Research

Filzah Md Isa · Nik Maheran Nik Muhammad · Azizah Ahmad · Shaista Noor ·Journal of Economics and Business ·2021

Women entrepreneur has gained utmost importance in the past few decades in Malaysia due to their significant contribution to the country's economic development. However, few business challenges create a constant obstruction for many women entrepreneurs such as lack of ICT knowledge, time constraint to learn ICT, lack of technological expertise, etc. The present study aims to identify the effect of ICT adoption on business performance and examine how ICT usage helped them handle operational business matters. The present study adopted the qualitative research strategy, and researchers interviewed ten (10) women entrepreneurs for this study. A semistructured interview technique was applied, and six Malay and four Chinese entrepreneurs made the study population. The result highlights that Malay and Chinese entrepreneurs use ICT in their business operation such as warehousing system, purchasing system, HRM software and accounting system, purchase order system, production system, internal communication, and AutoCAD. The present study may support the prospective entrepreneurs in considering the ICT usage to embark on technology and innovation and provide inputs to policymakers to design a proper support system for Malaysian women entrepreneurs, particularly those new entrepreneurs who are mostly young and inexperienced.

Habib Ahmed · Ahmed H. Elsayeda ·Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance ·2019

This study examines the decoupling hypothesis between Islamic and conventional capital markets by analysing the dynamic interdependencies among conventional stock, Islamic stock, bonds and sukuk markets in Malaysia over the period January 3, 2007 to March 31, 2017. Empirical findings on the total spillover index show that, on average, one third of the total forecast error variance attributed to spillovers has affects across four markets, indicating that conventional and Islamic markets are highly interconnected. The conventional stock and bond markets are considered to be the main net transmitters of spillovers towards other markets, whereas the sukuk market is a net receipt of modest levels of return shocks from conventional, Islamic and bond markets throughout the sample period. The interlinkages and connectedness between sukuk and conventional bonds are robust compared with other markets but show variations in the spillovers over the period. While one way to explain the differences in the spillovers between the conventional bond and sukuk indices can be attributed to external factors such as the financial crisis, changes in the legal regime and political uncertainties, another explanation may lie in the differences in the contractual structures of these instruments.

Muhammad Hafiz Abd Rashid · Muhammad Iskandar Hamzah · Amirul Afif Muhamat · Aida Azlina Mansor · Rahayu hasanordin ·Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business ·2022 ·JEL: M10, M30, M31

Studies examining the interplay between brand transgression and brand forgiveness is notably sparse especially in the context of Southeast Asian banking customers. The purpose of this research is to add to the existing literature by examining the impact of brand transgression, which is represented by negative past experience image incongruence, and corporate wrongdoing on brand forgiveness among Islamic banking customers in Malaysia. The increasing surge in interest in unfavorable brand relationships has sparked concerns about its impact on brand forgiveness. As a result, this theoretical argument, which lacks empirical proof, has to be statistically tested. The current study was conducted utilizing a non-probability purposive sampling technique among clients in the Klang Valley who had poor experiences with Islamic banking services. Data analysis included descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, and multiple regression on a total of 211 valid replies. The findings show that two elements of brand transgression, image inconsistency, and corporate wrongdoing, have a major impact on brand forgiveness. However, the other dimension namely negative past experience was found to be non-significant to brand forgiveness. Research implications and directions for future studies are also discussed in this paper.

Zaharah binti Yahya · MarianiAriffin · Sabrina Ho Abdullah ·Resources Policy ·2018

The Malaysian State of Selangor has been blessed with an abundant reserve of granite rocks located in the districts of Kuala Langat, Hulu Selangor, Gombak, and Hulu Langat which supply raw materials to develop physical infrastructures including highway roads, building, airports, and townships particularly in Cyberjaya and Putrajaya and supply raw materials to the buildings of the Klang Valley. An active industry, however, comes with shortcomings related to the atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere and biosphere of the ecosystem. In 2009, there were 314 active quarries in Malaysia of which only 12 practiced the best greening effort. Quarry rehabilitation prevents pollution and leads to a cost-effective measure for sustainable quarrying. At present, there is a need to enhance the existing law and policy to ensure the rehabilitation of quarries. Quarry rehabilitation can strike a balance between the need for development, economic aspect, environment, and social aspects in the long term that produces a sustainable quarrying industry that can benefit the Selangor State Government as well as the Federal Government. Generally, this paper aims to identify factors hindering quarry rehabilitation in Selangor. The specific objective of this research is to identify the present status of quarry rehabilitation implementation and examine what the existing legislative framework provides on quarry rehabilitation. By using a qualitative approach, it focuses on Selangor as a case study. A Doctrinal Approach was used to analyze Primary Legal Documents based on the seven Parameters of Quarry Rehabilitation produced by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) established in 2011. The seven parameters are a vital tool to ensure legal frameworks and policies related to quarry rehabilitation are effective.

Khanifah Khanifah · Pancawati Hardiningsih · Asri Darmaryantiko · Iryantika Iryantik · Udin Udin ·Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business ·2020 ·JEL: E44, M14, Q56

A series of corporate failures and financial crises have raised attention to organizational governance issues, especially for financial institutions. In the banking system, corporate governance further plays a unique role because of the uniqueness of the banking organizations. Therefore, this study aims to examine the effect of corporate governance disclosure on bank performance by building a corporate governance disclosure index (CGDI) for 10 Islamic banks operating in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia. The data used in this study are secondary data taken from annual reports and sourced from the official websites of each banks include Iran Exchange, Stock Market Quotes and Financial News, and Bursa Malaysia. This study uses content analysis of the annual bank report within five years (2014-2018). The results show that Islamic banks comply with 72.4% of the attributes discussed in the CGDI. The most frequently reported and disclosed elements are board structure and audit committee. The regression results provide evidence that Islamic banks with a higher level of corporate governance disclosure reported high operating performance measured by ROA. In contrast to the expectation, the financial performance of ROE and Tobins'q are not significantly related to the disclosure of sharia bank governance.

Christopher Richardson · Guat-Hoon Tan · Shaian Kiumarsi ·Journal of Asia Business Studies ·2018

Purpose This paper aims to investigate and reflect upon the effects of personality traits on expatriate adjustment within the context of Malaysia’s multicultural society. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on the multicultural personality questionnaire (MPQ) and extrapolating from the literature on expatriate adjustment, the authors introduce five hypotheses, which are then tested based on data derived from 101 expatriates working in Malaysia. Findings The results indicate a positive relationship between both open-mindedness and adjustment as well as between flexibility and adjustment. However, the authors did not observe any significant positive relationship between the three remaining MPQ personality traits and expatriate adjustment. Originality/value While various studies have investigated the relationship between personality and expatriate adjustment in an Asian context, the majority have been conducted in largely monocultural settings, or at least on the implicit assumption of a single societal culture within the host country. This paper contributes to the literature by exploring the relationship in the context of a multicultural Asian host country.

Nurlin Amirudin · Tae-Hyoung · Tommy Gim ·Resources, Conservation and Recycling ·2019

Food waste is a global issue that is currently gaining attention in light of food security problems and related environmental issues. Studies related to household food waste have looked at consumer behavior in attempting to explain household food waste behaviors. However, standing for material infrastructure, food accessibility has been suspected to indirectly impact household food waste behaviors. This study therefore looks at perceived food accessibility, measured in terms of perceived time and perceived effort, and its impact on household food waste. A conceptual model is formed through a review of the literature and data obtained from a survey conducted at two locations in the Klang Valley, Malaysia. The collected data are then analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling. Three significant paths are found in the model connecting food waste with effort levels, environmental concern, and price importance.

Peter Rosenkranz · Monica Melchor ·Economic Analysis and Policy ·2022

Past crisis episodes have illustrated the interplay of macroeconomic and financial conditions, including the presence of harmful macrofinancial feedback effects. Meanwhile, financial markets have become increasingly connected and economic and financial cycles more synchronized over time. Against the backdrop of past financial crises and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we document and analyze trends in Asia’s financial interconnectedness over the past 3 decades, as well as its possible role in predicting financial crises. Employing a vector-autoregressive model and a panel probit regression, we find that financial interconnectedness increased across Asia and the Pacific, being particularly pronounced during past crises, including the present COVID-19 pandemic. We also find that increased interconnectedness is strongly and positively associated with the probability of crisis onset.

Tai-Hock Kuek · Chin-Hong Puah · M. Affendy Arip ·Journal of Central Banking Theory and Practice ·2020 ·JEL: C11, C32, C58, E44, G01

This study attempts to develop a financial vulnerability indicator serving as a composite indicator for the state of financial vulnerability. The indicator was constructed from 10 variables of macroeconomic, financial and property market by extracting a common vulnerability component through the dynamic approximate factor model. On the feedback and amplification effects, the outcome revealed that financial vulnerability shock catalysed significant negative effects on economic activity in a high-vulnerability regime, while the impact was negligible in periods of low vulnerability. This study highlighted the usefulness of composite indicators as an early warning mechanism to gauge vulnerabilities in the Malaysian financial system.

Muhamad Azhar Nor Sabli · Mohd Fahmy-Abdullah · Lai Wei Sieng ·International Journal of Supply Chain Management ·2019

This aim of this study is to measure the technical efficiency score and identify the factors that affect the technical efficiency in plastic manufacturing firm in Malaysia for the year 2015 using the two stage Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method. The first stage involves calculating the efficiency score through the DEA using firm-level data, provided by the Department of Statistics, Malaysia. In the second stage, Tobit Regression Analysis was used to identify the significant factors affecting the efficiency of the plastic industry. The determining factors are the labor-ratio, training expenses, educational level ratios, wage rates, information and communications technology expenses and firm size. The results show that average efficiency score is moderate rate. Information and communication technology (ICT) expenditure, wage rate, research and development expenditure and education level are significant factors of the efficiency factor of a plastic product manufacturing firm. The implication of this decision suggests that firms need to emphasize significant factors to enhance firms' efficiency.

Richard Harrison · William Scheela · P. C. Lai · Sivapalan Vivekarajah ·Asia Pacific Journal of Management ·2018

Emerging economies are characterized by the presence of institutional voids which challenge and constrain the behavior of economic agents. In this paper we report on one set of agents, angel investors, in Malaysia, which investors fear is experiencing a middle-income trap whereby economic growth and new venture formation stalls due to persistent institutional voids. This research addresses this question through interviews with 19 Malaysian business angel investors in 2015, utilizing a mixed-methods approach. Results indicate that business angels in our sample generated strong returns, though they did find it a challenge to invest in and monitor new ventures in a highly uncertain and competitive environment where there is high political uncertainty, weak legal and financial support for investors and SMEs. In order to overcome weak institutional support, business angel investors develop informal institutions by co-investing and networking with family members and government officials. They also conduct careful due diligence before investing and closely monitor their investee companies after investing. This research provides several theory and practice contributions with respect to business-angel investing in emerging economies with weak formal institutional regimes.

Yusniliyana Yusof · Kaliappa Kalirajan ·Journal of Economic Studies ·2020

The study contributes to the aim of regional development policy in reducing regional disparities, by examining the spatial balance in socioeconomic development across the states of Malaysia based on composite development index (CDI). Besides, the study has attempted to understand the issues in the development gaps across Malaysian states by evaluating the factors that explain the variation in economic growth. This study uses three-stage least squares (3SLS) and bootstrap sampling and estimation techniques to examine the factors that explain the variations in the growth of development across the states in Malaysia. The analysis involves 13 states in Malaysia (Johor, Melaka, Negeri Sembilan, Pulau Pinang, Perak, Perlis, Selangor, Kedah, Kelantan, Pahang, Terengganu, Sabah and Sarawak) from 2005 to 2015. The pattern in the spatial socioeconomic imbalance demonstrates a decreasing trend. However, the development index reveals that the performance of less developed states remained behind that of the developed states. The significant factors in explaining the variation in growth across the Malaysian states are relating to agriculture, manufacturing, human capital, population growth, Chinese ethnicity, institutional factors and natural resources.

NurulHuda Mohd Satar · Md. Khaled Saifullah · Muhammad Mehedi Masud · Fatimah Binti Kari ·International Journal of Social Economics ·2021

In light of the rapid evolution of information and communication technology (ICT), every society is faced with many issues such as social exclusion, inequality and the digital divide. Hence, there is need to solve these complex challenges without comprising any development objective. A practical solution in this regard includes establishment of a sustainable model of community development. Therefore, this paper aims to identify the role of education in promoting the awareness on the use of ICT-based infrastructure among the general public to enhance their socioeconomic status. In addition, this study sets out to establish the nexus between socioeconomic status, ICT programme as well as the awareness of Kemaman Smart Community (KSC) development project.

Muhammad Adli Amirullah · Mario Arturo Ruiz Estrada · Mohamed Aslam ·Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics ·2020 ·JEL: C00, E60, H53

This article models the interconnection between the public transfer payment policy in Malaysia and the overall Malaysian economy using an inter-linkage coordinate space. This space is represented graphically, with the public transfer payment distribution in the centre and the number of periods plotted along rays (axes) that are drawn from the centre, each of which can have as many windows as required at the predetermined perimeter levels. Using this model, this article evaluates whether and how the implementation of public transfer payment policy in Malaysia can simultaneously affect the overall Malaysian economy through selected macroeconomic indicators. Finally, this article proposes the use of computer graphical animation when sufficient data are available to provide a more accurate measurement and visual representation of the economic ripple effect in the same graphical space.

Stany Wee Lian Fong · Tan Pei Kian · Yeo Sook Fern · Soh Long Quan ·International Journal of Supply Chain Management ·2018

Travellers today tend to believe more on peer reviews in selecting tourism products and services instead of information provided by the businesses. With the rise of communication technologies such as Web 2.0, there is pool of opinions on hotels, tourism destinations, and even travel services that are expressed from the perspective of consumer consumption in the internet. As online review becomes an important source for travellers to evaluate the quality of hospitality services, only hoteliers that take advantage of online review are able to attract the attention of travellers that utilize the digital channel for information searching. The increment of hotels and rooms in Malaysia has somehow exceed the increment of tourist arrivals in the recent years. Hoteliers are worried that the supply would go beyond the demand in the future with the continuous growth of hotels but average occupancy rate remains at 62 to 63 percent. Thus, this study aims to examine the causal relationship between the attributes of the online consumer reviews and the online hotel booking intention specifically in Malaysia context. 200 survey responses were collected from local travellers that have at least once booked hotel through online method. The results show that usefulness (t = 3.478, p < 0.01), valence (t = 2.462, p < 0.05), and timeliness (t = 2.145, p < 0.05) of the online consumer review significantly affect the online hotel booking intention in Malaysia. This findings provide an insight to hoteliers on how to manage and improve the online consumer reviews that are accessible.