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Scholarly research on e-procurement has been limited and, like e-government, e-procurement has been researched primarily from the perspective of adoption/non-adoption. This paper aims to focus on public administration employees’ perceptions of the quality of národní elektronický nástroj (NEN) – the Czech national e-procurement tool they are required to use.

The paper is based primarily on statistical analysis of data obtained through two questionnaire surveys addressed to contacts from of all Czech central state administration bodies using NEN; 175 completed questionnaires were gathered in 2020 and 128 in 2022 and subjected to statistical analysis in SPSS.

NEN was launched as fully operational in August 2015. The research indicates that in 2022 there were still important gaps in the quality of NEN as perceived by public employees.

The paper has important practical implications for e-procurement policymakers. It shows that making the e-procurement system compulsory is not sufficient. The government needs to guarantee that it would be competitive with tools that would otherwise be preferred. Otherwise, the application of the digital-by-default principle may lead to institutionalisation of services that are not user-friendly. This has important implications for e-government/e-procurement management and change management.

Little is known about public employees’ perceptions of the quality of e-government and e-procurement. Although e-procurement is an area where the digital-by-default principle was implemented rather early, the quality of e-procurement has still received limited attention in research.

Arrangements for regional economic integration, under the WTO system, have unexpectedly dominated globalization. In fact, countries that have realized economic arrangements, such as the EU 's monetary union, are further expanding their efforts to achieve political integration. Regional economic integration is now considered an exigency of national affairs. North East Asian countries are also affected by this global predicament, but the issue involves greater structural complexities in this region. The emergence of China has forced Japan and Korea to contemplate difficult structural adjustments. For example, while the Korean government recognizes the importance of stronger intra-regional economic cooperation, by pursuing these arrangements it simultaneously faces the dilemma of maintaining traditional partnerships, such as those with the USA and Japan. If Korea actively supports regional economic arrangements, this action would be perceived as a bias toward China, consequently damaging ties with the US. Thus, rather than depending on public initiatives to establish economic ties in North East Asia, China, Japan and Korea should rely on market friendly projects initiated by the private sector that endorse gradual integration through non-political activities and exchanges among the citizens of the respective countries. This paper first proposes the founding of a North East Asian United University Community composed of students, professors and campuses of the three countries in the initial stages. Secondly, it proposes the development of unique Asian commodities, a concept similar to that of 'Airbus. ' Finally, it proposes utilization of retired Japanese, Korean and Chinese engineers and technicians to speed up the overall level of technology, which is critical to overcoming backwardness in this region.

The real costs of trade, the transport and other costs of doing business internationally, are very important determinants of a country's ability to participate fully in the world economy. Remoteness and poor transport and communications infrastructure isolate countries, inhibiting their participation in global production networks. This paper investigates the dependence of transport costs on geography and infrastructure It shows that infrastructure is quantitatively important in determining transport costs, and improvements in infrastructure can dramatically increase trade flows. It also finds that the low level of Northeast Asian countries' trade flows is largely due to poor infrastructure. Competition among countries in East Asia to maintain or become a logistic hub in the region is severe. This is reflected in the competition to build or expand airports and seaports in the region. Competing countries need to find ways of cooperating to achieve an efficient resource allocation in the region as a whole.

The purpose of this paper is to explain why Vietnam has been charged as a currency manipulator by the USA, and why those charges are less than conclusive, as of May 2021, no immediate tariffs were imposed.

A comparative approach is applied using economic data on trade balances, inflation, exchange rates, and foreign exchange reserves from Vietnam, other Asian nations, and the USA. Currency regime theories are briefly reviewed, and USA. Treasury statements about Vietnam’s currency are referred to, which then are analyzed. Further explanations are based on the context of the economic situation and bilateral relations.

Since 2010, Vietnam’s currency has appreciated, and since 2015, the government has kept the Vietnamese dong (VND) stable in real terms against the dollar. The sharp improvement in Vietnam’s bilateral and overall trade balance is due largely to rising labor costs in China and trade frictions between the USA and China. The resulting US tariffs on China’s exports redirected Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) exports to Vietnam. Even with these recent trade surpluses, Vietnam’s ratio of foreign exchange reserves to imports is lower than that of many other Asian nations. The USA’s recent decision not to impose punitive tariffs on Vietnam’s exports but continue to monitor and hold discussions reflects the reduced priority the new US administration puts on bilateral trade balances and the recognition that Vietnam is negotiating seriously and has significant value in a regional context.

The paper provides a comprehensive understanding from both theoretical and practical perspectives of the recent event. The implications are meaningful for the adjustment of national monetary strategy to avoid a similar situation in the future.

While it is essential to further research the growing diversity in western metropolitan cities, little is currently known about how the members of various ethnic communities acculturate to multicultural societies. The purpose of this paper is to explore immigrants’ cosmopolitanism and acculturation strategies through an analysis of the food consumption behaviour of ethnic consumers in multicultural London.

The study was set within the socio-cultural context of London. A number of qualitative methods such as in-depth interviews, observation and photographs were used to assess consumers’ acculturation strategies in a multicultural environment and how that is influenced by consumer cosmopolitanism.

Ethnic consumers’ food consumption behaviour reflects their acculturation strategies, which can be classified into four groups: rebellion, rarefaction, resonance and refrainment. This classification demonstrates ethnic consumers’ multi-directional acculturation strategies, which are also determined by their level of cosmopolitanism.

The taxonomy presented in this paper advances current acculturation scholarship by suggesting a multi-directional model for acculturation strategies as opposed to the existing uni-directional and bi-directional perspectives and explicates the role of consumer cosmopolitanism in consumer acculturation. The paper did not engage host communities and there is hence a need for future research on how and to what extent host communities are acculturated to the multicultural environment.

The findings have direct implications for the choice of standardisation vs adaptation as a marketing strategy within multicultural cities. Whilst the rebellion group are more likely to respond to standardisation, increasing adaptation of goods and service can ideally target members of the resistance and resonance groups and more fusion products should be exclusively earmarked for the resonance group.

The paper makes original contribution by introducing a multi-directional perspective to acculturation by delineating four-group taxonomy (rebellion, rarefaction, resonance and refrainment). This paper also presents a dynamic model that captures how consumer cosmopolitanism impinges upon the process and outcome of multi-directional acculturation strategies.

The key concern nowadays is smartphone addiction and user profiles. Following the risk and protective factors framework, the authors aim to characterize smartphone users according to two levels: (1) individual: referred to the use (i.e. boredom proneness, compulsive app downloading smartphone addiction) and (2) microsystem: referred to family and peers (i.e. family harmony and phubbing). Besides, the authors will derive useful managerial implications and strategies.

First, an extensive literature revision and in-depth interviews with experts were employed to identify the addiction-related variables at the individual and microsystem level. Second, information was collected from a sample of 275 Spanish smartphone users, and a K-means clustering algorithm was employed to classify smartphone users.

The proposed traffic lights schema identifies three users’ profiles (red, yellow and green) regarding their smartphone addiction and considering individual and microsystem critical variables.

This study proposes a practical and pioneer traffic lights schema to classify smartphone users and facilitate each cluster's strategies development.

一個大家現時頗關注的事項就是智慧型手機癮和用戶檔案。遵循著風險和保護因子框架,我們擬根據兩個層面,去描述智慧型手機使用者的特性:(一) 個人層面: 這是指手機的使用方面 (即是:無聊傾向、強制性應用程式的下載、智慧型手機癮), 以及(二)微系統層面:這是指家庭和同儕 (即是:家庭和諧和低頭族)。此外,我們也會探討從中得到管理方面的啟示和一些有用的策略。

我們首先進行廣泛的文獻回顧和深入訪問有關的專家,以確定在個人和微系統層面上與入迷成癮有關的變數。繼而從275名西班牙智慧型手機使用者中收集資料,然後以K均值聚類算法把智慧型手機使用者分類。

我們提出的紅綠燈圖表,就用戶的智慧型手機癮,並考慮了個人和微系統的關鍵變數,識別了三個用戶檔案(紅、黃、綠)。

本研究提出一個實用及有倡導性的紅綠燈圖表,把智慧型手機使用者分類,並促進每個群集戰略的制定。