The Japanese bank, Bangkok branch: A Case study of teamwork empowerment in Japanese corporate culture

In the competitive world at present time, the continuous improvement of one company to be outstanding among its rivals is elemental factor. The service business in the bank also experiences many competitors. The alternative for the bank to make the productive gain thus involves a foremost improvement on the personnel realm. To maintain the quality of service, the bank employees, as members of teamwork, are the central part. The teamwork empowerment of the bank will serve as the way to fulfill the team members\u27 fundamental commitment of their work environment. This satisfaction will influence subsequently to the customer satisfaction. On that account, the bank\u27s comprehension of what such members of teamwork need is important. This case study investigated the Japanese Bank, Bangkok Branch in how the teamwork are fostered in their own corporate culture and what are the defects that caused the unpleasing business outcome to the bank. To do so, the questionnaires of team survey were conducted to the employees of this bank. The issues concern their attitude on the job, management effectiveness and communication, compensation, and their work environment in general. The results analyzed by the SPSS program revealed that the ineffectiveness in empowering teamwork at the proper ways may bring the bank into the difficult situations: the high turnover rate of the employees and the poor service to the customers. Moreover, the results showed the difference in looking problems of the bank between two sexes. Females ranked the first place: computer systems, while males: the bank policies. Then, the bank management will acquire some useful information in order to provide effective solutions, regarding all aspects of the fiddling problem areas. Finally, the service recovery plan will bring the bank into the favorable returns

Experiences of repeat pregnancy in Thai adolescent mothers

Aims: The study aims to increase the understanding of the experiences of repeat adolescent mothers in the context in which they live.Objective: To explore the experiences of adolescent mothers who have at least one living child and are at least 6 months pregnant on a subsequent occasion as adolescents (a repeat pregnancy).Sample: Purposive sampling was used to identify a sample of 15 adolescent mothers experiencing a repeat pregnancy at the time of interview.Methods: Individual semi-structured qualitative interviews were used to gather in-depth data from participants who discussed their experiences of a repeat pregnancy. Thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006) was used to develop an analytic framework; this analysis was further organised using Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory (1979, 1986,1994) to understand and conceptualise the relationship between individual experiencesand related contexts.Findings: The findings of this study are classified into four main themes: Contraceptive decision-making, Relationships, Education and Employment and A Transformational Experience. This analytic framework, when considered in relation to Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory (1979, 1986, 1994), raises five main issues, namely: the experience of repeat pregnancy at the microsystemic level, interaction and relationships at the mesosystemic level, disruption from others at the exosystemic level, trying within constraints at a macrosystemic level and the life journey at the chronosystemic level.Conclusion: Although adolescent mothers experiencing a repeat pregnancy exercise some agency in relation to decision-making around sexual health, contraception, and family-building, they are heavily constrained by their structural context. That is, the agency available to pregnant adolescent mothers is impacted by partner behaviour, the influence of family and peers, cultural expectations and the structured function of policy and law. The organisation of education, including sexual health and relationships education itself, and the structure of employment disadvantage young mothers when they are most vulnerable. This is further evident in the lack of active enactment of protective policies and laws, including adequate, timely and confidential sexual health provision and protection from child marriage. The acknowledgment of the impact of these structures to limit the ability of young mothers to exercise agency in a Thai context is unique to this study and central to the project to reduce repeat adolescent pregnancy in Thailand

Employee engagement of private sector employees in Southern Thailand: personality, transformational leadership and psychological safety

The motivation for this study is driven by the inconsistent findings in the literature concerning the relationship between the variables related to employee engagement. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of a five-factor model of personality consists of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience, and neuroticism factors on employee engagement. Further, it examines the mediation role of psychological safety on the relationship between transformational leadership and employee engagement. Accordingly, this study is underpinned by self-determination theory to explain the network of the relationship between the variables in the conceptual framework. The study utilized a survey questionnaire which was distributed to 608 employees of private companies in Southern Thailand. Out of the 422 returned questionnaires, 402 were usable for further analysis. PLS-SEM was used to analyze the direct and indirect relationship between the related variables in the study. Of the five personality factors, three which are extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness to experience factors influence the employee engagement. However agreeableness and neuroticism factors do not influence employee engagement. Transformational leadership is discovered to have both direct and indirect influence on the employee engagement. The psychological safety also shows to have an influence on the employee engagement. In addition, the psychological safety constructs is discovered to be a partial mediator in the relationship between the transformational leadership and the employee engagement. The results of the predictive power of the structural model is 0.337 indicating that 33.7% of the variance in the employee engagement construct is explained by the five-factor model of personality, transformational leadership and psychological safety. Theoretical, practical and methodological implications of the study are highlighted. Finally, limitations and further research are also discussed in this pape

The Development of Sustainable Golf Tourism Management Model in Southern Provinces on Andaman Coast, Thailand

Abstract              This study seeks to examine the behaviors and motivational attributes of golf tourists, the potentials for golf tourism, impacts on communities of golf tourism, and the development of golf tourism management in southern provinces on the Andaman coast. The samples included 110 Thai and foreign golf tourists visiting golf courses in southern provinces on the Andaman coast, namely Ranong, Phang-nga, Phuket, Krabi, and Trang,        5 golf course operators, and 10 others who were academicians and relevant parties from the government and private organizations. The instruments were a questionnaire, an in-depth interview, and a focus group discussion. Statistical tools included mean, standard deviation, and content analysis. The study revealed that sustainable and golf tourism required five attributes: attractions, events/tournaments, travel packages, participation, and knowledge.       1) Attractions refer to places in the southern provinces on the Andaman coast with characteristic geographical features and facilities. 2) Events/Tournaments refer to golf activities or tournaments during a certain time in the southern provinces on the Andaman coast. 3) Travel packages include golf tourism packages in the southern provinces on the Andaman coast. 4) Participation refers to the participation of communities in the southern provinces on the Andaman coast. 5) Knowledge refers to the ability to use the body of knowledge to improve sustainable golf tourism in the southern provinces on the Andaman coast to create new methods to impress tourists

Defining dengue virus infection in human skin

The skin is the primary site of dengue virus (DENV) replication following the bite of an infected mosquito, but the factors that contribute to productive infection in human skin and virus spread out of skin are not understood. We defined the dynamics of DENV infection in human skin explants using quantitative in situ imaging. A transient interferon-α response occurred prior to detectable virus replication, which initially established in cells in the epidermis. DENV infected a wide variety of cell types including Langerhans cells (LC), dermal macrophages (Mϕ), dermal dendritic cells (DC), fibroblasts, mast cells, and lymphatic endothelium, but keratinocytes were the earliest and quantitatively most important target of DENV infection, contributing to 60% of overall infected skin cell over time. DENV infection led to the recruitment and infection of LC, dermal DC, and dermal Mϕ. These immune cells emigrated out of the skin in increased number as a result of infection, presumably leading to dissemination of virus. Infection of keratinocytes led to the abundant production of inflammatory mediators, most significantly IL-1β. Blocking keratinocyte-derived IL-1β reduced the infection of LC, dermal DC, and dermal Mϕ by 75-90% and decreased the total number of infected cells in epidermis and dermis by 33% and 65%, respectively. In the first demonstration of antibody-dependent enhancement of DENV infection in human skin, we showed that the presence of heterotypic DENV-immune serum enhanced the recruitment and infection of dermal Mϕ by 50-70%, and increased emigration of myeloid cells out of skin. Aedes aegypti mosquito salivary gland extract did not impact dermal Mϕ recruitment or infection with DENV, with or without immune serum. Blocking FcγRIa and FcγRIIa inhibited antibody-mediated infection of dermal Mϕ, and decreased the number of cell emigrants, resulting in reduction of the overall number of infected cells in the dermis by 70%, without notable changes in the epidermis. Ethnic differences in skin immune responses to DENV were observed for the first time in our study. In comparison with skin from Caucasians donors, skin from African American donors maintained robust antiviral IFN-α responses for at least 48 hours. This was observed in association with less DENV replication, a reduced production of IL-1β in the epidermis, less recruitment and infection of LC and dermal Mϕ, and less cell emigration out of the skin. These findings suggest that innate immune responses in skin control DENV replication and spread, and equates with epidemiologic data that African ancestry protects against severe dengue. Our findings highlight the importance of skin and the complex interplay between resident and immune skin cell populations in DENV infection and dengue pathogenesis. Defining DENV infection in human skin therefore has considerable public health significance because these data will provide a rationale for exploration of therapeutic strategies through targeting the mechanism DENV exploits skin microenvironment and preventing the risk of systemic infection as well as severe dengue

Impact of Oil and Gold Prices on Southeast Asian Stock Markets: Empirical Evidence from Quantile Regression Analysis

According to Chang and Li (2022), the COVID-19 pandemic may have had an impact on the European and American capital markets’ dependence on crude oil. However, no studies have assessed the returns and impacts of crude oil and gold prices on Southeast Asian stock markets in conjunction with the COVID-19 pandemic. To address this gap, a quantile regression model was used to analyze data of Southeast Asia stock prices from 2016 to 2023, alongside the daily closing prices of Dubai crude oil and world gold. The findings suggest that crude oil has a large trickle-down impact on the Southeast Asian market returns. This highlights the importance of dynamic linkages over time by reporting dynamic spillover to be statistically significant in Southeast Asian stock returns. Most stock returns show that volatility shocks are enduring. In Singapore and Thailand, the gold returns significantly and favorably affect the stock returns at all quantiles. At various quantiles, the impact of gold returns is notably favorable in the remaining scenarios