weekly expenditures related to children’s education, and membership in Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) Program or the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps). It separately analyses parental involvement at home and in school, as these two distinctively involve nuanced practices. This paper is based on a survey conducted with 1,638 parents, mostly experiencing poverty, from 29 public elementary and high schools in six purposively selected municipalities/cities in the Philippines. The survey offers four major findings. First, the parents generally were more or less involved in parental involvement at home than in school. Second, parents in relatively higher income group showed parental involvement both at home and in school. However, a different picture appeared when taking into consideration the subject assessment of parents about their living conditions. Those who considered themselves to be very poor manifested parental involvement at home and in school more than those who viewed themselves to be economically better off. Third, parental involvement in school was relatively higher among CCT member parents than their non-CCT counterparts. Fourth, regression analysis identifies membership in CCT as a predictor of parental involvement. This paper concludes that financial resources from work or the CCT program could facilitate parental involvement in children’s education, especially among parents from relatively high income generating households and families living in poverty. This paper recommends to further examine the impacts of income disparity on parental involvement among parents living in poverty. Most studies look at variations in parental involvement across income groups. However, even within a specific income group, levels of parental involvement thus vary. Hence, it is interesting to know if intra-group income differentials can explain and predict variations in levels of parental involvement among families in the lowest income quantile of the population.

Keywords: parental involvement, Filipino parents, parental involvement at home, parental involvement in school

Page: 77–87

Abstract

In the present study, we examined the psychometric properties of the Teacher Accompaniment Scale (TAS) for senior high and college students from eight schools in Manila. We investigated the empirical basis to develop a reliable measure that assesses student attitudes towards teacher accompaniment. Participants included 1,618 Grade 12 senior high students and college students from selected public and private schools. The study design included exploratory factor analysis for data reduction and confirmatory factor analysis to examine the best fit model. The results showed two dimensions assessing teachers as sources of support and stress. In response to the limited scholarship on teacher accompaniment in the country, the present work provides an empirical characterization of teacher behavior and personality in class using latent dimensions. Second, the development of TAS is a modest contribution to map out articulations of teacher accompaniment in the ASEAN region. Third, this work raises the inclusion of teacher personality and behavior as an arguable point in assessing teacher effectiveness side by side teaching strategies, methods, and competence. Analysis of the results is examined with respect to university teaching practices and implications for student learning.

Keywords: teacher accompaniment, attitude towards teachers, source of stress, teacher support

Page: 88–99

Abstract

This paper reviews the empirical evidence linking political dynasties in the Philippines to the imposition of term limits under the 1987 Constitution. It finds evidence that political clans have found a way around this Constitutional constraint by fielding more family members in power—giving rise to more fat political dynasties. Hence, we carefully argue that the introduction of term limits—combined with the failure to introduce other ancillary reforms (notably an anti-dynasty law)—may have brought about instead some unintended consequences. So, it is not term limits per se that created fat political dynasties. We further argue that it is a non sequitur to argue that dynasties will be curbed by removing term limits. This is particularly true given fat political clans are already prevalent, and removing term limits will secure the political foothold of many already fat political dynasties. To illustrate their expansion, we use network analysis and illustrations of power concentration over time in particular jurisdictions. We conclude that real reforms should be focused not on removing term limits, but on further strengthening those reforms that should have accompanied it, including enhancing competition in the political sphere, such as by supplying alternative leaders, strengthening political parties, and regulating political dynasties.

Keywords: political dynasty, poverty, network analysis, term limits, Philippines

Page: 100–112

Abstract

The methodology of principled eclecticism employs a number of different teaching theories towards a specific set of goals. This quasi-experimental qualitative research examined whether principled eclecticism would affect learning achievements and attitude towards English by students in remote areas of Thailand, with a view to re-examining Thailand’s educational policy. A total of 20 hours of teaching was conducted on primary school students at a school in the remote rural northeastern province of Kalasin using principled eclecticism. Pre- and post-tests revealed improved learning achievements to a significant degree; however, when broken down into sections, significant learning achievements tended to be in areas where students memorized vocabulary rather than used vocabulary to make critical choices. Student attitude towards English language learning improved significantly. Results can be used as guidelines for the Thai Ministry of Education to implement policy changes in the field of English language teaching, particularly in lower socioeconomic areas where scores are traditionally low.

Keywords: Principled Eclecticism, English as a Second Language, primary education, educational policy, education in Thailand

Page: 113–122

Abstract

Quality of life (QoL) has long been studied by researchers. As a part of the Malaysian government’s efforts to improve citizens’ QoL, in 2017, a new mass rapid transit (MRT) service was launched in Selangor. Although past studies support that access to public transportation service increases QoL, no study has directly examined the relationship between accessibility to the new MRT service and QoL. Thus, a cross-sectional study was designed to test the effects of perceived accessibility to the new MRT service and perceived safety on QoL. Two hundred and fourteen MRT users were recruited using convenience and online snowball sampling and were asked to report their accessibility to the MRT service, the safety of the neighborhood, and QoL. Hierarchical multiple regression showed that after controlling the demographic factors (age, gender, and income), perceived accessibility to the MRT service had a positive relationship with QoL. However, perceived safety had no relationship with QoL and did not moderate the relationship between perceived accessibility and QoL. Overall, the findings offer the first empirical evidence of the beneficial effect of the MRT service on QoL and highlight the necessity of developing public transportation services in Malaysia.

Keywords: quality of life, mass rapid transit service, perceived accessibility, perceived safety, Malaysia

Page: 123–135

Abstract

Engaging concepts germane to lifestyle-routine activities theory (LRAT), this study examines how social media (SM) utilization shapes online victimization experience. It also explores how considerations about online prevention measures play a moderating role between utilization and victimization. This study focuses on the Facebook® utilization of a subset of the U.S. population hitherto understudied in cybercrime prevention studies: Hispanics. An online survey was used to collect information pertaining to respondents’ online victimization experience, social media utilization, and aspects of prevention measures. Logistic and negative binomial regression analyses were performed on two measures of online victimization (ever victimized and frequency of victimization). The findings demonstrate how LRAT can explain the link between SM utilization, prevention measures, and online victimization. The results highlight the role of two temporal aspects of utilization (intensity and extensity) in shaping online victimization experience along with the conditioning role of the salience of mutuality (i.e., the importance of mutuality—to an SM user—in deciding to accept an online friend request). Mutuality was found to be a critical moderating factor between temporal aspects of SM utilization and online victimization. The findings have important implications for online safety, cybercrime prevention, and online victimization awareness initiatives.

Keywords: Online victimization, social media utilization, salience of mutuality, cybercrime prevention

Page: 136–149

Abstract

The use of traditional medicines is commonplace among the elderly population. With the growth of this population, a scoping review to ascertain the beliefs that influence decisions to use traditional/complementary and alternative medicine (TCAM) was undertaken. This scoping review focused on identifying the beliefs of members of the elderly population regarding TCAM, especially in comparison with western medicine. The researchers used the methodological framework for a scoping review by Arksey and O’Malley (2005). The main steps of this scoping review included (a) searching for relevant studies, (b) selecting studies based on specific inclusion criteria, (c) extracting data into a charting table, and (d) collating, synthesizing, and reporting the results. However, the process was not linear but iterative. Each stage was moved flexibly, and steps were repeated when needed to ensure that the existing literature was covered fully. The findings of the scoping review are divided into the characteristics and nature of the articles in the scoping review and the beliefs of the elderly that influence their use of TCAM; the latter may be divided broadly into traditional, cultural, social, and economic beliefs. Implications of the findings and suggestions for future research on the influences of beliefs of the elderly on the use of TCAM are elaborated upon.

Keywords: Elderly, beliefs, traditional medicine, alternative medicine, scoping review

Page: 150–163

Abstract

This study reviews the development of Thailand’s Medical Hub policy and explores the recommendations and proposals for operational integration of the Medical Hub policy to mitigate the impact on the national health system, including exemplification of the medical personnel shortage in the public sector and the potential brain drain to the private sector. The scope of this study covers the implementation of the first strategic plan, “Medical Hub of Asia (2004–2008)” and the second strategic plan, “Thailand as a World Class Health Care Provider (2010–2014).” This study investigates secondary information on Thailand’s Medical Hub policy from official documents and research. It also employs purposive sampling of select experts and experienced professionals from the public and private sectors and civil society who are pertinent to the implementation of the Medical Hub policy to participate in the in-depth interviews. Inclusively, the Medical Hub policy should be implemented based on the engagement of the public and private sectors and civil society to reduce the impact on Thailand’s national health system.

Keywords: medical tourism, Medical Hub, recommendation, operational integration, health system, Thailand

Page: 164–176

Abstract

This study aims to examine the attitudes of American and Filipino college students and their intention to join the cause-related marketing (CRM) campaign. There were 200 Filipino and 180 American college students who joined the survey. The respondents were marketing majors. Using the theory of reasoned action (TRA), the results suggest a significant impact of religiosity, social influence, and attitude on the intention to join the CRM campaign. The results show that social influence has a positive relationship with attitude and intention to join CRM only in the U.S. Religiosity has a positive relationship with attitude and intention to join CRM in both countries. The results highlight the impact of cultural differences and exposure to CRM on consumer attitude and intention to participate in CRM across countries. This study suggests that marketers should design relevant CRM campaigns across countries.

Keywords: Social influence, Religiosity, Cause-Related Marketing, Philippines, U.S.

Author: APSSR Editorial Team

Data at a Glance

Year: 2020, Volume 20 Number 4

Page: 177

Author: Joseph Ching Velasco

Data at a Glance

Year: 2020, Volume 20 Number 4

Page: 178