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PurposeThis study aims to investigate the factors that influence young consumers' purchase intention towards dietary supplements (DS) in Malaysia.Design/methodology/approachThe supplement industry in Malaysia has been growing rapidly recently due to a paradigm shift in healthcare management, from curative to prevention. Thus, it has sparked interest to conduct a study on the factors that influence young consumers' purchase intentions towards DS. With a response rate of 74.5%, a survey questionnaire was used to elicit data from 149 Gen-Y respondents who consume supplements on a regular basis.FindingsThe results revealed that the influencing factors towards purchase decisions among these Gen-Y respondents aged between 17 and 25 are based on product knowledge and product quality. The implications of these findings and directions for future research are outlined at the end of this paper.Originality/valueThis study offers empirical insights from the perspective of an emerging digital economy on the factors that influence young consumers' purchase intentions towards DS in Malaysia.

Facing stiff competition from counterparts and alternative entertainment choice in the entertainment market, individual performing artists try hard to get their name and performance noticed by the audience and investors through personal branding. However, it will be shown that the effects and success of personal branding are contingent on whether the performing artists are volitionally involved in the process. It will then propose how to enhance the performing artists in volition for personal branding.

Nurses act as customer-contact employees who are responsible for providing round-the-clock service to patients. Their empathy and competency skills have a significant impact on the quality of services provided to patients. The purpose of this study is to examine the role of empathy and competency in determining task performance and contextual performance of public hospital nurses in Malaysia. A survey using self-administered questionnaires was used to collect data from a sample of 354 staff nurses working in Malaysian public hospitals. Hypotheses were tested using the partial least square technique. Findings indicated that empathy has a positive relationship with task performance but not with contextual performance. Competency, however, has a positive relationship with task performance and contextual performance respectively. Empathy and competency are essential elements in predicting both task performance and contextual performance. The findings of this study highlighted the importance of empathy and competency in improving job performance among nurses in Malaysian public hospitals.

PurposeIn recent years, consumers today recognise organic foods as high-quality products which can benefit them in various aspects. The tendency to switch consumption behaviours from conventional to ecological food products or organic food has largely been due to the claims that organic crops are grown in eco-friendly and sustainable environments. Thus, the study highlighted unique results on young consumers' purchasing intentions from a new perspective. The paper aims to investigate the factors influencing consumers' purchase decision towards organic food, particularly amongst Generation Y consumers.Design/methodology/approachThe underlying fuzzy set theory is employed to handle the fuzziness of consumers' perceptions since the attributes are usually expressed in linguistic preferences. Overall, the study focussed on five important aspects – health consciousness, environmental concern, social influencing and ethical concern – that also include twenty criteria that had been identified and introduced after a thorough review of related literature.FindingsThe results reveal that the most important criteria in the selected firm are environment protection, chemical instrument, buying attitude and animal testing. In comparison, the cause group includes criteria such as environment protection, natural food and support for training programmes, whilst the effect group includes production practices, monitoring protections and ethically produced food.Research limitations/implicationsThe sample collection from the study focussed on Generation Y consumers who consume organic food in Malaysia. This could lead to the limitation towards external generalisability. The study will provide numerous advantages to the communities. The policy maker should develop a proper marketing strategy to promote organic food as food that is healthier, better in nutrition and safer for society.Originality/valueUtilising fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) in analysing the fuzziness of consumers' perceptions towards consumers' purchase decision can be expected to expand the breadth of knowledge to both academic and practical.

Social media has been used by people to create and share content with the public. Consumers have changed their purchasing habits from offline to online purchases during the COVID-19 pandemic. Social media is also changing sellers' and buyers' specialised strategies. This study aimed to study the factors influencing consumer purchasing behaviour via social media during the COVID-19 outbreak. 215 young adults from three Malaysian states which are Johor, Melaka, and Selangor, have been invited to participate in this study by answering a set of questionnaires. The successful response rate is 93.02%, where 200 completed questionnaires were used for data analysis in this study. The four independent variables, price, convenience, product variety, and risk, are tested in relation to the dependent variable, consumer purchase behaviour during the COVID-19 outbreak. The measurement items of all the four independent variables and dependent variables were adopted from the past research studies. The collected data were entered into SPSS version 26 and then tested using Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM 3.3.3). All hypotheses were found to be supported by the analysis results. Lastly, the findings of this study will help marketers understand consumer purchasing behaviour via social media during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The recent global outbreak of COVID-19 has created a huge global crisis, breaking down many global supply chains. Decision makers in the supply chain are faced with very challenging situation as the application of supply chain resilience mechanisms are questionable and unreliable during the post pandemic. Hence, leaving them to continue learning new ways to cope, adapt and mitigate the risk to navigate through the uncertainties. This imply that knowledge, skills, abilities and competencies of decision makers have become the centre stage for organizations' survival and sustainability.The purpose of this paper is to identify the key factors that influence decision making competency in the supply chain of the Malaysian manufacturing firms. This is a conceptual paper focusing on developing a theoretical framework through the integration of the behavioural decisional theory and competency model. The theoretical framework with respect to the construct of decision making competency are elaborated. This paper hopes to provide a valuable pragmatic framework and roadmap for managerial decision-making in the context of supply chain. By understanding the supply chain decision-making in operations, this can help to contribute to de-risking of supply chain beyond the usual risk response into the proactive reduction of risks for future supply chain sustainability.

Objective - The global spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has caused a negative impact on the global economy. Customers' purchasing habits are also shifting from traditional store visits to online store purchases. Millennials or Generation Y constitute a large proportion of consumers across the global digital space. Hence, the main objective of this study is to examine the purchase intention of millennials towards online fashion stores during COVID-19 pandemic. Methodology/Technique - A set of self-administered questionnaires has been distributed to 230 respondents which age range from 20 years old to 40 years old in three states of Malaysia which are Johor, Melaka, and Selangor. The five independent variables which are fashion innovativeness, perceived security, perceived value, information quality and cost saving have been tested on their relationship towards the dependent variable which is purchasing intention towards online fashion. The collected data were keyed into SPSS version 25 and followed by using Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM 3.3.3) to assess the hypothesis. Findings - The research findings indicated that the key factors of fashion innovativeness, information quality and cost saving which have significant relationship towards the millennials' purchase intention from online fashion stores during COVID-19 pandemic. Novelty - To the authors' knowledge, this is the first methodological study which include the five independent variables to examine millennial's purchasing intention towards online fashion during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings of this research will help e-retailers of online fashion stores understand the factors that influence millennials' purchase intentions. Type of Paper - Empirical. Keywords: COVID-19; Fashion innovativeness; Millennials; Online fashion; Purchase intention JEL Classification: M30, M31

Purpose This paper aims to discover why such a public partnership project had been successful with a non-profit third-party alliance such as a smart city consortium (SCC) promoting smart city development. Design/methodology/approach This descriptive case study is primarily based on analysing data collected from various texts, public statements, media interviews and three semi-structured interviews with key members involved in the Covid-19 dashboard project. Findings The data and analysis reviews that both interpersonal and interorganisational trust, dedication and proactiveness of the leaders at SCC were major contributing factors to why SCC was able to partner with the Hong Kong Government in the Covid-19 dashboard in the first place and that the success was also a direct outcome of effective mass collaborative knowledge management activities. Research limitations/implications The research in leadership attributes and activities in the non-profit alliance has been few and this collaborative partnership between the alliance and the government is an example of the importance of further research in smart city leadership. Practical implications In deploying projects for mass collaboration and knowledge sharing in smart city development (which is multi-disciplinary in nature). there are still many new and evolving organisational practices and leadership matters that many business leaders and city managers can learn from. Social implications Smart city development projects involve the notion of sharing data in an open environment enabled by software and mediating tools. Successful projects such as this Hong Kong Covid-19 dashboard which serves a diverse audience can further promote the importance of an open data policy regime for the benefit of the public. Originality/value This case study covers a highly original and unique case study with the leaders at the SCC and representatives from the Hong Kong Government.

The study examines demographic variables' role in academicians' proactive work behaviour (PWB) in private universities. Independent sample t-test and one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were performed using self-reported data from 287 academicians. Results show that academicians demonstrated moderate proactivity level. Male demonstrate higher proactiveness compared to females. Married workers score higher on PWB. An academician who holds a managerial position tends to be more proactive compared to others. Furthermore, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) holder displays a higher level of productivity. The findings offer practical suggestions to the university to address the situation and delegate job assignments based on individual differences. Keywords: proactive work behaviour; academicians; demographic variables; private university eISSN: 2398-4287© 2021. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians/Africans/Arabians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v6iSI4.2907

Purpose This study aims to investigate the link of functional service quality (hospital’s reputation, administrative procedures, trustworthiness, patient-care provider relationship and waiting time), satisfaction and patient loyalty on the obstetrics services in private health-care in Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach A total of 419 mothers who had obtained obstetrics services had participated in this study in a continuous and coordinated manner. The study was conducted in 10 private hospitals in Malaysia throughout April 2018. Findings Results show that providing excellent service had increased the level of patient satisfaction and achieved patient loyalty. Patients tend to switch to other obstetricians if they are unhappy with the current services that are being offered. The findings showed that patient satisfaction was found to be mediating the relationship between hospital reputation and patient loyalty; trustworthiness and patient loyalty; patient care relationship and patient loyalty; and waiting time and patient loyalty. However, this study also found that administrative procedures do not influence patient satisfaction significantly. Practical implications The outcome of this study able to assist the management of the private hospitals to have more operational and practical strategies that would enhance their service quality for the betterment in their services for their patients in this competitive industry. Originality/value This paper provides patients’ perception of their loyalty towards obstetrics services offered by private hospitals in Malaysia.

Nowadays, grooming is considered an essential part of life to maintaining and up keeping a healthy and hygienic outlook which plays a key role in social bonding. As it turns out, the desire to looking good has spawned a wide range of beauty products causing the beauty industry to thrive and grow at a rapid rate. In other words the Malaysian Beauty Salon Markets have become big business today, driven by a rising population, disposable incomes, urbanisation and increasing influence of western culture to look good and to feel good. The beauty market is valued at USD 119.24 million and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.23% in the next five years, to USD 153.86 million in 2015. As a result of a highly fragmented in this market, the need for differentiation from other salons is impendency for this industry. This research aims to study the different attributes of customer's concerns and reveals the final factors that generate customer intention to visit facial spa treatment centres in Malaysia. The effort is devoted to identifying those dimensions of services provided in facial spa treatment centres for instance, atmospheric, service quality, price, brand image and location which aid to build up a greater relationship with their patrons. Data is collected via questionnaires distribution from the target population of the female with the age range from 16-63 years old. A sample size of 308 was studied and data analysis involving Structural Equation Modeling SmartPLS version 3.0 software were used. Service quality reached the conclusion as the strongest predictor in influencing customer intention to visit facial spa treatment centres, followed by the factors of price and brand image. Further to that, an Importance-Performance matrix analysis was conducted in order to identify factors that need to be given priority for spa owners in Malaysia. These findings made contributions beyond the high context services for instance beauty salons, massage salons, hair salons, nail salons, financial consulting and medical care with the matching services characteristics.

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the effects of high-performance work practices (HPWPs) (participation, training and compensation) on nurses’ job performance (task and contextual) through the mediating role of job satisfaction. As nurses form the bulk of health-care professionals, their performance at work is crucial in determining patient satisfaction regarding care quality. HPWPs have been recognized as having the ability to affect employees’ work attitudes and behaviours positively. Specifically, these practices foster job performance.Design/methodology/approachSelf-administered questionnaires were used to collect the survey data on 639 staff nurses working in large private hospitals in Malaysia. Data were subsequently analysed using the partial least squares method.FindingsThe findings indicate that job satisfaction serves to mediate the relationships between the three HPWPs (participation, training and compensation) and the two dimensions of job performance (task performance and contextual performance).Research limitations/implicationsFirst, as all variables were measured using self-reports, a common-method bias could exist (Podsakoffet al., 2003). Hence, future researchers may want to combine self-assessments and supervisory or peer assessment to improve the validity of the outcomes. Second, the cross-sectional nature of this study limits our ability to make causal inferences. Bias could happen because the study examined both exogenous and endogenous variables at the same time. Thus, a longitudinal approach taken in the future could cross-validate the current findings and provide additional support regarding the causality of the HPWPs-job performance relationship. Third, the data were collected from staff nurses working in large private hospitals in Peninsular Malaysia. Thus, one should be careful to generalize the findings to different health-care professional groups and organizations.Practical implicationsFrom the practical perspective, it is evident from the findings that as job satisfaction is able to enhance job performance and given the need for nurses to provide quality health-care services, private hospital authorities concerned with encouraging greater job performance among their nursing workforce need to provide adequate support to their employees. This could be achieved through the implementation of HPWPs. Perceptions of the extent of a hospital’s HPWPs in terms of participation, training and compensation, have significant and positive effects on nurses’ level of job satisfaction. Therefore, it would be worthwhile for private hospitals to encourage more opportunities for nurses to participate in decision-making regarding their work. In addition, frequent training activities will be able to enhance nurses’ knowledge, skills and abilities, resulting in greater satisfactionOriginality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to investigate the effects of HPWPs on nurses’ job performance in the Malaysian private health-care context. As studies using Eastern samples are relatively limited, the findings from this study would serve to expand the extant literature from a cross-cultural perspective.

The increased demand for properties become part of the investment assets in Hong Kong. Facilities management practitioners need to face the challenges of proper maintenance and services to maintain the value of the property assets. Based on the literature, facilities management companies can benefit from the share of market strength through their service providers. Hence, with the increasing demand for quality services, facilities management companies need to strive for survival and maintain their business power in the industry. Nonetheless, literature shows that the service quality in facilities management is lacking. Past research put less attention in conducting a critical review of research articles related to supplier management practice in the facilities management industry. Additionally, the review identified a missing link of supplier management practice and service quality with the presence of outsourcing service provider capabilities as a mediator. The critical review outcome assists the development of a framework to link the relationships among supplier management practice, outsourcing service provider capabilities and service quality. This paper attempts to provide important supports for facilities management companies to capture the disposition of the company. For having better leverage organizational context by exploiting relationships with outsourcing service providers, this paper extends Resource-based View Theory into outsourcing and service quality context. Thus, this paper attempts to fill important gaps in the above contexts. Finally, this paper suggests several recommendations for future study directions in the area of service quality in the facilities management industry.

This research aims to investigate the impact of packaging on customers’ purchase intention in Malaysia. Many studies show that the outward appearance of a product’s package will appeal and consumers’ attention towards the products displayed in the open market. Since the consumers’ choice is the primary consideration that marketers emphasize on, packaging has become an important tool for sales promotion by most business organizations. Although a large number of factors can impact customers’ purchase intention, a product’s packaging is the most influential. Therefore, this research looked into the extent of how packaging has influenced the purchase intention of customers. Findings from the study show that three hypotheses out of four were supported which lend support to the vital role that packaging plays in creating appeal and influencing customers’ purchase intention. The conclusion of this study provides the theoretical implications and practical implications as well as suggestions for future studies in different industries.

This study aimed to examine the influence of the organizational factors (reward, training, and collaboration) and knowledge creation process on RD training; collaboration; performance; knowledge creation; RD latihan; kerjasama; prestasi; penjanaan pengetahuan; projek penyelidikan dan pembangunan.

PurposeIn recent years, the traditional pastries industry has gained popularity among tourists due to the advantage of the pastries location at UNESCO Heritage city, Penang. However, the little research focussed on this particular industry, and there is lack of evidence of the tourists' experience with the traditional pastries and how these attributes affect their revisit decision.Design/methodology/approachThe study utilizes a qualitative research design to gain in-depth understanding on tourists' thought and their repurchase decision. Secondary data were collected via TripAdvisor with 68 tourists who visited the most popular three pastries shops namely, Him Heang, Ghee Hiang and Min Xiang Tai, which are later analysed using qualitative content analysis.FindingsThe findings revealed that tourists generally concerned about the service quality, value, brand image and atmospherics that could affect their repurchasing decision. Particularly, the staff service quality has been viewed as the upmost important attribute to influence the tourists' decision. Therefore, the pastries shops shall ensure that the staff who serve the tourists shall be well trained to satisfy the tourists' enquiry.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitation concerning the interpretation of the secondary data based on the feedbacks and comments of the tourists may derive the bias possibility. Future research might consider the large-scale primary data to extend the findings.Originality/valueLimited research exists on the tourists' experience which affects the repurchasing decision in pastries industry. This study provides valuable information for pastries shops and researchers interested in this area.

Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR4.0) is changing the landscape of global manufacturing. As a developing nation, Malaysia’s manufacturing sector is a leading contributor to the nation’s GDP but its growth is in declining mode recently. Facing competition from countries with lower labour cost, Malaysia needs alternative ways to achieve competitive advantage. Many of its manufacturers are new to IR4.0 and also cautious of investing in such technologies to increase its manufacturing performance. Realizing this, Malaysia’s government introduced a policy on IR4.0 by focusing on the people, process and technology. The goal is to increase the skill set of the existing workforce through knowledge enhancement and adoption of advance manufacturing technologies. However, high level of transformation is needed, collaboration with external parties is important, and internal business processes and operating models need to change too. Many of them are lack in slack resources to pursue both explorative and exploitative learning. Organizational ambidexterity, which is the ability of a firm to manage both of these activities is crucial for proper knowledge management and improving manufacturing performance. The objective of this paper is to examine such interconnection from the context of a developing country as information from extant literature is scarce, especially on the balanced approach to source, transfer and protect the knowledge for optimum gain in manufacturing performance. Three main activities of knowledge management will be examined namely external knowledge sourcing, knowledge mobility and knowledge protection. The inclusive of knowledge protection also narrow the literature gap as it tends to be left out in previous studies due to its conflicting nature with other knowledge management activities. All the hypotheses and resulted conceptual model will be grounded with theories of Resource-Based view (RBV), Knowledge-Based View (KBV), Dynamic Capabilities and OA.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the role of leadership attributes and activities play on the alliance firm performance in smart city developments. It also highlights an overview of the growing phenomena in the smart city and sustainability development. This paper suggests the importance for business leaders to actively volunteer and lead alliance firm in promoting the smart city and sustainability development through organizing various activities to seek for new business growth. The paper provides a leadership perspective to evaluate non-profit alliance firm in smart city and sustainability development. This justifies the importance of leadership attributes and activities towards the non-profit alliance firm performance and a conceptual framework has been presented. It provides a highly original look at exploring the leadership and firm’s perspective of the contemporary development of the smart city. This paper further suggests the need to conduct more research in the leadership attributes and activities in smart city leadership.

This research paper studies the drives of the student into cyber entrepreneurial intention. Researching in this topic will help students more understand the factors that influence their brand loyalty. This research paper has focused on six factors that can affect the people brand loyalty. The factors are price, brand image, perceive quality, trustworthiness, attractiveness and expertise which were being researched in past research. The reasons to research on these factors are to investigate the changes in the past few years. Data (N=189) was collected via questionnaire to the respondents and carried out in Malaysia. The data collected are analyzed using SPSS and SmartPLS. Based on the result, there is two independent variable that had a significant relationship with brand loyalty toward sports product in Malaysia which are brand image and price. While the perceived quality, expertise and trustworthiness do not have the significant relationship with brand loyalty. There is a lot of improvement and recommendation that suggest for future study to discuss this topic in deeply.

With the development of the network economy, especially the promotion and popularization of mobile networks, traditional offline businesses are further integrated with online businesses, promoting the development of business online strategies. However, with the growth of enterprises’ business, their negative externalities on the environment have gradually become prominent, further affecting sustainable consumption. The relationships between businesses, the environment, and consumption have become the focus of attention. China’s fast-growing bottled water companies face similar challenges. The pollution that occurs due to bottled water packaging poses great threats to consumers. Hence, this study extended the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) by integrating three risk aspects, namely, water pollution risk perception (WPRP), non-degradable package pollution risk perception (NPPRP), and false information risk perception (FIRP), to examine the consumers’ perceptions toward these risk aspects before purchasing bottled water online. This study employed a cross-sectional approach to collect data from online consumers via a survey method. A total of 401 valid samples were collected and then analyzed via a structural equation model using the AMOS statistical package. The results showed that attitude (AT), subjective norm (SN), and perceived behavior control (PBC) toward online bottled water purchase had significant and positive effects on the consumers’ purchase intentions (PIs). However, under the influence of risk perception, the consumers’ attitudes, SNs and PBC became suppressed by WPRP, and SN became suppressed due to the impact of FIRP. Furthermore, the negative impacts of NPPRP and FIRP on PI were partially mediated by AT, SN and PBC. Meanwhile, WPRP imposed the most significant direct effect on PI. The study results will help businesses to develop better online strategies to reduce the risk perception of bottled water and provide theoretical value and practical guidance for realizing sustainable consumption.

A sustainable product-service system has environmental, social and economic benefits. However, prior studies of sustainable product-service systems neglected to address the interrelationships among various aspects and criteria and did not present improvement criteria. In addition, a sustainable product-service system has an interdependent and interrelated hierarchical structure and includes measures of qualitative information. The Ecuadorian construction industry faces challenges in decreasing waste generation, improving efficiency, reducing environmental impacts, and increasing social responsibility. Hence, this study proposes a set of attributes to create a theoretical model and practical measures to assess the Ecuadorian construction industry by applying fuzzy decision-making trials with laboratory and analytical network processes to analyze the causal interrelationships among the proposed attributes in a hierarchical structure. The results provide insight into sustainable production and indicate that collaborative advantages are the most common causes of a sustainable product-service system, and employee participation, self-actualization, stakeholder relationships and empathy are the main criteria. The theoretical and industrial implications are discussed.

Purpose This study aims to discover the influence of researcher competence on University-Industry collaboration via researcher’s domain knowledge. Design/methodology/approach Quantitative data were collected via survey questionnaire by using purposive sampling technique from a total of 121 academicians from all five research universities in Malaysia. PLS-SEM is used to examine multiple structural relationships between the researcher competence, domain knowledge transfers and spillovers and university-industry collaboration. Findings Researcher’s competence serves as a success booster to initiate the collaborative endeavour, and the University-Industry collaboration is found to be substantially influenced by the domain knowledge transfers and spillovers. Research limitations/implications The size of the sample in this study was however constrained by the characteristics and background of the targeted pool of respondents to be generalised to the population of all universities in Malaysia. Practical implications Researcher competence is found to be significant drive to the University-Industry collaboration formation through the development and deployment of domain knowledge transfers and spillovers. Thus, it requires the desire and need for continuous competence development for researchers, and a step change is called for individual principal investigators about extending their leadership across the field of studies and appearing as critical business partners in the University-Industry collaboration. Originality/value The paper contributes to the literature by empirically investigating the influence of researcher competence on the University-Industry collaboration via researcher’s domain knowledge. It attempts to show the researcher’s ability to leverage their competencies in increasing the collaborative endeavour in making out business opportunities, which will eventually influence the public university’s sustainability development. In addition, it proves the importance of researcher’s competence and domain knowledge within the entrepreneurial activities, which serves as the significant drivers to ensure successful University-Industry collaboration.

This study empirically identified and investigated the importance and performance of researcher’s competence which serves as crucial stimuli in initiating university-industry collaborative activities in Malaysian research universities using Importance-Performance Matrix Analysis (IPMA). The findings are endorsed by the IPMA that the importance and performance of domain knowledge are high in contributing to sustainability entrepreneurship thus lead to the university-industry collaboration formation. It is also found that social capital and market knowledge are important but the performance of these areas required attention from the management to further enhance. Unexpectedly, it is suggested that the management should pay less attention to researcher reputation as this is the least priority area for improvement as demonstrated by the results generated by the IPMA. Essentially, the findings contribute to the benefit of the university leaders to understand the diversity of competence possessed by the academic researchers as valuable resources in spotting and seizing a business opportunity.

PurposeThis paper aims to highlight a limitation of the understanding of agility within organizations, while providing the reasoning and anecdotal example of an effective setting where agility exists, and how this affects firms’ productivity through focusing on the principle of ownership motivation.Design/methodology/approachThe contemporary thoughts and historical research with anecdotal evidence are gathered from small business owners in the insurance industry.FindingsAgility implementation in firms today is mainly top-down team focused. While bottom-up input approaches are prescribed for firm organizational agility implementation, the mantle of ownership and drive are not imparted to employees. The example of a service industry highlights the possibilities of having agility within the organization implemented by direct ownership of most if not all the operations and functions.Practical implicationsThis paper shares a working example of implemented agility and proposes the application within the broader scope of firm operations, particularly for smaller firms looking for sustainable advantages.Originality/valueIt re-looks at actual implementable agile practices by re-imaging the role of employees into functional business units from the bottom-up, rather than from the top-down, as a different perspective of agility.

This research examines successful entrepreneurial practices of small and medium restaurants in Malaysia, which includes aspects of start-up planning, financial support, networking, family support, and government support. It also investigates the mediating role of innovation capability on successful entrepreneurial practices. Purposive sampling technique was used to collect data from 390 restaurant business owners through a mailed structured questionnaire. Structural equation modeling involving SmartPLS 3.0 and SPSS 20 software were used to analyse the data and to test the hypotheses. It shows that only start-up planning, networking and innovation capacity were supported, whereas financial support, family support and government support were not supported. Results revealed that innovation capability is a significant intervening variable on the relationship between start-up planning and business venture success, as well as the relationship between networking and business venture success. The study provides practical implications to restaurant owners to actively evaluate the existing resources for better decision making. Keywords: Restaurant; business venture success; networking; start-up planning; innovation capability. ABSTRAK Kajian ini meneliti amalan keusahawanan yang berjaya di restoran kecil dan sederhana di Malaysia, yang merangkumi aspek perancangan permulaan, sokongan kewangan, rangkaian, sokongan keluarga, dan sokongan kerajaan. Kajian ini juga menyiasat peranan mediasi keupayaan inovasi terhadap amalan keusahawanan yang berjaya. Teknik pensampelan purposif digunakan untuk mengumpul data dari 390 pemilik perniagaan restoran melalui soal selidik berstruktur yang dihantar. Pemodelan persamaan struktur yang melibatkan perisian SmartPLS 3.0 dan SPSS 20 digunakan untuk menganalisis data dan menguji hipotesis. Dapatan kajian menunjukkan bahawa andaian bagi permulaan perancangan, jaringan dan keupayaan inovasi adalah disokong manakala andaian bagi bantuan kewangan, sokongan keluarga dan sokongan kerajaan adalah tidak disokong. Keputusan menunjukkan keupayaan inovasi adalah pemboleh ubah intervensi yang signifikan terhadap hubungan antara perancangan permulaan dan kejayaan usaha perniagaan, serta hubungan antara jaringan dan kejayaan usaha perniagaan. Kajian ini memberikan implikasi praktikal kepada pemilik restoran untuk secara aktif menilai sumber-sumber sedia ada untuk membuat keputusan yang lebih baik. Kata kunci: Restoran; kejayaan usaha perniagaan; rangkaian; permulaan perancangan; keupayaan innovasi.

Motivation is exceptionally crucial in influencing the quality of health care work outcomes. In view of the mounting challenges and stressful work environment faced by nurses, social support has been identified as an essential resource that helps promote their work motivation. The central aim of this study is to explore three forms of social support (perceived organizational support, perceived supervisory support, and perceived peer support) on nurses’ motivation. Cross-sectional data were collected via questionnaires from a sample of 354 nurses working in Malaysian public hospitals. The hypothesized model was tested using partial least squares method. Our results disclosed that all forms of social support have positive effects on motivation.

This study aims to explore how the state of Penang could enhance a circular approach to single-use plastic by implementing a new federal policy (Malaysia’s Roadmap Towards Zero Single-Use Plastic 2018-2030). The study involves twelve semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders, including representatives from both the state and the federal governments, city council, producers, manufacturers, NGOs and the recycling facilities. The study clarifies what a zero single-use plastic policy means, presents alternatives to conventional single-use plastic as well as introduces several means of enhancing a circular approach towards single-use plastic such as improved waste management system, stakeholders’ engagement, Extended Producer Responsibility, effective policy enforcement, a need for clearer communications along with identifying measurable Key Performance Objectives.