Research

Haslina Halim · Hassan Abu Bakar · Bahtiar Mohamad ·International Journal of Supply Chain Management ·2019

The stress experienced by expatriates is usually caused by the inability to adjust to the host culture, which largely results from their lack of social skills needed in dealing with the new cultural environment. Thus, the main purpose of this study is to identify the predictors of cross-cultural adjustment among expatriates in Malaysia, by focusing on expatriates in hotel industry. The findings from the study could help clarify the overgeneralization made of data which are usually based on certain locations and groups of expatriates. Two hundred and three expatriates participated in the study. Personality, language ability, previous international experience, training, human resource support, social support, culture distance and family adjustment were analyzed using the multiple regression analysis to determine the predictors of adjustment. The data, which was drawn from a drop and collect method, selfadministered questionnaire, revealed that social support and family adjustment were the most influential predictors of hotel expatriate adjustment. The findings also suggest that overgeneralizations of findings across disciplines are rather inappropriate. Detail discussions on the methods, findings, limitations, and suggestions for future research are presented in the paper.

Asrul Akmal Shafie · Haarathi Chandriah · Yee Vern Yong · Sharifa Ezat Wan Puteh ·Value in Health Regional Issues ·2019

Objective To describe the process and role of health technology assessment (HTA) in the context of drug policy in Malaysia. Methods We summarized the HTA process through review of documents and reports available in the public domain combined with the authors' experience. Results Health technology assessment plays an integral part in prioritizing treatment in public health facilities in Malaysia, particularly for the Ministry of Health Medicines Formulary (MOHMF). The MOHMF is the reference list of drugs allowed to be prescribed in the Ministry of Health (MOH) facilities. There are 2 organizations within the MOH that conduct HTA as their core activities, namely the Malaysian Health Technology Assessment Section and the Formulary Management Branch of Pharmacy Practice & Development Division. The assessment of pharmaceuticals for the purpose of listing medicines into the MOHMF is under the purview of the Formulary Management Branch. The evidence-based assessment focuses on safety, efficacy, effectiveness, and budget impact of the drug. Cost-effectiveness evidence is currently not mandatory but is of interest to the decision makers. The assessment outcomes are considered by the MOH Medicines List Review Panel for formulary decisions. Conclusions Health technology assessment has supported formulary decisions in MOH. Evidence generation needs to progress beyond efficacy or effectiveness, safety, and budget impact to incorporate cost-effectiveness. Nevertheless, there are challenges to be met to achieve this. The impact of the HTA process is currently unknown and is yet to be evaluated formally.

Fazal Akhbar · Rao Aamir Khan · Fazli Wadood · Abdul Talib Bin Bon ·Entrepreneurial Business and Economics Review ·2020 ·JEL: L20

The main objective of this study is to verify the impact of entrepreneurial orientation dimension on firm performance of furniture industry in Malaysia. In this study, we used a quantitative research method and collected data through a questionnaire from 391 furniture manufacturing company owners and managers, while following purposive sampling approach. The collected data was analysed using structural equation (Partial Least Square). To measure five entrepreneurial orientation dimensions, we adopted specific measuring instruments. The study shows that the three dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation – i.e. innovation, risk-taking, and competitive aggressiveness – make unique statistical contributions to the considered model. Findings indicate low levels of autonomy and proactiveness. However, the entrepreneurial orientation and FP models significantly influence the unique contribution of individual entrepreneurial activities in the Malaysian furniture industry.

Moau Yong Toh · Christopher Gan · Zhaohua Li ·Emerging Markets Finance and Trade ·2018 ·JEL: E44; G10; G21

This article examines the impact of stock market liquidity on bank liquidity creation in Malaysia. Our results indicate that a stock market enhances the liquidity creation of banks both on and off the banks’ balance sheets when the market liquidity increases. Further analysis shows that the positive impact of stock market liquidity is evident on the liquidity creation of publicly listed banks as the banks’ cost of equity finance becomes cheaper. Our results are robust to the influence of the 2008 financial crisis and different estimation methods. Our results refute the traditional view that increased stock market liquidity “steals” banks’ business and crowds out bank liquidity creation.

Fazli Wadood · Mohammed Emad Alshaikh · Fazal Akbar · Maqsood Mahmud ·Entrepreneurial Business and Economics Review ·2022

The main objective of this research is to integrate the resource-based view (RBV) to analyse how the relationship between firm performance and entrepreneurial orientation is mediated by outbound innovation among furniture firms in Malaysia.

H. Vijith, L. W. Seling · D. Dodge-Wan ·Environment, Development and Sustainability ·2018

Soil loss has been quantified and land area categorized for soil erosion vulnerability in a partially forested subwatershed of the Baram River basin (Sarawak, Malaysia) using Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation, which considers climatic and terrain variables. The quantification of soil loss was achieved by integrating the parameters related to rainfall (R), soils (K), terrain (LS) and land use practices (C). The resultant maps of soil erosion show soil losses ranging from 0 to 1190 t ha−1 year−1 with a mean of 28 t ha−1 year−1 in the 1029 km2 Sungai Patah subwatershed study area. The subwatershed was mapped using ArcGIS into five classes of soil erosion risk vulnerability. Among the five classes identified, very high and critically vulnerable zones show linear distribution in some areas which together constitute 13% of the total study area. High and medium erosion vulnerable zones cover 30 and 19%, respectively. Low erosion risk zones cover 36% of the total area. Mean soil loss assessed for each LULC (land use/land cover) class indicates that barren land with high slopes contributes comparatively high rates of soil loss (343 t ha−1 year−1). Field surveys in the study region have enabled identification of erosion hot spots, such as logging areas, shifting cultivation areas and road construction, which intensely modify the terrain, and explain the linearity of critical and severe erosion risk features. The output of the present study will help to frame appropriate management strategies to minimize erosion through implementation of alternative methods in logging activities and terrain management programs.

Mujeeb Saif Mohsen Al-Absy · Ku Nor Izah Ku Ismail · Sitraselvi Chandren · Shehabaddin Abdullah A. Al-Dubai ·Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business ·2020 ·JEL: M40, M41, M42, M48

This paper investigates the effect of the involvement of the board chairman in the audit committee (AC) on earnings management (EM). It examines Bursa Malaysia-listed companies with the lowest positive earnings for the years 2013 to 2015. The Modified Jones Model by Kasznik (1999) was used to determine discretionary accruals. An AC that includes its board chairman as an ordinary member is associated with greater discretionary accruals. However, a board chairman who is also the chairman of the AC does not seem to influence discretionary accruals. This paper supports the agency theory and policy-makers’ efforts to prevent board chairmen from sitting on ACs. It is the first study that uses the agency theory to describe the association between the board chairman’s involvement in the both AC and EM. This study alerts policy-makers, stakeholders and researchers to the influence of a board chairman serving on the AC in curbing EM. Furthermore, it provides empirical evidence that the majority of Malaysian companies whose board chairmen are involved in the AC appoint the chairman as an ordinary member of the AC. This indicates that executive directors may affect such actions. Hence, more policies are needed to improve AC independence.

Caroline Theoharides ·Journal of Human Resources ·2018 ·JEL: F22; I25; O15

I estimate the effect of international migration on the human capital of children in the migrants’ origin country. Using administrative data containing all migrant departures from the Philippines, I exploit variation across provinces in destination-country demand for migrants. My estimates are at the local labor market level, allowing for spillovers to nonmigrant households. An average year-to-year percent increase in migration causes a 3.5 percent increase in secondary school enrollment. The effects are likely driven by increased income rather than an increased expected wage premium for education.

Moe Shwe Sin · Tai Shzee Yew · Kusairi Mohd Noh ·Marine Resource Economics ·2019

The marine fishery resources in the West Coast of Peninsular Malaysia are overexploited by fishing effort by the trawlers. The encroachment of trawlers to the near-shore fishery and conflict between traditional fishers and trawlers still exists, although a licensing system was imposed by trawl fishery management. The dynamics of fishing effort with various alternative management policies was analyzed, and the proper combination of the management policies was selected in order to control overcapacity by the trawlers and provide sustainable management of the trawl fishing industry. System simulation analysis was carried out to determine effort dynamics and the performance of the industry. The results indicated that, the management policy, including the combination of reducing 50% of licenses issued in 2012 coupled with a decreasing fuel price subsidy and increasing landings charges, could be the proposed management policy for the sustainable management of Zone B trawlers in the West Coast of Peninsular Malaysia.

Dung V. Dinh · Robert J. Powell · Duc H. Vo ·Journal of Asian Economics ·2021 ·JEL: G33, G28

This study is conducted to investigate the prediction of corporate financial distress based on the Merton (1974) market-based Distance to Default (DD) model over the period from 1997 to 2016 which covers a range of economic financial circumstances, including the Asian Financial Crisis (AFC) and Global Financial Crisis (GFC). The study focusses on the six largest countries in the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), comprising of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Unlike previous studies which focus mainly on bankruptcy, this paper focusses on early warning distress indicators that signal distress well before bankruptcy. This is when firms experience difficulty in servicing debt as measured by interest coverage ratio (ICR) at a firm level and non-performing loans (NPLs) at a country level. Key empirical findings from this paper indicate that the market-based distance-to-default (DD) model is generally a good early warning indicator of financial distress in the following year, particularly for ICR, but that prediction accuracy varies between individual countries in the Southeast Asian region.

Chan Fatt Cheah · Abdul Samad Abdul-Rahim · Mohd Yusof Saari · Niaz Ahmad Mohd Naseem ·Journal of the Knowledge Economy ·2022

This paper aims to investigate the impact of the economic openness and institutional quality in explaining the environmental degradation in Malaysia that covers from 1980 to 2019. By using an innovative autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) technique, the result indicates that economic openness that is measured through the trade and FDI are unequivocally environmental improving. Meanwhile, the institutional reforms also appeared to actualize the beneficial effect of environmental emission. The findings show that economic openness and institutional quality act as a key driving force to further curb the CO2 emission and in turn to reduce the environmental pollution. This suggests that countries with adequate trade, FDI, and institutional settings like Malaysia are on the right track to reinforce all efforts in bringing down pollution. Therefore, environmental quality can be improved through the greater ability and willingness to enforce environmental regulations and higher trade liberalization process, which is usually associated with higher income, more economic development, and better environment.

Abdelkader O.El Alaoui · Hashim Bin Jusoh · Sheila Ainon Yussof · Mohamed Hisham Hanifa ·Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance ·2019

This paper, for the best of our knowledge, is the first attempt to assess the role of money in the Malaysian economy using wavelet techniques. To do so, a macroeconomic model-based policy rules has been formulated. In relation with the recurring financial crises, we analyse the relationship between the quantity of money, interest rate, inflation, exchange rate, index of industrial production and equity indices, in the case of Malaysia. In this analysis, UK economy aggregates are taken as benchmark. Therefore, the relationships between monetary policy variables and macroeconomic variables are evolving with time and have non-homogeneous trends across different time scales. Some strong correlations have been found in regard to Malaysian Monetary Policy using, major monetary aggregates; the quantity of Money, the interest rate and the exchange rate inducing some lead-lag interactions between those key variables. In addition, we analyse the effect of LIBOR on Malaysian interest rate (KLIBOR). We found that the KLIBOR is lagging behind the LIBOR in most of the time. In the end, some lessons will be drawn for the monetary policy in Malaysia, in terms of the high impact of the role of money and the expected implications regarding an effective Islamic monetary policy.

Dahlia Fernandez · Zaini Zaino · Hawa Ahmad ·International Journal of Supply Chain Management ·2018

The implementation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to surge the performance has induced various organizations towards its adoption. Even though the government may perhaps strive for enhancements from ERP adoption, however, the organizations may experience adverse effects. The aim of this study is to investigate the challenges in implementing the ERP system on public sector organizations. This study was conducted using questionnaires survey with 52 local authorities in Malaysia which have implemented the system. It is found that that the main challenge to implement ERP in public sector organization is due to the complexity of existing working structure (i.e. protocols, bureaucracy, etc.) in meeting ERP requirements. It is followed by the difficulties in adapting to the change brought by this system where its change the way people work, and lack of experience and appropriate skills in implementing this complex system.

Christopher Gan · Rafiatul Adlin Hj Mohd Ruslan · Baiding Hu · Nguyen Thi Thieu Quang ·International Journal of Business and Economics ·2020 ·JEL: L26; O53

This study investigates the relationship between access to microcredit and SMEs’ performance. Using survey data on SME’s owners/managers in Terengganu, Malaysia in 2016, the study investigates how access to microcredit affects SME sales and employment growth. Employing the Propensity Score Matching method (PSM), the study showed that SMEs with microcredit borrowing had their sales 25.6% to 25.7% higher than nonmicrocredit borrowers. After minimizing the selection bias from both observable and unobservable characteristics using Differences in Differences method (DID), the difference was much larger (28.7%). However, both PSM and DID analyses revealed no impact of microcredit access on SME employment growth. The Endogenous Switching Regression method (ESR) confirmed these findings.

Johannes Machiel Dreyer · Noor Azlin Yahya · Nik Azyyati Abd Kadir ·Environment, Development and Sustainability ·2019

The campus of the Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM) is forest plantation research site established since 1926. Urbanization and other development affecting Kuala Lumpur led to FRIM being one of the few remaining green open spaces near the capital city area. To share the benefits of the green space, FRIM opened its grounds to visitors, and it is now a popular site for educational and recreational use by the urbanized population. However, visitor’s opinion may vary about the utilization of FRIM’s facilities as FRIM’s ground is also used for other activities. A study was done to determine what the perceptions of visitors’ were regarding FRIM’s suitability as a natural open space with its associated benefits such as health, quality of life and environmental sustainability and whether it offers a suitable site for environmental learning. From a qualitative study conducted at three sites within FRIM, it was found that FRIM provides in the needs of the surrounding urban population as a natural open space for escape from the city and a very suitable site for environmental learning. Some participants actually expressed a need to introduce further opportunities for environmental learning.