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The article examines the potential and obstacles of adopting open government principles in Vietnam. Utilizing a thorough document analysis of governmental reports, policy directives, and academic documents, the study highlights significant progress through legislative reforms and digital technology adoption in Vietnam. This country is undergoing a shift towards transparent governance, motivated by its strong economic growth and political development. Notwithstanding these progressions, Vietnam encounters various obstacles. These factors encompass discrepancies in technology infrastructure, cultural and institutional opposition, concerns around privacy and security, and limitations in available resources. Furthermore, the challenge of aligning new policies with current legislation and ensuring efficient implementation presents additional complexities. The study suggests that enhancing legal and regulatory frameworks, digital infrastructure, fostering a culture of transparency in public agencies, building inclusive participation methods, and prioritizing anti-corruption measures will help Vietnam overcome obstacles in developing an open government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, heritage researchers have investigated the relationship between heritage and politics from various theoretical, methodological, and disciplinary angles. While much of this research has focused on international heritage governance, the results have highlighted that we need to reexamine the relationship between heritage organizations and politics at national level. Yet few studies have looked at the instruments used to transact authority between the political level of government and the state agencies that coordinate national heritage sectors. This article examines this relationship in Sweden and Norway. By intertextually analysing governing parties’ political programs and ‘letters of allocation’ issued from the government to heritage agencies, combined with a survey on the perceptions of civil servants, we show how these letters can serve as policy space where transactional authority can be practiced. The genre and political signals in the letters indicate that heritage governance in Norway is more politically responsive than in Sweden, and that governance reform is more successfully transacted through this governing instrument than heritage polices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between governance measures and company performance is a widely debated topic in economics, finance, and organizational analyses with diverse outcomes in the existing scholarly body of work. This study aims to examine the relationship between the share of independent members on the board and the financial return of state-owned enterprises. Lithuania was chosen as a setting for the research because the country has been successfully implementing ambitious corporate governance reforms in the public sector and thus is recognized by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development for its efforts. Within the examined dataset of 27 Lithuanian state-owned enterprises spanning 2015 to 2021, there was a notable rise in the proportion of independent board members, ascending from 13% in 2015 to 61% in 2021. However, no statistically significant correlation is discerned between the share of independent board members and financial performance indicators, specifically return on assets (r (181) = –0.020, p > 0.05) and return on equity (r (181) = –0.104, p > 0.05). The quantitative results are complemented through the administration of semi-structured interviews with a subset of board members affiliated with these enterprises. The absence of a relationship between independent board members and the financial return is explained via a more significant influence of state decisions than the effect of a board. Therefore, the appointment of independent board members alone cannot be regarded as the sole guarantor of improvement in financial returns.