Preventing the COVID-19 Outbreak in Vietnam: Social Media Campaign Exposure and the Role of Interpersonal Communication.

The present study focused on the success story of Vietnam's ability to control the COVID-19 outbreak in the early stages to examine the associations between exposure to the Vietnam Ministry of Health's COVID-19 prevention social media campaign messages, interpersonal communication, attitudes, perceived norms, self-efficacy, and intentions to stay at home. A cross-sectional survey was conducted with residents in Ho Chi Minh City (N = 360). Results from mediation analyses indicated that interpersonal communication mediated the effect of social media campaign exposure on intentions to stay at home. Moreover, interpersonal communication shaped injunctive norms and self-efficacy that were conducive to behavioral intentions. These results underscored the need to leverage the power of social media and interpersonal communication in public health campaigns to prevent infectious outbreaks.

Influenced by Anonymous Others: Effects of Online Comments on Risk Perception and Intention to Communicate.

Guided by the health risk communication literature and the social identity model of deindividualization effects, this study examines whether and how concurrent exposure to health news articles and congruent/incongruent comments posted by anonymous others may affect news viewers' personal risk perception, societal risk perception, and intention to communicate about health risk issues. Two controlled experiments were conducted in Vietnam concerning two controversial health risk issues, including ear picking and child corporal punishment. Results showed a significant interaction effect between comments and perceived similarity on personal risk perception and societal risk perception, such that comments influenced both types of risk perception when viewers perceived that anonymous commenters were ingroup members. Results also indicated the joint effect of comments and perceived similarity on participants' intention to communicate, mediated by their personal risk perception and societal risk perception. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.

The practice of sustainable fashion of luxury boutique fashion brands in Vietnam: What go right, and what go wrong.

This study investigated the current practices and challenges for the sustainable fashion of luxury boutique fashion brands (LBFBs) in Vietnam. A series of in-depth interviews with 20 founders and managers of LBFBs in Vietnam was conducted. Findings show that sustainable practices improve ethnic cultures, strengthen the usage of local resources, promote sustainable lifestyle, and thereby contributing to sustainable development of the boutique fashion brands. However, the brands face some challenges while dealing with their stakeholders such as shortage of available internal resources, bias in consumer perception and purchase behaviors, and legal barriers to achieve accredited environment certification that, in turn, weaken the sustainable practices in the local context. Results also provide some insightful information for small & medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to adjust their sustainability practices in order to improve their competitive advantages in the marketplace.