The paper at hand analyses the principal-agent relationship, where comparative perspective between principals’ (municipalities) and agents’ (public utility providers) in the field of water and wastewater management is scrutinized. The goal of the paper is twofold: firstly, to present empirical results validating principal-agent relationships that emerged due to the reorganization process of public enterprises; secondly, to highlight the similarities and differences between the perspectives of principals and agents regarding motives, advantages and disadvantages, and price-setting in relation to the reorganization process. The empirical research is based on the primary data collected through two self-prepared and structured online questionnaires—one for municipalities, and the other for public utility providers. The results reveal similarities between public enterprises and municipalities in motivating factors for full municipal ownership. However, differences are seen among the advantages of the reorganization process. Price-setting by public utilities is recognized as a motivating mechanism for agents.
Management education in health service industry is essential to enhance systems performance and should offer a broad curriculum that contain the context of practice, research awareness and skills of critical appraisal, a grounding in a range of disciplines and a reflective approach towards general management skill. With the improvement of living standard and significant growth of aging population, there is an obvious gap between health service coverage and the demand in China, especially the shortage of workforce with professional health service management knowledge. The objective of this essay is to compare the element of health service management education in China and British.
The explosion of information technology, besides its positive aspects, has raised many issues related to personal information and personal data in the network environment. Because children are vulnerable to abuse, fraud and exploitation, protecting children’s personal information and personal data is always of concern to many countries. From the concept and characteristics of personal information and personal data of children in Europe, the United States and Vietnam, it can be seen that children’s personal information and personal data protection is very necessary in every country today. This research focuses on the age considered a child, the child’s consent and his or her parental consent when providing and processing personal information or personal data of children under the laws of the EU, US and Vietnam. Therefore, the article proposes some recommendations related to the child’s consent and his or her parental consent in protecting children’s personal data in Vietnam.
This study explores the experiences and perceptions of Chinese postgraduate students in the UK regarding online learning, focusing on the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect qualitative data, which were analyzed thematically. The findings reveal positive perceptions of online learning, challenges related to technology and infrastructure, the significance of social interaction and collaboration, and the limited impact of teaching quality on student satisfaction. The study emphasizes the importance of the CoI framework in designing effective online learning environments. Limitations include a small sample size and potential bias. Future research should involve larger and more diverse samples, investigate different teaching strategies, and enhance student agency and self-regulated learning in online education. Overall, this study contributes to understanding the applicability of the CoI framework and its potential for improving online learning experiences.
Technology development in the agricultural sector is important in the development of Thailand’s economy. The purpose of this research was to study the approach of guidelines for future agricultural technology development to increase productivity in the Agricultural sector in order to develop a structural equation model. The research applied mixed-methodology. Qualitative research by in depth interview from 9 experts and focus group with 11 successful businesspersons for approve this model. The quantitative data gather from firm, in the 500 of agricultural sector by using questionnaire, using statistical tests of descriptive analysis, inferential analysis, and multivariate analysis. The research found guidelines for future agricultural technology development to increase productivity in the Agricultural sector composed of 4 latent. The most important item of each latent were as following: 1) Agrobiology Technology (= 4.41), in important item as choose seeds that for disease resistance and tolerate the environment to suit the cultivation area, 2) Environmental Assessment (= 4.37),, in important item as survey of cultivated areas according to topography with geographic information system, 3) Agricultural Innovation (= 4.30), in important item as technology reduces operational procedures, reduce the workforce and can reduce operating costs, and 4) Modern Management Systems (= 4.13), in important item as grouping and manage as a cooperative to mega farms. In addition, the hypothesis test found that the difference in manufacturing firm sizes. Medium and Small size and large size revealed overall aspects that were significantly different at the level of 0.05. The analysis of the developed structural equation model found that there was in accordance and fit with the empirical data and passed the evaluation criteria. Its Chi-square probability level, relative Chi-square, the goodness of fit index, and root mean square error of approximation were 0.062, 1.165, 0.961, and 0.018, respectively.
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