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This paper discusses the theoretical influence of key audit matter and audit quality. This paper discusses a literature study method approach to explore the possible impact of key audit matters (KAMs) and audit quality. In particular, the authors believe implementing key audit matters can largely affect audit risk, going concern evaluation and audit response procedures, which in the end can influence on audit quality. Implementation of key audit matters in Indonesia began in 2022, audit firms are strongly advised to prepare better audit working papers and mitigate audit risks. This can help them consider matters that require the auditor's significant attention, which in turn is hoped can increase the flexibility and effectiveness of communication between auditees and auditors. In addition, the author recommends that regulators or audit oversight boards require the application of boards to apply key audit matters to all audit work, not just mandatory for listed companies. It is hoped that this rule will help audit companies work more carefully in dealing with audit risks, which appear to be positively related to audit quality. As far as the author knows, limited educational study has explored the possible influence of key audit matters (KAMs) on audit quality in Indonesia. Therefore, this paper reduces the research gap in the audit literature. On the other hand, this paper can be used as a foundation for developing research instruments (e.g., questionnaires, interviews, or content analysis) to grant empirical evidence.

The present paper discusses an age-old craft practised in India named Pattu weaving. This weaving technique is based on the extra weft weave design. Along with the ground warp and weft, few extra bright colored yarns are used in this technique to weave beautiful motifs on the fabric during the weaving process. The craft follows the sustainable way of fabric manufacturing as the fabrics are made on the handloom and follow the traditional ways for pre-weaving process also. The craft becomes more relevant in the present scenario considering the fact that for the last few decades unsustainable practices have increased drastically due to the imbalance of demand and supply, scarcity of natural resources, advent of unsustainable technologies among the other factors. While traditionally, sustainable practices were an integral part of the lifestyle of human beings and balanced the eco-system of the earth. One of the ways for balancing the natural energy consumption is utilization of all natural resources wisely by reinventing traditional craft practices. Hence, the present study focuses on the materials, tools, techniques and processes used in the Pattu weaving craft. PASTLE analysis of the craft has also been done to understand the opportunity and challenges of the craft. Along with this, a comparative analysis of the traditional and contemporary raw materials, techniques, motifs, colour range and application of the craft have also been covered in this paper. For this study, the primary research is based on the information that was collected during Craft Research Documentation activity funded by the Ministry of Textiles, India. Data from Secondary research has also been added to strengthen the analysis.

Food production in Nigeria depends largely on subsistence farmers in the rural areas, where inefficient transport system remains a serious challenge and threat to food security in the country. This paper examines the effect of road transport system in the rural areas on food security in Akinyele Local Government Area of Oyo State, Nigeria. The study adopts a descriptive analysis, Multicollinearity and Cronbach Alpha Reliability tests as well as regression analysis on the primary data. Findings from the study reveal through the multicollinearity test, absence of significant correlation among the independent variables and the Cronbach Alpha confirms internal consistency of the variables. Furthermore, the regression analysis indicates that transportation infrastructure has a positive and statistically significant effect on food security. More so, rural development and road network show positive significant effect on food security. Meanwhile, Market infrastructure and Security issues are not statistically significant to explain variations in food security. The paper therefore, recommends that governments should extend efficient road transport to the rural areas to facilitate the movement of agricultural produce from the village to the market and the industries. This will help to reduce wastes resulting from damage of farm produce due to the long distance to the city.

The Strengthening Program for Rural Banks (SPRB) in the Philippines has allowed universal banks to purchase rural banks, and this policy highlights the possible advantages of expanding business combinations for intangible assets. Considering the SPRB, this paper examines the intangible motivation behind banks' actions to purchase capital-deficient financial institutions. This study aims to address sources of intangible assets for Philippine banks as Tobin's q measures. Using Tobin's q as a measure of intangible value allows for identifying contributing factors that determine it based on financial data. The study subjects are actively traded Philippine Universal Banks between 2009 and 2018. The influence of variables in the study on intangible asset value, as Tobin’s q measures, was determined using an Ordinary Least Squares model. Operational factors significantly influencing intangible value are investments in subsidiaries and associates, the return on assets, and bank deposits. Activities intended to reach target customers, such as those captured by marketing and advertising expenditures, positively influence intangible value. These findings imply that merely purchasing more assets does not improve the value of intangible resources. Instead, asset productivity, funds to make more loans, and informing the public of bank activities benefit intangible asset values. The implications of these findings offer insight into the sources of intangible assets that investors value.

Taxation research has received considerable attention from many scholars, practitioners and policymakers across the globe. Many scholars have also conducted research on taxation in the Malaysian context. However, papers that track the trends of such research are scanty in the existing literature. The aim of this study is to review the trend and frequencies of published literature on taxation in Malaysia based on the Scopus database using the search term “Malaysia and taxâ€. The design of the study is bibliometric analysis. As of 23rd September 2020, a total of 88 documents were retrieved and analysed using Excel, Hazing’s Publish or Perish and VOSviewer software. Based on the standard bibliometric indicators, this paper reports the research papers and source types, years and language of publications, subject area, most active institutions, most active sources’ titles, keywords, authorship, abstract, title analysis and citation analysis. Findings revealed that there is an increase in growth rate of literature on studies related to taxation in the Malaysian context from 1977 to 2020 published in the Scopos database. The publications reached an all-time peak in 2016 to 2017 but significantly dropped in 2018 and 2019 based on the data retrieved from the Scopus database. The findings further show that Universiti Teknologi MARA is the most influential institution with 18.18% of the total documents retrieved, followed by Universiti Utara Malaysia with 9.1% respectively. Additional findings of the study show that Advance Science Letters is the highest source title with 14.71% of the published documents. The finding also indicates that Adhikari, Derashid and Zhang (2006) are the most influential authors with 187 citations as at 23rd September 2020. The research is limited to the literatures published in Scopus database, other database were not covered in this study. Malaysian policymakers should provide more research grants to tax practitioners and academicians to increase the level of publications in this field.

Generally, Rent to Own (RTO) is a financial scheme offered by financial institutions to help those who cannot afford the 10% initial deposit and access to financial schemes. One value-based intermediation (VBI) initiative is the RTO Islamic financing product. The market segment of this product is for the new generation whereby they can own a house without paying any deposit on account of the fact that housing estates are increasingly expensive. This paper starts with the background concept of VBI, then it discusses on the modus operandi of RTO offered by financial institutions. This paper also discusses legal and Shariah aspects related to RTO. Adopting a qualitative method, the data were collected through semi-structured interviews with relevant parties involved with the RTO product. In addition, some preliminary information had been accessed through the financial institution’s website. This paper found that RTO has played important roles as one viable VBI initiative and it is approved as a Shariah compliant product

Rapid change in business environment poses threat to business survival. It is crucial to examine the core of business sustainability. This paper proposes changeless factors in response to today’s business environment. Specifically, it addresses (1) the people factor (2) the purpose factor and (3) the principle factor as the pillars through which an organization finds its stability in the sea of business change. This paper demonstrates the unchanged factors to ensure business sustainability and to achieve long term objectives. After mapping the conceptual model, the paper devotes particular attention to conceptualizing the changeless cores of business. This research contributes practical insights for managers to further understand the cores of business sustainability. Specifically, it will assist managers to have clear goals in making decisions and managing change to enhance competitiveness in the business environment.

Total Quality Management is essential in the healthcare sector. Delivering good healthcare services is one of the main issues among healthcare organizations. Healthcare customers are satisfied with healthcare providers when their services meet the level of their expectations. Satisfying healthcare customers (both public and private) can be attained through Total Quality Management. This paper highlights the importance of using Total Quality Management in healthcare organizations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). A review of the implementation of TQM among Saudi healthcare organizations highlighted the challenges faced in the sector. The sustained efforts in improving the service quality in Saudi healthcare have led to remarkable results. However, there are more challenges regarding the quality of services. This paper is helpful for strategic planners, policy makers, and management in the KSA healthcare sector and in other jurisdictions.

This study aims to investigate the dimensions of customer engagement (CE) in social media and what theories and methods are employed to scrutinize CE on social media. This study systematically used the literature review of 77 articles. Through Scopus-indexed academic databases, this study found and assessed peer-reviewed journal papers focused on social media and consumer engagement from 2018 to 2022. In this study, the current issues and research gaps for designing and developing future research are presented as well. This research analyzed the dimensions, theories, variables, methods, social media types, and previous business and spatial contexts. Most researchers illustrated CE as giving likes, comments, and shares on social media. Sixteen theories of the prior research were employed to investigate consumer engagement. This study positively impacts social media and consumer engagement by suggesting new insight for analyzing the related literature. They include modifying the CE in social media, reflecting the interaction between brand and customer phenomena, using other theories that exclude sixteen approaches that have been identified, and applying different methods such as experimental or mixed methods. Therefore, a comprehensive explanation of the consumer engagement framework on social media can be explained holistically by further studies.

This paper has developed a holistic model for performance management in tax administration. To achieve this aim, the literature on performance management practice as well as performance management models were reviewed and analysed. Tax administration cannot perform efficiently and effectively without understanding performance management elements which include performance and governance evaluations. The performance management elements should also involve both internal and external stakeholders. The model in this paper is aimed at improving performance management in tax administration for Malaysian tax authorities

Welfare improvement is always a key and one of the major objectives of many nations. One of the most important ways of improving societal welfare is through productivity improvements hence various studies have been conducted in relation to this topic. in addition to the current developments in this area of research, this paper attempts to provide in-depth review of previous studies on the determinants of productivity with the aim of identifying both economic and social factors that affect the level of productivity. The paper shows that previous studies on the determinants of productivity are of different folds (on a different basis). The basis of the previous studies includes – that of economic factors and social factors –that of statistical method of analysis and non-statistical method of analysis, some studies are based on tangible “goods†while some are based on intangible “servicesâ€, some factors influence productivity positively while some negatively. Even though, the positive and negative effects of some variables are recognized to be non-mutually exclusive as the same variable might have both positive and negative influence on productivity in two different studies or countries due to the existence of discrepancy of some socio-economic conditions, technological strength and factor intensity among countries, areas of studies and organizations. Also, few studies exist on the determinant of productivity in the service sector compared with those in the goods sector. This paper suggests more empirical studies to be conducted in different countries, organizations and areas of studies especially, on the service sector productivity, as generalizations without empirical studies could be inconclusive and the effects of the determinants may be understated or overstated.

This paper discusses factors influencing the performance of SMEs in Nigeria using the quantitative approach. The study used a survey method; it administered 40 questionnaires to SME owner-managers randomly selected in Kano, Nigeria. Four elements were identified and used as determining factors of SMEs performance, these are: entrepreneurial orientation, technology orientation and contemporary marketing as independent variables and government support policies (GSPs) as a moderating variable. Validity and reliabilty of the instruments were scrutinized by professionals in the field of management and their observations were used in modifying the items of the quetionnaire. Similarly, to present the results of the pilot test, the data was analysed using PLS-SEM 2.0 and the findings confirmed the validity and reliability of the instruments adapted for the study. Theoretically, the paper established a new insight on the role of government on the relationship between the determinants and SMEs performance. The study has practical implication for government, policy makers, regulators, SMEs owner-managers and other stakeholders to recognize government support as it affects SMEs performance. The study further adds to the frontier of knowledge on the importance of GSPs in strengthening the relationship between the variables and SMEs performance.

Academic field trip is organised to attain several objectives. The objectives are in general, among others, to enhance social, personal and emotional development of students as well as to add value to students academic development. However, the specific objectives, as outlined in the syllabus of strategic management courses, include ability to function as a consultant, owner of a business, make strategic decisions and to justify those decisions through oral and written communication, both as an individual and as a member of a team. To meet these objectives, general and specific, at the beginning of the semester, students are briefed about the academic field trip and expectation (knowledge and experience) from it. To ensure that the students’ will benefit from the trip, they are required to make some preparations before going for the academic field trip. The preparation includes research on the company and its industry, and to get the necessary information during the trip in order to complete some tasks. To complete the tasks, students have to form groups of three and they are given some assignments. The information necessary to complete the assignment will come from their observations during the trip. Basically, the assignments relate to the concepts and theories they have learned in class. The assignments will reflect the ability of the students to link them to the industry. Thus, the objective of this paper is to discuss the preparation before, during and after field trip as a teaching pedagogy in line with output-based education system. However, the effectiveness of academic field trips as a teaching pedagogy is not measured directly, therefore, it becomes a limitation of the paper. Nevertheless, this paper may serve as a useful input in the involvement and commitment of students during fieldtrips and the content of the assignment submitted will give an insight into the level of understanding of the students on class-room learning.

The certainty of the reliance on the use of financial ratio analysis in making investment decisions by potential investors still remained a mystery. This has to do with the choice of ratios to select when making investment decisions. Many shareholders in Nigeria are uneducated or illiterate, and due to their ignorance, they cannot use ratio analysis in evaluating firms for investment decisions. Thus, this paper explores the concept of financial ratio analysis in terms of the decision usefulness of financial ratios. The paper suggests that the relevant financial information needed for the purposes of making investment decision can be sourced through the use of financial ratio analysis. Therefore, management must ensure that disclosure of comprehensive financial ratios form part of financial statement prepared for the overall appraisal of firms.

Blessings refer to the cause of a good outcome, and is said to be associated with the truth. In research, validity refers to the truth. Indicator is a tool that can be used to measure the achievement of a goal. This paper has two main objectives. First, to analyze the concept of blessings in Islam. Second, to formulate blessings as a validity indicator in research. This paper aims to address both of these issues through textual analysis of some literatures. For the first issue, this paper discusses the views of Islamic scholars concerning the concept of blessings in Islam. For the second issue, the findings sum up that blessings can be used as the indicator of validity in research.

This paper aims to propose Total Economic Value (TEV) framework for Pulau Payar Marine Park (PPMP). Currently, TEV framework for PPMP revealed a few components despite infeasibility of certain main scientific data to be acquired and also under assumption of non-climate change phenomenon. With the MPA exposures towards recent climate change phenomenon, this paper explored the extended areas in Pulau Payar that might contribute either positively or negatively to the value of the PPMP which will assist in marine park management in their policy making. This study conducted along the qualitative paths in which information are gathered through focus group discussions and empirical study relevant to the calamity of coral bleaching. The findings illustrate that there are eight (8) items would contribute to the use and non-use value of the TEV framework.

The social engagement by the Non-Governmental Organisation (henceforth, NGO) reflects social accountability to the public. With this in mind, the paper examines the role of social disclosures in articulating NGO accountability relations in ABIM. The conceptual framework of this paper delineates social accountability, which can be explained from the perspective of financial accountability into social actions that are delineated from verbal conversations, conducts and body language. In line with this, the paper addresses an initial exploration by framing moral positioning within NGO accountability relations through a social context in accounting. The empirical contribution is obtained from a case study of ABIM, employing interpretive methodology, through a series of in-depth interviews and documentary reviews. The empirical evidence reveals the accounting mechanisms by highlighting the values of a well-defined Islamic community in public policy debate. The NGO’s actions, include accounting disclosures, emphasises the moral imperatives underpinning plural rationalities for humanitarian assistance and social movements provided by ABIM.

Reforms in the public sector, the world over, has taken a global dimension towards harmonization and convergence of international and national accounting systems for the promotion of useful and standardized financial reporting practices. At the centre of this change is the adoption and application of the international public sector accounting standards (IPSAS) by public sector entities. The cash-basis IPSAS is one of the IPSAS which supports the presentation of the general purpose financial statement (GPFS) for new adopters that intend to migrate to full accrual-based IPSAS. However, despite its essence as a de facto standard mostly adopted by developing countries, limited studies have considered the consideration for its decision-usefulness for financial reporting. The objective of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework that explains the factors of how financial reporting, based on the cash-basis IPSAS, would assist decision usefulness of financial reports to diverse user groups. In addition, the paper identifies potential organizational factors that may strengthen the elaboration of useful financial reporting statement. Based on the literature survey methodology, this paper argues that, identification of usable format that increases understandability of the financial statements for different user groups and an increased support for accounting staff competency, are veritable considerations in the framework for decision useful financial reporting statement in the application of the cash-basis IPSAS.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted by the United Nations (UN) in 2015. They are a worldwide call to end poverty, protect the planet, and promote peace and prosperity for everyone by 2030. The 17 SDGs are interconnected and seek to strengthen the social, economic, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. Malaysia is one of the countries committed to these global goals. In every situation, achieving the SDGs requires collaboration and resources from all parts of society, and youths are the part of the population that is most important in implementing the SDGs. To get young people involved in the planning and building of the country's sustainable development, it is important for different groups to work together. This article examines how partnerships can effectively help an organisation reach its goals and what the most important principles are when forming a partnership. In this paper, the Malaysian Youth SDG Summit will be used as a case study. The summit started with the support of 30 youth-based organisations and was backed up by the Malaysian Civil Society Organisation—SDG Alliance and the All-Party Parliamentary Group Malaysia—SDG. The Malaysian Youth SDG Summit, which began as a one-day event, has evolved into a year-long effort to develop the capacity of young people to become SDG competent through the Youth SDG Agent initiative. The study provides information on how to leverage partnerships to expose youth to sustainable developments, drawing on the case from the youth SDG Summit and youth SDG agents. The strength of the partnership has made a big difference in the brand's credibility, its exposure in the media, its network, its support for hardware, and its human resources.

The objective of this paper is to present some comparative findings on Proton, a car manufacturer in Malaysia and Rover Group, a British automobile manufacturer. The paper used a ‘Business History’ methodology tracking the exploits of the two firms from 1980 to 2000. Two in-depth interviews were conducted with two key informants – Nadzmi Salleh, former CEO of Proton and John Towers, the former CEO of Rover Group. Apart from that, the study also utilized secondary documents from various sources such British Aerospace and Honda Swindon. Proton and Rover are sources of national pride for Malaysia and England respectively. Yet their financial performance over time were said to be poor. Some efforts by the respective governments and the management of the two firms to improve the performance in both firms were highlighted. In terms of the current status of both firms, Proton is still surviving but Rover has been defunct since 2005.

Nowadays, the integrity of halal product status is important for Muslim consumers. Sertu cleansing operations is to ensure that transportation and logistics carrying halal products are assured with no occurrence of contamination from non-halal sources in halal logistics. However, the study on sertu cleansing in Malaysia is still low. Therefore, this concept paper attempts to discuss factors in sertu cleansing integrity as stated in Malaysian Standards MS1500: 2009 for halal food production, preparing, handling, and storage, and MS2400: 2010 for halalan-toiyibban assurance pipeline or known as halal supply chain management. The factors in halal cleansing that influence the halal product integrity such as: sertu procedure; process or method of sertu cleansing; people engaged in these activities; and the sertu cleansing products. This paper generates awareness and provides better understanding on the factors influencing sertu cleansing in assuring halal integrity of halal food products and other related products.

High efficiency distribution applicators, such as boom sprayer (air blower concept), Kuhn Axis fertiliser spreaders (rotating disc concept), and pendulum spreader (magnetic concept) were the response to the call to distribute granular fertiliser to a paddy field on a large scale. Each of these distribution applicators had their own characteristics which are optimised for different purposes. This paper shows the review results after studying journal papers to select the most suitable applicators for Malaysia’s paddy field on a large scale. The analyses included the compliments of these applicators toward the type of granular fertiliser used in Malaysia’s paddy field, the maintenance cost of these applicators, the suitability of machine to be used in the landscape of Malaysia’s paddy, the distribution areas covered by these applicators, and the accuracy of distribution. The review concluded that Kuhn Axis fertiliser spreader was found to be the most suitable applicator compared to other applicators.

Conflict is central in family business. Family business consists of family members working together, using family and business logics. Efforts are done to mitigate the impact of role conflicts. Nevertheless, conflict remains the top reason for discontinuity. Findings suggested that participants with positive attitude toward conflict take more relaxed approach toward succession, with larger next generation talent pool. This group is egalitarian in strategic decision making and characteristically optimistic. Participants with negative attitude have a smaller talent pool for succession, since they reserve leadership for the select few. They are more cautious, requiring successors to implement their visions beforehand, and are less optimistic. This study contributes to the body of knowledge and family business practitioners. Firstly, this paper introduces the use of attitude toward conflict to predict behaviour during succession. Secondly, this paper inspires leaders to assess their attitudes, and if required to change their attitudes, so that they can plan their succession accordingly.

This paper provides an idealistic conceptual framework for Research & Development (R&D) evaluation. R&D is very important in higher level decision making. In Malaysia, though the spending is on increasing term, only a small proportionate of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is allocated to fund R&D as compared to the required tasks in the vast fields of research. A lot of efforts were spent in R&D, the undertakings of which should be monitored and well-funded to ensure the results of the research are considered in making decisions that could be shared, implemented, improvised, and evaluated. Public research which focuses more on educational know-how in the development of human resource/human capital could be assimilated in R&D of private sectors which focus more on scientific, technology, material handling, and information and communication technology (ICT). The more advances occur in science and technology fields, the demand for manpower in the related fields would increase. In spite of this, any improvement from the implemented research result could not be assured even with functional R&D systems if there is no constant evaluation and post decision valuation. The collaboration of public-private R&D institutions would generate a new breed of innovative entrepreneurs that could assist Malaysia to achieve developed nation status as set out in Vision 2020. The outcome of this paper is a proposed model of the Malaysian R&D evaluation in public agencies, private sectors, and universities to construct an idealistic R&D decision evaluation framework for future application. The model presents the interconnected interactions that take place within the stakeholders circle in R&D network. Basically, the model is drawn up under the principle that virtually there are balanced interactions and the interested parties are inter-related.

The paper offers an understanding of the process of entrepreneurial learning that is critical to the development of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship. The paper reveals the relationship between entrepreneurial learning process and the success of the business among small-scale entrepreneurs for selected learning types. The materials for analysis were obtained from a field work conducted in Surakarta, Indonesia by using a survey method. Four hundred and eighty-five 485 respondents were identified based on stratified random sampling for urban, suburban and rural areas. The total population identified was 1,040 small entrepreneurs. The reliability of the research instrument was 0.9, which is considered high. It was found that the types of learning, i.e., formal, non-formal and informal, had different effects on the learning process of small-scale entrepreneurs. Such findings are important to the development of the entrepreneurial learning and policy to improve the effectiveness of entrepreneurship development program.

Indigenous small firms going international, in particular to the Arab-markets, often face many difficulties and many have failed at the early stage. The modern technology also seems to be of less help as these firms are struggling to compete with their larger counterparts. The paper highlights the preference of the local Arab people (Jordanian) on the localized websites and such preference can be used as the guide for small firms as the means to penetrate the Arab market as the localized website is found to significantly contribute to the higher acceptance level of the local people in Jordan as the source of information. The findings being revealed in the paper is based on the study on the effects of culture and language of the website on user acceptance. The research was conducted in mid-2010 using quantitative method by adopting the cluster sampling technique. This insight provides crucial information and could be the platform for the success of small firms in penetrating the Arab markets.

Entrepreneurship is becoming increasingly important in today’s world due to its effectiveness and applicability in a country’s economic development. In this regards, many developed and developing countries are investing maximum resources and efforts to promote entrepreneurship. To achieve the goal, policy makers as well as economic stakeholders are playing their roles in promoting entrepreneurship. This includes educational institutions emphasising on motivating fresh graduates to choose entrepreneurship as their future career. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to highlight the factors that resist and encourage fresh graduates to choose and set up their own business. This paper categorises four factors namely demographic, motivational, challenges of obstacles and government support. This paper proposes that motivational factors such as family security, independence, intrinsic and extrinsic rewards influence fresh graduates’ decision to choose and set up a new business. With reference to challenges, this paper highlights that a lack of finance, complicated processes involved in setting up a business, high rate of taxes and duties, poor business infrastructure resist fresh graduates to dabble into entrepreneurial activities. This paper also points out that demographic factors like gender, previous experience and family background do influence fresh graduates’ decision to choose and set up a new business. In addition, this paper explains that government support in terms of providing business assistances like microfinance schemes, business-friendly system, low rate of taxes and duties. Easy business-related rules and regulations also encourage fresh graduates to choose and set up a new business. Finally, the paper proposes few propositions based on the previous literature and invites any researcher to empirically test them in order to further strengthen the entrepreneurship literature.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between corporate competitive capabilities, which consists of cost leadership, differentiation, innovative marketing and customer service; and business performance. The paper is a quantitative-based approach using data obtained from the manufacturing sector of small to medium enterprises in Malaysia. Empirical results from structural equation modeling (SEM) demonstrate that corporate competitive capabilities had significant influence on its business performance. The paper has limitations due to a small response rate, would show short of a firmer conclusion from the analysis. This paper will contribute to the literature on strategic management, SMEs and resource-based view theory. This study is particularly new in the context of the Malaysian SMEs manufacturing industry. The findings provide useful guidance to Malaysian SMES’ practitioners and policy-makers, by understanding the unique capabilities of their firms.

Despite the inherent liability of resource scarcity, superior performance of small and medium enterprises in foreign market operations has made the study of small firm internationalization a focus of many scholars. Although investigation into the phenomenon abound, the complexity of international business generates intricacy into the research process. This paper discusses an investigation grounded on the composite of Internationalization Models, namely the Uppsala MODEL and the Resource-based view. The explication highlights the critical role of organizational resources and capabilities in leveraging relationship quality with a foreign partner to internationalize at a faster rate. The underlying argument is that a lack of financial and human resources pose a constraint to small businesses to internally generate foreign market knowledge to identify opportunities. Small businesses acquire knowledge by leveraging quality relationship with a foreign partner. This paper conjectures relationship quality as a proxy to the level of knowledge acquisition where the relationship acts as a conduit to information flow. Finally, a conceptual model is proposed and several propositions are also suggested.

The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus which causes the Covid-19 disease led to the most significant change in the world order over the past century, destabilizing the world’s economy, businesses and communities, among others. Covid-19 has generated great uncertainty, and dramatically affected various industries, especially the service sector. This paper highlights the challenges and opportunities posed by the Covid-19 pandemic in terms of the role of businesses to ensure sustainability and safeguarding society. Based on empirical reviews, this study suggests that the pandemic has resulted in many business and economic challenges which include unemployment, low consumption of goods and services, financial distress, unethical business practices, mental distress, heavy business losses and business discontinuity. At the same time, the Covid-19 pandemic has created an opportunity for businesses in terms of enhance sustainability environment, enhanced voluntary CSR initiatives, shifting towards digital transformation and viable alternative business models. This study concludes that businesses must actively make use of opportunities to overcome or minimize the challenges of Covid-19.

As the world moves towards a technological era, various innovations have been introduced across different industries in order to meet customers’ expectations and enhance service quality. Self-service Technology (SST) is one innovation that can be commonly found across industries, and has gained high popularity among users. The main objective of this study is to examine the factors that affect customer intention in using SST, specifically among Generation Z. It examines the relationship between the independent variables of perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, need of interaction, and technology anxiety and the dependent variable of customer intention in using SST. A questionnaire survey adopted in this study secured the required information from 152 target respondents. Analyses of responses explained 65.5% variances in customer intention of using SST. The research findings established through data analysed with SPSS version 27 application, suggest that perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness have positive significant relationships towards customer intention of using SST, but no significant relationship was found on need of interaction and technology anxiety in customer intention of using SST. Therefore, in order to encourage and attract potential and future users to utilise the service of SST, the system and function of SST need to be upgraded consistently to ensure it brings benefits and usefulness to users. Besides, a company can also educate users on ways to operate the SST in order to enhance the level of ease of use, and to increase the awareness of the usefulness of SST among users. The limitations and recommendations of future study are discussed at the end of the paper.

This paper aims to identify hawkers' satisfaction with a local authority water meter reading management. Three years ago, the licensing and business development department installed meter readers at the hawker centres. Currently, water meter readers are no longer available, causing the department substantial losses. There are complaints on the use of bulk meters that the amount charged each month is indifferent. Several water meters in the hawker centres are not working correctly, resulting in difficulties by the authority to process the correct amount of water bills. The hawkers need to travel to the headquarters to make payment, making it more difficult. Hawkers are not happy because they have to pay the same amount though they might have consumed less than others. A total of 176 questionnaires was distributed to 500 hawkers in Kuala Lumpur City Hall (KLCH). Data were analysed using SPSS. The results showed that only one variable, water meter management, has a significant and weak relationship, influencing hawkers' satisfaction. This finding will give an excellent insight to the local authority in better control of water meter reading at hawker centres.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the influence of online commitment and trust on online loyalty among internet banking users in Malaysia. An intercept survey was conducted among the major banks in the Northern region in Malaysia. A total number of 100 questionnaires were completed and further analyzed. A Partial Least Square (PLS) analysis was performed on the data using the SmartPLS software version 3. SmartPLS is commonly used in marketing and social science studies; thus, the software was employed in this study to predict the relationship among all tested variables as well as analyze their reliability and validity. The results of all the relationships were predicted through hypotheses testing. The result revealed that both commitment and trust have a positive and significant influence on online loyalty. This study provides some practical implications that may be relevant, not only to the banking industry, but also to the financial industry.

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the size of the public sector (based on percentage of public sector expenditures to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and percentage of public sector revenues to GDP) of Malaysia and compare it with other Associations of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries. This study utilised a descriptive approach to compare the size of Malaysian public sector with other ASEAN countries (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam). The data were retrieved from 2000 to 2014 (15 years) that involved examination of documents from Key Indicators of Developing Asian and Pacific Countries Reports. Findings revealed that Malaysia ranks number three in terms of the size of public sector among ASEAN countries. Findings also indicated that the Malaysian percentage of public sector expenditure to GDP is around 20% to 30% which is considered as optimal size for the public sector. Malaysia also shows a deficit budget for 2000 to 2014, and similar trends were reported for other ASEAN countries. Meanwhile, the limitations of this study are that it is descriptive in nature and does not test any relationships between variables. Hence, future research may take into account other factors such as economic growth and government efficiency, and test relationships with the size of the public sector.

This paper aims to enhance the understanding of tax compliance behaviour of individual Yemeni taxpayers. It investigated the influence of tax knowledge on the behaviour of taxpayers. A survey was used to collect the required data. The major finding of this study is that tax knowledge of citizens has a significant influence on their likely compliance behaviour. Specifically, compliance behaviour increases when tax knowledge is higher. This study is probably among the first to investigate and to provide evidence on the influence of citizens tax knowledge on tax compliance behaviour in Yemen. The outputs of this study could serve as a useful input, not only for tax policy and strategy in Yemen, but also in other developing countries. Thus, governments are recommended to work on increasing tax knowledge of its citizens which will result in improving the level of tax compliance.

Social Innovation has been considered as the main policy agenda in various developed countries throughout the world. Social Innovation is said to make a massive contribution to the social, economic and technological progress of nations. Therefore, it addresses critical issues, among which are poor economic growth, massive unemployment, poor social health, poor living conditions, poor education systems and poor technological advancement. The aim of this paper is to present an empirical insight on the impact of social innovation on strategic knowledge management processes i.e. knowledge creation, knowledge transfers and knowledge application. The main data for this study was collected through survey questionnaires via personally administered and email from 200 project leaders of Majlis Amanah Rakyat (MARA) education institutionsindustry-community partnership project. The data were collected from December 2018 till December 2019. The data was analyzed using SPSS version 19. The findings indicate a significant positive relationship between strategic knowledge management processes i.e. knowledge creation, knowledge transfer and knowledge application and social innovation.

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are aware of the need to implement proper supply chain management practices, especially to maintain good relationships with their suppliers. Previous studies indicated that a close relationship between SME owner-managers and suppliers can avail various benefits, such as operations and performance improvement, smooth delivery of goods and services to final destinations, and better negotiation of price and delivery schedule. Thus, this paper presents an understanding of the relationship between an SME in the food industry and its suppliers. By employing the Social Exchange Theory (SET) as the underlying theory, this study highlighted the importance of SMEs in managing relationships with suppliers. This study also revealed the roles that factors, such as trust, communication, commitment, and bargaining power, play in the SME-supplier relationship. By employing qualitative methodology and single case study method, this study indicated that this SME is aware that maintaining a good relationship with suppliers can lead to the survival of the business for a longer period of time, and enable them to benefit in terms of cost, quality, and services in the future. Among all factors, loyalty under the commitment factor is considered to be not unduly important to maintain the relationship with the suppliers by the SME owner-manager. However, trust and communication are the most crucial factors to maintain this relationship.

The internet has opened doors for electronic voting (E-voting). A review of the loopholes of the 14th General Election in Malaysia including the delay of votes from overseas voters, the declaration of a public holiday on voting day and the extraordinary heavy traffic, implies that E-voting could be a better alternative to the paper-based ballot voting. Therefore, the objective of this study is to examine the determinants of the intention to use the E-voting system among Generation X in Malaysia. This study focused only on Generation X because most internet users are from this age group (22 to 37-year olds) compared to other age groups. Hence, Generation X may be the focus of E-voting. A survey of 351 respondents on their intention to use E-voting system was conducted throughout 13 states and the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur (Wilayah Persekutuan). Additionally, an empirical model was drawn from adopted theories and data was analyzed using the Partial Least Squares – Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) approach. The findings showed that compatibility, relative advantages and perceived ease of use significantly contributed to the intention to participate in E-voting. However, perceptions of image, complexity of use, perceived usefulness, trust in the internet and in the government are not significantly related to the intention to use E-voting.

Malaysia is encouraging the involvement and participation of women in developing its economy and in transforming it to become a developed nation by the year 2020. However, studies that look into the attributes of successful women business leaders are scarce. Hence, it is the focus of this paper to reveal the attributes of prominent women business leaders and their respective leadership styles. Three (3) prominent women business leaders from various industries participated in this study and data were gathered through qualitative semi-structured interviews. It was found that the attributes possessed by these participants are similar to their male counterparts. The only differences between men and women business leaders are in terms of (i) the amount of focus time spent between domestic chores and work, and (ii) the motherly/sisterly approach portrayed by the participants, which is unique to women business leaders. The participants demonstrated three styles of leadership, namely paternalistic, transformational, and participative.

Non-tax revenue trends and their potential have received less attention than property tax, which is the primary source for most Malaysian local authorities (LAs). This paper highlights the examination conducted on potentials and strategies adopted by each LA investigated to maximize return from non-tax revenue. In doing this, qualitative approach using secondary data acquired from financial reports and primary data from in-depth interviews was employed. Ten LAs were selected through purposive sampling. The trend of revenue collection among the selected LAs and the strategies to improve non-tax revenue collection through thematic analysis are highlighted. The analysis of the trend of local authorities’ revenue reveals that non-tax revenue remains the second most important after the tax revenue. However, Pulau Pinang City Council (MBPP) is the only LA that records an average of non-tax revenue exceeding 50 per cent of its total internal revenue. This study has also found that the divergence among the local authorities’ non-tax revenue collection is due to the revenue improvement strategies adopted by each local authority. Therefore, eight recommendations are made to improve non-tax revenue. Though this study is limited to 10 LAs as sample, the successful optimizing strategies highlighted from the study can represent an efficient model for other LAs, in improving their non-tax collection.

The paper presents a theoretical framework on the moderating effect of trust in authority on the relationship between tax rates, penalty, detection probability, cost of compliance, royalty rates, environmental regulations, and petroleum profit tax compliance. The objective of the proposed framework is to expand the Allingham and Sandmo (1972) model of tax compliance by adding two more predictor variables relevant to the oil and gas industry (royalty rates and environmental regulations), and moderating variable (trust) to better explain the relationship. Allingham and Sandmo (1972) model received a lot of criticisms for not considering other non-human factors that can help in determining taxpayers’ compliance behavior, hence the expansion of the model to include new variables, purely non-human factors which are relevant to the industry in question. A thorough search of the following databases: Scopus database, Web of Science, Emerald, Google Scholar, among others was conducted to come up with the relevant and related literature on the subject matter. Providing empirical evidence through validation of this framework would have important implications for policymakers in host oil and gas producing countries, oil and gas operators, the deterrence theory as well as future research.

The informal sector is often referred to as unregulated financial undertakings and poses a serious challenge to government in relation to tax revenue collection. The main issue of concern is why a wide gap exists between the actual tax collections from the informal sector and the potential tax that should be collected. Thus, the main aim of this study is to identify and examine some of the challenges militating against effective tax collection from the informal sector in Kano State, Nigeria. The paper is literature based, as such, it critically examines current literature on tax collection. It was discovered that issues such as reliance on cash based transactions, absence of required records and weak tax laws are some of the challenges preventing effective tax collection from the informal sector. It is therefore recommended that tax collection from the informal sector could be enhanced when government educates the informal operators, strengthens tax laws, emphasize on adequate records keeping and simplify the formalization procedures.

This study attempts to identify hotels service attributes that influence tourists’ satisfaction in the context of Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Descriptive research was conducted to gain an insight into the topic and to investigate the factors. This paper reports findings based on a descriptive study. To conduct this study, a survey was administered to 300 respondents using a non-probability sampling which is a convenience sampling technique. To analyze the data, factor analysis, correlation, regression analysis and frequency distribution table was used. A conceptual model of tourist’s satisfaction based on service attributes of hotels in Cox’s Bazar was proposed based on factor and regression analysis. Seven factors emerged and were used as independent variables in the regression analysis. Findings indicate that some hotel service attributes have a direct influence on tourists’ satisfaction which make them loyal in the context of Cox’s Bazar.