The study investigates the mediating effect of employee engagement on the transformational leadership and intention to quit relationship. The participants of the study were employees (teaching and non-teaching staff) from three local colleges in Pampanga, Philippines, and they were selected using convenience sampling technique. The study employed a quantitative research design and a causal research approach to measure the relationships of employee engagement, transformational leadership, and intention to quit. Using partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), the findings revealed that transformational leadership has a significant and negative effect on intention to quit. Moreover, there is also a significant and positive relationship between transformational leadership and employee engagement. Regarding employee engagement and intention to quit, the results indicated that these two constructs are significantly and negatively related. The mediation model also suggested that employee engagement mediates the negative relationship of transformational leadership and intention to quit with small effect size. Implications of the study in organizations and the directions for future research were also provided.

Entrepreneurship is widely recognized by many scholars and the governments around the world as an essential driver of the economic prosperity. Over the past decades, entrepreneurship research has sought to understand the creation and execution of the entrepreneurial activity, with entrepreneurial intention becoming recognized as an excellent predictor of entrepreneurship activity and its subsequent consequences. As such, the researchers delved into how an entrepreneur’s intention is affected by their educational process, with the role of opportunity evaluation examined by the use of Experiential Learning Theory [ELT]. Liñán’s Entrepreneurial Intention [EI] Model was used to help with the evaluation of the study’s perceived desirability and perceived feasibility as the sources of entrepreneurial intention. From this process, an innovative learning method named ‘opportunity evaluation through experiential learning [OETEL]’ was developed and applied, from which it was hypothesized that OETEL would mediate perceived desirability, perceived feasibility, and entrepreneurial intention. This was subsequently followed by the participation of 160 Thai university students who participated in the OETEL experiment through their entrepreneurship activities. From the use of the SPSS PROCESS macro, results revealed that the OETEL process affected perceived desirability, perceived feasibility, and entrepreneurial intention significantly. Furthermore, the results revealed how the innovative learning application of experiential learning theory affects entrepreneurial intention. Practitioners can adapt this teaching method in entrepreneurial classrooms and policymakers can strategically encourage experiential learning in entrepreneurship education programs.

Public-sector organizations have started to adopt new business models that enable them to deliver public service more effectively and innovatively. However, very few studies have been undertaken to describe and to generate lessons from the deployment of new business models in government. Through the case study research design, we examined how four government training institutes in the Philippines create, deliver, and capture value by utilizing Osterwalder and Pigneur’s business model canvass. After undertaking a cross-case analysis, we generated the following insights: (a) the training institutes’ programs and service orientation are influenced by their mother agencies’ mandates or strategic directions; (b) resource constraints can be overcome through a business model that leverages off collaboration and partnerships; (c) the governance model of the training institute’s mother agency influences its propensity to adopt practices consistent with new public management (NPM) principles; and (d) external support or intervention triggers change or innovation in the way a government training institute operates. Consistent with the spirit of NPM and drawing from the notable practices of the four cases we examined, we identified eight criteria that government agencies can use as a guide when rationalizing the establishment of their own training institutes. These criteria are: (1) market responsiveness, (2) innovation, (3) optimal resource use, (4) stakeholder interface, (5) access, (6) customer options, (7) efficiency, and (8) financial returns. Constraints and disincentives that get in the way of government training institutes’ attempts to follow NPM principles can be addressed by setting up new training institutes under a flexible governance model.

Before Thailand implemented the Universal Coverage Scheme (UCS) in 2002, 18 million people were uninsured. Thus, this study assessed the impact of the UCS on healthcare utilization by investigating the changes in health-seeking behavior among the previously uninsured before and after UCS. Using the nationwide Health and Welfare Survey data of 2001 and 2003–2005, multinomial logistic regression and mixed-effects multinomial logistic regression were used to investigate the relationship between health-seeking behavior and individual characteristics, and how the relationship changed over time. The study findings indicated that the UCS significantly increased utilization of public facility care and simultaneously decreased utilization of informal care. The observed changes were more significant in lower income, female, lower educated, and married people. But, there was no significant change in utilization of private facility care after the UCS. The changes in health-seeking behavior among lower income people from informal care requiring fully out-of-pocket (OOP) payment into public facility care requiring no or minimum OOP payment implied that UCS contributed to financial protection and equity in healthcare utilization. It also contributed to safety in healthcare utilization by decreasing the utilization of informal care which had the potential risk from inaccurate self-diagnosis and treatment. However, more than 50% of the beneficiaries still utilized care outside the UCS service boundary, which might be due to insufficient healthcare resources in public sector. Thus, the UCS should continue an effort to improve the infrastructure in public sector and to encourage the involvement of private sector in the scheme.

Thailand introduced state subsidies for political parties for the first time in 1997. The Political Parties Development Fund (PPDF) was intended to reinforce the internal coherence of parties and encourage their democratic functions. Designers hoped that this party financing would be an effective means of curbing illicit fundraising, particularly during electoral campaigns. However, the PPDF has not led to strong party organizations. While the state provides a great amount of financial support for political parties every year, many parties receiving funding are still weak and unable to compete effectively in elections. Utilizing data from focus groups and extensive interviews with politicians, election commission officers, and party members, I demonstrate that financial deficiencies and a weak system of public finance allocation encouraged many small political parties—particularly those without parliamentary representation—to access these new state resources. Instead of helping to sustain the development of small and medium-sized-parties, the PPDF became an alternative source of income for those parties. Parties have intensified their efforts to exploit such funding using questionable means. Consequently, public party financing has contributed to an increase in corrupt practices in Thai party politics rather than strengthening party organizations as well as the party system.

This research identified the experiences of college teachers who have encountered students with diagnosed psychological disorders. Respondents are 14 college teachers from various colleges of a private university. All experiences shared through one-on-one interview are with students of the same university. This paper presents their reactions, challenges, coping resources, and recommendations. After conducting a qualitative analysis, it was realized that college teachers share common reactions, challenges, and coping resources in the situations that they experienced dealing with these students. Various means of reaching out were generally given by college teachers depending on their individual strategies. Behavioral reactions of giving considerations, referring to a professional or an authority, and treating the student normally, as well as the affective reaction of being concerned, were expressed. Challenges relating to the lack of professional skills, balancing considerations given and being fair to other students, and knowing the limits of one’s ability to help were typical among participants. Lastly, coping resources relating to seeking knowledge on mental health, seeking assistance from professionals, sharing experiences with other faculty members, and praying were found to be variant. With all these reactions, a typical recommendation for fellow faculty members who might be having similar experiences was to be kind and sensitive to these students. In addition, a typical recommendation for administrators was to provide training on helping skills and early detection of symptoms of psychological disorders.