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This article provides an overview of the impact of transformational leadership on work performance in the pharmaceutical industry in Malaysia. It emphasizes the importance of transformational leadership in fostering innovation, creativity, and commitment among employees. However, the article also highlights a lack of scholarly publications on this topic in Malaysia, indicating a need for further research. The article emphasizes the patient-centric approach, collaboration, ethical conduct, and adherence to quality standards in the industry. Overall, it suggests that transformational leadership has the potential to positively influence work performance in the Malaysian pharmaceutical industry, but more research is needed to fully understand its impact. [Extracted from the article]

This study examines the relationship between career planning and job satisfaction of Armed Forces personnel in Malaysia. It determines the mediating effect of career development on the relationship between career planning and job satisfaction. This study was conducted because there is negligible attention given to the effects of career planning and career development on job satisfaction, mainly in the Malaysian Armed Forces context. The IBM Social Science Statistical Package (IBM SPSS) application was used in the data analysis using descriptive and inferential analysis. The outcomes displayed three important findings: First, the significant relationship between career planning and job satisfaction. Second, the relationship between career development and job satisfaction was significant. Third, the result statistically confirms that the effect of career planning on job satisfaction is indirectly affected by career development in the organisational sample. Further, the study discusses the contributions and recommendations based on the significant findings. In conclusion, the career planning among Malaysian Armed Forces personnel should be explained and aligned with their career development since it will affect their job satisfaction and increase their work performance in national defence and security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), an infectious disease made Malaysia implemented a Movement Control Order (MCO) as a preventive measure towards the spread of the virus. Malaysia's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in agriculture sector (2020) is 7.4 per cent, the percentage growth of this sector declined 2.2 per cent from 2.0 per cent in the previous year. The declination of the growth may be related with performance of extension agent during the pandemic due to 1st MCO regulations. In addition, the performance before MCO was high in 2019, hence, the aim of this study is to determine the skills and work performance of extension agents in their Program Development Skills (planning, implementing, monitoring and evaluating - PIME). Specifically, this research intended to determine the level of PIME skills and their work performance, to evaluate the relationship of PIME skills with the work performance of extension agent and to determine the most PIME skills that contributes to the work performance of the extension agent during MCO in Peninsular Malaysia. This study was driven by the Iceberg Model and distributed using a random sampling technique. A total of 362 extension agents from Peninsular Malaysia were participated in this research. Based on the result, all independent variables (PIME skills) indicated a positive correlation towards work performance. The monitoring and evaluating are the skills that significant towards work performance, and the evaluating skill became the highest independent variable that contributes to the work performance of extension agent. About 71.2% variance of work performance is explained by PIME and the balance 28.8% is explained by the other factors. This study suggest that the extension agent should improve their planning and implementing skills to suite with pandemic situation, so that the program that has been planned earlier can be done even though the situation might be challenging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of the correlation between Emotional Intelligence (EI) and work performance is crucial for the organisation. Some of the organisations do not consider EI skills as the work performed. This study investigates the correlation between EI and the work performance of a telecommunication research company in Malaysia. There are 66 participants involved in this study: senior researchers and researchers. A set of questionnaires was distributed to assess their employees' background, EI, and work performance. As a predictor of research employees' work performance and EI, the results show that EI had a significant positive relationship with work performance. The findings also show that employees with high EI experience a greater level of task performance. Moreover, the authors also present the relationship of EI with work performance over employees' background such as gender, marital status, age and work experience. It was found that married employees have a higher correlation than single employees. The study recommends that organisations introduce EI development programs for existing staff to improve their performance at work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the relationship between technology transfer skills and work performance of extension agents among cocoa farmers in Malaysia. The study used stratified sampling technique to select 668 cocoa farmers who are exposed to extension programmes facilitated by the extension agents of Malaysian Cocoa Board in the three regions of Malaysia. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation and regression analyses. Result shows that cocoa farmers rated level of work performance, technical, technology delivery, and technology evaluation skills as high. Significant and positive correlation (p<0.01) existed between each variables and work performance. Regression analysis results showed that technology transfer skills were significant predictors to enhance work performance. The R² value of 0.511 indicates that the three skills give 51.1% explanation of the variance in extension agents' work performance. The result also suggested that technical skill (β=0.346) was the most important factor that influence work performance followed by technology delivery skill and technology evaluation skill. Hence, technology transfer skills should be taken into consideration in enhancing work performance, especially among farmers and the extension agents who work with them for a continuous performance improvement in their work. The skills that have been identified in this study can be integrated into both the pre-service and in-service training and development of extension agents in their line of work to improve their skills in sharing new technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the relationships between human resource development skills (leadership, decision making support, and social skills) with the work performance of extension agents among cocoa farmers in Malaysia. The study used stratified sampling technique to select 668 cocoa farmers who were exposed to extension programs facilitated by extension agents of the Malaysian Cocoa Board in 3 regions of Malaysia. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation, and regression analyses. The results show that cocoa farmers rated level of work performance, leadership, decision making support, and social skills as high. Significant and positive correlation (p < 0.01) existed between each variable and work performance. Regression analysis results showed that leadership skill, decision making support skill, and social skill were significant predictors to enhance work performance. The R2 value of 0.564 indicates that the 3 skills gave 56.4 % explanation of the variance in extension agents' work performance. The results also suggested that decision making support skill (β = 0.321) was the most important factor that influenced work performance, followed by leadership skill and social skill. Hence, decision making support skill, leadership skill, and social skill should be taken into consideration in enhancing work performance, especially among farmers and the extension agents who work with them, for continuous performance improvement in their work. The skills that have been identified in this study can be integrated into both the pre-service and in-service training and development of extension agents in their line of work to improve their skills in sharing new technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Work performance report is a systematic and comprehensive evaluation report that quantitatively assesses the level of performance of civil servants in Malaysia. The objective of this study was to ascertain whether work performance ofsupporting staff in Hospital Mersing is at par with the performance of civil servants in Malaysia. Other objectives were to identify the high-performing and lowperforming members in the organisation and to determine factors affecting work performance. This study was a cross-sectional, retrospective, and used convenient sampling from secondary data in the employee service books, Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS) information and staff medical records in 2016. The results of this study show that there was significant relationship between socio-demographic factors with work performance, which were gender, monthly income and education level. However, there was no significant relationship between ethnicity (p=0.692), age (p=0.102), marital status (p=1.000) and period of service (p=0.299). There was no significant relationship found between health factor and job factor with work performance. The outcome from this study can be used by the hospital administration and supervisors to take measures improving the level of staff work performance accordingly, which can benefit both individual and the organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Aims - This study proposes to fill the gap in entrepreneurship literature by focusing on the relationship between entrepreneurs' psychological capital and growth intention mediated by their work performance. Design/Methodology/Approach - This research used cross-sectional quantitative research and employed convenience sampling technique. A total of 275 Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) entrepreneurs participated and answered the survey questionnaires. Research Findings - The findings confirmed the direct relationships between psychological capital and work performance; and psychological capital and growth intention of entrepreneurs. However, this study found no mediating effect of work performance in the relationship between psychological capital and growth intention of the entrepreneurs. Theoretical Contribution/Originality - This study enhanced the understanding on the importance of psychological capital as influential psychological resource for entrepreneurs as it has positive effects on attitudes and their work performance. These findings advocate the inclusion of psychological capital in entrepreneurial studies as important resource for work performance improvement and positive attitudes. Managerial Implications in the Southeast Asian Context - The government and SMEs supporting agencies need to give attention to psychological capital in their entrepreneurship development policy and programmes. Further, universities and training providers should also focus on psychological capital resources in entrepreneurial education and training modules. Research Limitations and Implications - This study is confined to Malaysian SME entrepreneurs only and uses convenient sampling technique. Therefore, generalization of the findings is limited. Future research can investigate the related variables in different countries and contexts to examine the importance of psychological capital in entrepreneurial setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: School teachers may have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), potentially affecting their work productivity. However, limited data exists on the impact of CVD on teachers' productivity in Malaysia. Our objectives were to assess work productivity loss (absenteeism and presenteeism) as well as to determine the associated annual monetary loss among school teachers who experienced incident CVD in Peninsular Malaysia., Methods: We adopted a nested case-control design within a cohort of school teachers. Working teachers from six states of Peninsular Malaysia, and had experienced incident CVD before a right-censored date (31st December 2021) were defined as cases. Incident CVD was operationally defined as the development of non-fatal acute coronary syndrome (ACS), stroke, congestive cardiac failure, deep vein thrombosis or peripheral arterial disease before the censored date. Controls were working teachers who did not acquire an incident CVD before the similar right-censored date. All controls were randomly selected, with a ratio of one case to four controls, from among the working teachers in one of the states in Peninsular Malaysia. We used a shortened version of the Malay-validated World Health Organization-Health and Work Performance Questionnaire (WHO-HPQ) to estimate the workplace productivity effect among teachers with incident CVD (cases). The same questionnaire was distributed to teachers in a single state of Peninsular Malaysia who did not experience incident CVD (controls). Absenteeism, presenteeism and annual monetary loss were computed based on the scoring rules in the WHO-HPQ. Analysis of covariance was performed with covariate adjustment using propensity scores. The bootstrapping method was applied to obtain better estimates of marginal mean differences, along with standard errors (SE) and appropriate effect sizes., Results: We recruited 48 cases (baseline mean age = 42.4 years old, 54.2% females) and 192 randomly selected controls (baseline mean age = 36.2 years old, 99.0% females). The majority of the cases had ACS (73.9%). No significant difference was observed in absenteeism between cases and controls. The mean self-rated job performance score was lower for cases (7.63, SE = 0.21) compared to controls (8.60, SE = 0.10). Marginal mean scores of absolute presenteeism among cases (76.30) were lower ( p  < 0.05, eta squared = 0.075) than controls (85.97). The marginal mean annual cost of presenteeism was higher in cases (MYR 21,237.52) compared to controls (MYR 12,089.74) ( p  < 0.05, eta squared = 0.082)., Conclusion: Absolute presenteeism was lower among school teachers who experienced incident CVD and the annual cost of presenteeism was substantial. Implementing supportive work strategies in school settings is recommended to increase absolute presenteeism, which can lead to a reduction in the annual cost of presenteeism among teachers experiencing incident CVD., Competing Interests: The authors declare there are no competing interests., (©2024 Yap et al.)

The current study aims to examine lecturer readiness for English Medium Instruction (EMI) in higher educational institutions and the contextual influences of gender, age, academic qualification, teaching experience, EMI course teaching involvement, and EMI training. A quantitative research design was employed, and a survey questionnaire was completed by 227 lecturers (out of 250 invited participants) from private universities in Klang Valley, Malaysia to gauge self-ratings of personal knowledge, skills, abilities, and attitudes in educating EMI courses. The collected data were subsequently analysed via the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 27.0 software before revealing the findings from the inferential statistics of the t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) on lecturers' gender, age, academic qualification, teaching experience, EMI course teaching involvement, and EMI training. Resultantly, the important role of lecturers' knowledge, understanding, skills, abilities, and attitudes was highlighted to further enhance intercultural communicative competence in managing the increasingly diversified student body in EMI classrooms., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Lo, Othman. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Work performance has been identified as the significant key for organizations to gain competitive advantage and superior productivity. Thus, this study intends to discover what exactly affect work performance among employees of government agriculture agencies in Malaysia. A total of 180 employees were selected as the respondents for this study. The respondents were chosen from ten government agriculture agencies in Malaysia. From the ANOVA and independent t-test conducted, type of residential house was found to have significant difference with work performance while Pearson Correlation employed indicated that age, working experience and gross monthly salary has significant and positive relationship with work performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To determine the prevalence of work disability (WD) among patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and its associated factors., Method: This was a cross-sectional study involving SLE patients aged 18-56 years from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre (UKMMC). Employment history was obtained from clinical interviews. WD was defined as unemployment, interruption of employment or premature cessation of employment due to SLE at any time after the diagnosis. SLE disease characteristics, presence of organ damage and Safety of Estrogens in Lupus Erythematosus National Assessment-SLE Disease Activity Index (SLEDAI) flare index were determined from the medical records. Self-reported quality of life (QoL) was performed using the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form-36 (SF-36). Demographic factors, disease characteristics, and QoL were compared between patients with and without WD using statistical analyses., Results: A total of 215 patients were recruited and the majority were Malay (60.5%), followed by Chinese (33.5%), Indian (4.5%) and others (n = 4, 1.9%). The prevalence of WD was 43.2% (n = 93) with 22.3% (n = 48) patients were unemployed at the time of study. Over half the patients with WD (n = 51, 54.8%) had onset of disability at <5 years from diagnosis. Patients with WD had significantly lower health-related QoL. The independent factors associated with WD were SLEDAI score at diagnosis, frequency of flare, Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics score, being married, had lower education and lupus nephritis., Conclusion: We found a high rate of WD in patients with SLE and it was significantly associated with SLE-related factors, in particular higher disease activity, presence of renal involvement and organ damage., (© 2019 Asia Pacific League of Associations for Rheumatology and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.)