volume-22-number-2

Author: Joseph Ching Velasco

Year: 2022, Volume 22 Number 1

Pages: 1-13

Fintech is the driving force behind the digital economy, with the goal of improving cross-national interaction. However, the future development of Fintech in ASEAN-6 remains ambiguous, with little attention paid to an investigation. This study, therefore, aims to examine the Fintech ecosystem in ASEAN-6 countries by constructing a Fintech Index over the period of 2017 to 2019. This index consists of the readiness and capacity to participate in Fintech activity, the level of demand for Fintech services, and the possible future growth of Fintech. To achieve this objective, this study employs the averaging methods, that is, arithmetic mean, geometric mean, and entropy form. The results show that Singapore has the strongest Fintech ecosystem, followed by Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The findings imply that there is no single nation dominating the index by overlapping all aspects; ASEAN-6 countries are advised to resolve the major obstacles to enhance the Fintech development.

Keywords: fintech index, fintech ecosystem, ASEAN-6, arithmetic mean, geometric mean, entropy form

Pages: 14-36

The study examines the effect of experiential quality on experiential loyalty among customers in Starbucks coffee chains in Pampanga, Philippines. Five hundred ninety-five customers were purposively sampled as respondents. By way of causal-predictive design and partial least squares path modeling, the results showed that experiential quality significantly and positively predicts experiential satisfaction, perceived value, and experiential trust. Concomitantly, it was found that perceived value is a trifocal predictor of experiential satisfaction, experiential trust, and experiential loyalty. The impact of experiential trust on experiential loyalty garnered the highest path coefficient, indicating its strong impact compared to the effect of experiential satisfaction on experiential loyalty, as well as perceived value on experiential loyalty. The mediation analysis showed that experiential satisfaction and experiential trust are both mediators of the relationship between experiential quality and experiential loyalty. However, experiential satisfaction has a stronger mediating effect compared to experiential trust.

Keywords: Coffee shops, interaction quality, physical environment quality, outcome quality, affective quality, experiential quality, experiential loyalty, experiential satisfaction, perceived value, and experiential trust

Pages: 37-49

This paper aims to study the impact of personal income tax (PIT) on economic growth in China and Thailand using the Chinese and Thai data, which were collected between 1999 and 2018, after the economic crisis of Thailand in 1997. The ordinary least squares (OLS) method was used to analyze the annual data for evaluating the impact of PIT on economic growth in the long run. The study revealed that in China, there is a significantly positive relationship between PIT and economic growth over the study period. On the other hand, Thailand’s PIT has a significantly negative relationship with economic growth. Corporate income taxes (CIT) in both China and Thailand have a negative impact on economic growth. Thailand’s value-added tax (VAT) has a negative relationship with economic growth, whereas VAT in China does not have a significant impact on economic growth. This study, therefore, recommends that the fiscal revenue policy used to stimulate economic growth should consider lowering CIT rather than PIT and VAT.

Keywords: taxation, personal income tax, value-added tax, corporate income tax, economic growth.

Pages: 50-62

Development-induced displacement (DID) has been a contentious issue linked to development today. Thousands of people, particularly tribal and other marginalized communities in India, are being uprooted from their land every year in the name of development. The available evidence-based suggests that DID brings a myriad of implications to the lives of the displaced. However, it is unclear what domains DID impacts and marginalizes tribal communities. Therefore, this review aims to analyze the impacts of DID on the lives of tribal communities in India. Synthesizing evidence on the impact of DID deserves high policy and research attention. An integrative review of the published literature between 1992 and 2019 was undertaken. The review was performed using the database from Google Scholar and Scopus. Seventy three articles met the inclusion criteria and were analyzed. Five themes emerged from the review on the impact of DID on tribal communities: impact on land and livelihood, impacts on socio-cultural life, impact on health and education, human rights violation, and the state of rehabilitative measures. DID has put a significant toll on the lives of tribal communities of India. Policy measures should be implemented appropriately to ensure the rights of tribal and other vulnerable communities.

Keywords: Development-induced Displacement, Impoverishment, Tribal community, Resettlement and Rehabilitation

Pages: 63-82

This study aimed to investigate the science curricula of Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand. This study was undertaken to compare science curricula and determine which scientists’ current practices, such as hypothesizing, are represented in science curricula. A cross-case analysis was carried out using the junior science curriculum (ages 12–14) of these countries. The analysis revealed similarities in the science curriculum, including that the purpose of the science curriculum is to develop scientific literacy. The junior secondary science curriculum content tends to consist of biology, physics, chemistry, and earth and space sciences. Students are prescribed no more than 10 hours/week, and each science curriculum displays processes commonly associated with scientific experimentation and, to a lesser degree, modeling. Student-centered learning and inquiry are promoted as the main approaches in the science curriculum, and learning outcomes are assessed by teachers using exam-based and non-exam methods both as a formative and summative assessment. The analysis uncovered key differences. One example of key differences is the purposes of the science curriculum. Indonesia includes spiritual attitude and making decisions in daily life. Vietnam includes awareness of natural science. Thailand includes nationalism, life skills, and creativity. Integrated science is included only in Indonesia’s curriculum. It was found that Indonesian students have more time to learn science than other countries, followed by Vietnamese and Thai students. Vietnam’s curriculum clearly includes practices involving judgment about data, revision of ideas, and constructing explanations. Indonesia promotes a scientific approach. Vietnam promotes the scientific method, whereas Thailand promotes the scientific method and scientific inquiry as to their main pedagogical approaches. Finally, Indonesia and Thailand have large-scale assessments at the national level for graduation requirements on science subjects. However, there is no apparent national science examination in Vietnam at the junior level. These ostensible alignments suggest that science curriculum development is increasingly global and that there is evidence of unified representations of practices associated with science. The study will be of significance to science educators, government ministries, and international bodies of education who seek to develop science curricula.

Keywords: science curriculum, comparative research, practice, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand

Pages: 83-99

The health care industry, in general, has experienced a change in the last years due to stiff competition. More and more are now expected from hospitals, not only on offering competitive prices but also on providing quality services. With the greater expectations from patients, the need to deliver holistic quality service is a must. Hence, the present study aims to examine the level of satisfaction of patients on the aspect of the physical environment and how this satisfaction leads to the intention to recommend. Furthermore, it investigates how patient loyalty indirectly influences the relationship between satisfaction with the physical environment and intention to recommend. The respondents were selected using consecutive sampling, and they were patients from a private tertiary hospital located in Clark Freeport Zone, Philippines. Using a predictive-causal design of research and utilizing partial least squares (PLS) path modeling, the study revealed that patient satisfaction with the physical environment significantly and positively affects patient loyalty and intention to recommend. It was also found that patient loyalty leads to the intention to recommend. The mediation analysis showed that patient loyalty improves the significant and positive relationship between patient satisfaction and intention to recommend.

Keywords: patient satisfaction, patient loyalty, intention to recommend, tertiary hospital, physical environment

Pages: 100-115

Drug transaction interaction is a complex global phenomenon in terms of drug safety, quality, and rational use. Non-participatory interactions concerning drugs might lead to adverse effects, as well as loss of resources, time, and money. The complexities of drug transactional interactions in developing countries, especially in the Asian context, are understudied. Therefore, this scoping review aimed to map the scientific evidence that explored the patient–pharmacist interaction patterns for primary health care in relation to drug transactional complexities in pharmacy care settings. For this purpose, we adopted the methodological framework by Arksey and O’Malley (2005). The PubMed, Science Direct, EBSCO discovery services, AnthroSource Online database, cross reference, and manual searches were used to select relevant articles (29). The results revealed that the majority of studies had been conducted from a profession-centric point of view, such as in pharmacy, medicine, and public health, but little has been studied from a social science standpoint. The selected studies were divided into those from developed and developing countries based on their location. Accordingly, studies in developed countries have focused on ensuring participatory, collaborative, and patient-centric interactions. In contrast, researchers in developing countries have struggled to identify and recognize the role of pharmacists, drug dispensing patterns, and ways to operate pharmacy care. Thus, this scoping review synthesis can contribute to policy formulation and implementation to boost the access to safe medicines, as well as reduce medication errors and identify research gaps for future research projection.

Keywords: patient, pharmacist, interaction, communication, transaction, drug

Pages:  116-135

This study investigates the effect of board capital on commercial bank risk-taking, and the moderating effect of board independence in commercial bank risk-taking. This study extends prior literature by integrating the resource dependence and agency theories in examining the specific attributes of board capital and board independence and their effect on risktaking. Data from eight Malaysian commercial banks from 2002 to 2014 were analyzed using generalized least squares (GLS) panel data regression technique to estimate the effect of board capital and moderating effect of board independence on bank risk-taking. The board capital data is hand-collected from the bank annual reports. The financial data is  obtained from Bankscope. Directors’ experience in risk management, high status, and political connection significantly affect bank risk-taking and the effect is non-linear. Board independence moderates the relationship between the board capital and risktaking. The findings suggest that it is not sufficient to just focus on the board independence because the directors’ ability to perform monitoring and advisory roles vary, depending on human and social capital resources they bring to the board. Thus, the contribution of the board oversight role should be evaluated in combination with the board capital. The findings are useful for the board of commercial banks and regulatory bodies to strengthen the board oversight role in risk-taking and enhance board diversity. This research highlights how board composition can be configured to control risk-taking in terms of the extent of its independence and the specific attributes board capital. The finding reaffirms the integration of the resource dependence and agency theory perspectives in corporate governance research. To the best of our knowledge, this study is a preliminary attempt to explore the value of board capital and its interaction with board independence in banking institutions in affecting risk-taking based on the integration of resource dependence and agency theories.

Keywords: Bank risk-taking, board capital, board independence, resource dependence theory, agency theory

Pages: 136-149

Working holidays have become increasingly popular for young Chinese to gain overseas work and travel experience. Against this background, this research aims to explore the attitudes and perspectives of Chinese parents towards the decision of their children to embark on working holidays in New Zealand and how culture affects these attitudes and perspectives. Through face-to-face interviews, this research recruited 30 Chinese WHMs in New Zealand. Three themes have been developed from analyzing the interview transcripts to uncover the views of their parents, namely, Chinese parents being supportive, Chinese parents urging children to settle down, and Chinese parents not wanting children to undertake “low” jobs. The findings of this research offer a rich and in-depth understanding of how Chinese parents reacted to an unconventional overseas journey. This research advances the academic inquiry into how parents react to their children’s decisions to undertake long-term travel by probing into the conflicting attitudes towards working holidays among Chinese parents. Also, this research advances the individualistic dimension of Chinese culture illustrated by young Chinese independently choosing their life paths rather than following the traditional ones expected by their parents and the society. By considering cultural and social factors of Chinese society, this research further challenges the dominant position of Western-centric perspectives in the current tourism discourse

Keywords: working holidays, working holiday makers, Chinese youth, Chinese outbound tourism, Chinese culture, New Zealand

Pages: 150-163

Pandemic management strategies often reinforce the trope of the uncooperative and disease-spreading poor; they who are to be blamed for transmission and therefore must be subdued to protect the population. Although counternarratives to this proposition seek to explain from the lens of political economy why people who are poor behave the way they do, they do not, at the bottom, assail the central idea that the poor behave in ways inconsistent with the aims of public health. The interrogation of this central idea is what this research aims to contribute towards using original data from interviews with 21 COVID-19 survivors in the urban poor areas in the Philippines. This research captures experiences in the stigma of COVID-positive individuals during the early stages of the virus in May-June 2020, and investigates how these experiences might impact views on the duty of the infected to voluntarily disclose their infection status. It finds that despite painful stigmatizing experiences both within their communities and in interactions with actors in the public health care system, an overwhelming majority of participants still felt that they had a duty to voluntarily disclose their COVID-positive status to protect their community—offering another possible critique to mainstream narratives that blame the poor for pandemics and other crises.

Keywords: COVID-19, solidarity, stigma, pandemics, Philippines

Pages: 164-180

This paper interrogates the influence of trust in government, trust in vaccines, and access to vaccine-related information as predictors of intention to vaccinate for COVID-19 among Filipinos. It also examines the relationship between social- and personal-related measures and the intention to vaccinate. Data for this article were collected from an online survey involving 1,953 respondents, conducted from July 28 to August 2020 before the trials were completed and emergency use authorizations were issued for any of the currently approved COVID-19 vaccines. Multinomial regression results show that trust in vaccines, sex, income, perceived risk exposure, and perceived health status were significant predictors of intention to vaccinate for COVID-19. Access to information, however, was not a result that possibly arose from the mixed bag of true and false information about vaccines that proliferate, especially online. These results suggest that trust in vaccines will likely encourage individuals to vaccinate. It is recommended that the Philippine government launch confidence-building measures and strategic communication that will help build people’s trust in the vaccines. Educating the public and improving awareness about risk exposure is thus needed to stimulate intention or interest among the population to get vaccinated for COVID-19.

Keywords: COVID-19, vaccines, trust, healthcare, government, information, vaccine propensity, vaccine hesitancy

Pages: 181-195

In general, existential threats are those that may potentially result in the extinction of the entire human species, if not significantly endanger its living population. Among the said threats include, but not limited to, pandemics and the impacts of a technological singularity. As regards pandemics, significant work has already been done on how to mitigate, if not prevent, the aftereffects of this type of disaster. For one, certain problem areas on how to properly manage pandemic responses have already been identified, like the following: (a) not being able to learn from previous experiences, (b) the inability to act on warning signals, and (c) the failure to reach a global consensus on a problem (i.e., in a timely manner). In terms of a singularity, however, it may be said that further research is still needed, specifically on how to aptly respond to its projected negative outcomes. In this paper, by treating the three problem areas noted above as preliminary assessment measures of a country’s capacity to coordinate a national response to large-scale disasters, we examine the readiness of the Philippines in preparing for an intelligence explosion. By citing certain instances of how the said country, specifically its national government, faced the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, it puts forward the idea that the likely Philippine disaster response towards a singularity needs to be worked on, appealing for a more comprehensive assessment of such for a more informed response plan.

Keywords: technological singularity, artificial intelligence, COVID-19, existential threat, Philippine disaster response

Pages: 196-213

Countries across the world, including the Philippines, are imposing environmental regulations in response to the negative effects of climate change. However, SMEs may have to deal with burdensome environmental regulations that may negatively affect their financial performance and competitiveness as these may increase the cost of doing business. This paper aims to test and is among the first to test the association between environmental regulatory burden and profit growth rate of Philippine SMEs using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. This is based on a sample of 590 SMEs located in the three biggest metropolitan areas in the Philippines, namely: Metro Manila, Metro Cebu, and Metro Davao. The paper is important because Philippine SMEs contribute greatly to Philippine employment and gross value added figures and because the Philippines is among the most vulnerable countries to the consequences of climate change. Although we do not find a statistically significant association between environmental regulatory burden and profit growth rate among Philippine SMEs, we find that when SMEs perceive the extent of corruption to be low, the environmental regulatory burden may have a positive association with SME profit growth rate. Our findings also suggest that, among others, the government must strengthen the implementation of anti-corruption initiatives to help improve the ease-of-doing-business.

Keywords: Corruption, environmental regulation, environmental regulatory burden, governance, Philippines, SMEs