Search

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the performance of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of public listed companies (PLCs) in Malaysia through their SDGs disclosure. In addition, it examines the impact of integrated reporting (IR) quality on the SDGs’ performance.Design/methodology/approachData are collected from an initial sample of Malaysia’s top 100 market-leading PLCs from 2016 to 2020. Univariate and multivariate analyses were used to test the research hypotheses.FindingsThe results reveal an increasing trend in SDGs’ performance. Companies contributing toward the 17 SDGs grew from 14% in 2016 to 78% in 2020. On a priority basis, the average score of the five years showed that the Malaysian PLCs are paying more attention to SDG 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth (53%); SDG 12 Responsible Consumption and Production (43%); and SDG 13 Climate Action (42%). In addition, the fixed effects regression analysis proves that companies with higher IR quality are more likely to provide better SDGs disclosure.Practical implicationsThis study provides insights to policymakers, investors and management on the vital role of businesses in supporting the SDGs’ achievement and how IR reveals a turning point in achieving the United Nations SDGs’ agenda.Social implicationsThis study provides a clearer understanding of the activities seeking to achieve the SDGs and the influence of IR on them. This opens the debate for future research.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is a pioneer in examining whether the quality of IR influences SDGs disclosure among large companies in one of the emerging economies in Southeast Asia in its early application stage.

This paper investigates the effect of enterprise risk management (ERM) implementation on the cost of capital (cost of debt [Cd], cost of equity [Ce], and weighted average cost of capital [WACC]) for the oil and gas industry. The research is conducted using panel data analysis from 2008?2017 for 41 oil and gas companies publicly listed on the Bursa Malaysia. ERM implementation data is collected from company annual reports, while the cost of capital data is obtained from Thomson Reuters DataStream. The results indicate that an increase in the level of ERM implementation reduces the cost of capital, which we argue is one mechanism through which ERM increases firm value. Future research can use our investigation to delve deeper into ERM and value creation topics.

This paper empirically investigates the impact of overall sustainability reporting as well as its components (economic, environmental, and social sustainability reporting) on the cost of debt and equity capital for Malaysian oil and gas companies. The data was collected from 41 publicly listed oil and gas companies in Malaysia for the period from 2008 to 2017. Qualitative information was gathered for sustainability reporting and then converted into quantitative form by assigning weights according to the extent of reporting. The cost of capital information was sourced through Thomson Reuters Datastream. Panel data analysis was employed using generalized least square (GLS) random effects regression to examine the relationship between sustainability reporting and cost of capital. Firm reputation, size, and profitability were included as control variables. The findings indicate that overall sustainability reporting and one component, economic sustainability reporting, reduce both cost of debt and cost of equity. However, environmental sustainability reporting reduces only the cost of debt but does not reduce the cost of equity. Social sustainability reporting shows no effect on the cost of debt or equity. The findings of this paper should be useful for regulators, legislators, shareholders, creditors, and practitioners in pursuing sustainability practices that not only improve economic and environmental performance but also enhance overall performance by reducing the cost of capital. The results of the paper highlight that companies investing in sustainability can generate positive value through the enhancement of reputational capital. This study is the first to empirically investigate the relationship between overall sustainability reporting, including its three components, and the cost of both debt and equity capital.

This paper conceptualises a framework that examines the moderating effect of sustainability reporting practices on the relationship between enterprise risk management (ERM) implementation and business performance. Business performance is proxied through a value-added measurement technique, namely the economic value added (EVA). An Effective ERM adoption has a significant positive impact on businesses' overall performance. However, there are limited studies conducted on ERM implementation and how sustainability reporting could influence organisations' performance through ERM. Many business organisations globally do not incorporate sustainability initiatives within their corporate strategy, whereas they should be critical input for strategic management and corporate planning. By combining the Stakeholders Theory and the Modern Portfolio Theory, this study integrates ERM implementation with sustainability reporting to examine their effect on business performance's economic value added. This paper proposes a quantitative content analysis of the of the annual reports to obtain information about companies' enterprise risk management practices and sustainability reporting. While secondary data related to the economic value added (EVA) measurement will be extracted from Thomson Reuters DataStream. The paper proposes ordinary least square (OLS) for the proposed analysis. The conceptual model espoused by this study will provide insights in formulating strategies and serve as an important conduit to enhance the EVA performance especially of the oil and gas companies. The EVA performance can be achieved through the improvement of price to earnings ratios and the reduction of cost of capital by reducing information asymmetry among the business, the insurance companies, the lenders and the shareholders of the company.

Recently, there have been many reports of catastrophic accidents in the oil and gas (O&G) industry which led to huge financial losses and hazards to humans and the environment. Apart from the primary operational (technical) risks, there exist numerous non-technical risk factors such as workforce protection, climate change, ecosystem, biodiversity, health and safety, governing compliance, and other environmental, and social issues. These risks if left without intervention could affect the green growth and eco-friendly resilience of the O&G companies. Thus, this work offers a conceptual framework on how corporate sustainability practices along with risk management implementation are stimulating green growth in the O&G industry. The presented theoretical and conceptual framework underpinned by the stakeholder theory proposed in this paper provides a foundation for empirical validation of the intertwined relationship between the pertinent variables. The measurement of the variables such as corporate sustainability performance, enterprise risk management and green growth is proposed to be drawn from earlier research and developed frameworks and guidelines by prominent organizations. The significance of this paper is to lend guidance to Malaysian oil and gas players to embrace green growth through sustainability and risk management implementation.

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are the cornerstone for sustainable development, but if they are not appropriately managed, they will impede progress towards the United Nations Global Sustainable Development Goals. Among undesirable impacts, emphasis must be put on the risk of information security (ISec) breaches, as they pose a potential threat to businesses there. Especially for publicly traded firms, they could create a long-lasting influence on their financial performance and, thus, stock investors&rsquo, confidence. Following the efficient market hypothesis&rsquo, s footsteps, previous studies have examined only the short-run impact on investors&rsquo, confidence ensuing to ISec breach announcements. Therefore, this study investigates the long-run impact of ISec breach announcements on investors&rsquo, confidence. Based on a sample of 73 ISec breach announcements during 2011&ndash, 2019, this paper examines the impact on investors&rsquo, confidence, as demonstrated by long-run abnormal returns and equity risk of those firms. Using a one-to-one matched sampling approach, each firm&rsquo, s performance is analyzed with its control firm over eighteen months, starting six months before the announcement, through twelve months after the announcement. Firms experienced a significant negative abnormal return of 15% to 18% during the twelve months following the breach announcement. In comparison, equity risk increased by 11% within six months before and after an announcement. This study can help investors, managers, and researchers better understand a long-term relationship between ISec breaches and investor confidence in the context of efficient market hypothesis.

The advocates of the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) theory postulates that share prices depict all the available information concerning its intrinsic worth. EMH espouses the Random Walk Theory i.e. future stock returns cannot be predicted based on past movement patterns. Contrary to that, there are believers of the Adaptive Market Hypothesis (AMH) who have questioned the adaptability of EMH and argues that market efficiency and investor’s risk perception varies across time, thus, stock returns can be predicted through active portfolio management. Various Studies have argued on market efficiency debate for developed markets, however, limited studies have examined the same for emerging markets such as Malaysia and Indonesia, which are most volatile among ASEAN-5 indices. Therefore, the primary objective of this study is to conceptualize the manifestation of efficient market hypothesis and investors’ risk perception in volatile markets of Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur Composite Index) and Indonesia (Jakarta Composite Index) by testing the 10 years (2010-2019) of daily, weekly and monthly data for the return predictability. The findings of this study will provide insight into stock market behavior to help investors to better strategize their portfolio investment positioning to reap the most efficient risk-based return.

Green governance is an emerging concept that has received considerable attention from academics and industry over the last decade. Nevertheless, limited evidence is available on how green governance can affect the overall performance of firms. Accordingly, the study develops a green governance framework and establishes its relationship with the firm performance measured through shareholder value-added. While developing a new framework, this study integrated enterprise risk management, sustainability indicators, and green board committees to provide a holistic view of green governance. A contentious examination of the extant literature indicates the efficacy of these factors in mitigating economic, social, environmental, and governance risks. Firms, coping with these risks through the execution of a green governance framework, ensure shareholders’ interest by enhancing their financial returns and stakeholders through promoting sustainability. The study provides theoretical and practical insights to the policymakers, regulators, and practitioners of the oil and gas industry in promoting sustainable and cleaner operations by executing a green governance framework. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to propose an integrated green governance framework for the performance enhancement of oil and gas companies.

Integrated Reporting (IR) is a relatively new concept that is considered one of the most recent trends in corporate reporting; it is still an emerging research area in different parts of the world. Malaysia is an appropriate emerging economy to investigate IR adoption. Large Malaysian public listed companies (PLCs) are encouraged by the Malaysian Code on Corporate Governance (MCCG) of 2017 to adopt IR based on the international IR framework. By combining the stakeholder theory and the agency theory, this article proposes a conceptual framework to explore the moderating effect of sustainability reporting on the relationship between corporate governance mechanisms and IR disclosure level for the Malaysian PLCs. To obtain the data related to IR and the other variables, the study suggests using a content analysis method on the annual reports of the top 100 Malaysian PLCs based on their market capitalization. The proposed conceptual framework could be very useful; it can assist PLCs having sustainability practices to adopt the IR framework, reduce information asymmetries, increase information transparency, and create value. This study contributes to the literature by investigating the IR practices and their determinants in Malaysia after the introduction of MCCG 2017.

Shariah regulations play a fundamental role in the governance of the Islamic banking industry. The Shariah board is an essential tool of the Shariah governance. This paper aims to investigate the efficacy of Shariah governance in Islamic banks in the evolving regulatory frameworks and sheds some light on the Islamic corporate governance. This study theoretically compares different Shariah governance structures, the centralized Shariah structure followed by Pakistan, Malaysia, Iran and the decentralized Shariah structure in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. The Shariah board’s independence in its supervisory role is the main feature of an effective Shariah governance framework. In terms of the efficiency and credibility of Islamic banks, thecentralized Shariah structure seems to be more advantageous for the industry. The centralized Shariah structure ensures consistency and uniformity in Islamic banking in issuing the fatwas (Shariah opinions). It improves the Shariah board’s role and independence that can analyze divergence issues across the entire Shariah board. Thisstudy could be helpful to researchers, practitioners, regulators, and academicians in understanding the true picture of Shariah governance. This paper emphasizes the importance of investigating the Shariah governance in Islamic banking. The study gives a direction to empirically investigate the role of centralized and decentralized Shariahstructure on Islamic banks’ performance.

Theoretically, fiscal deficit may be inflationary, but its sources of financing can bring change in significance and impact. Malaysia is facing a high tendency of fiscal deficit from the last decade. To finance the fiscal deficit, which sources are less inflationary in the country? To answer this question, the study aims to analyze the quarterly financial time-series data covering the period from 2000 Q1 to 2018 Q4 of Malaysia using recent econometric techniques. The analysis is carried out in three stages. In the first stage, it is tested that the fiscal deficit is inflationary along with the money supply. In the second stage, it is determined that political instability moderates the link between inflation and the fiscal deficit and the external sources of borrowing in the short-run, while the domestic sources of borrowing in the long run are found inflationary. In the third stage, the central bank borrowing and Bank institutions borrowing from the domestic sources and the short-term borrowing from the external sources are found less inflationary. The findings suggest that borrowing through the central bank and bank institutions (domestic sources) is less inflationary in the long term, while for a short-term policy, from external sources, only short-term borrowing is less inflationary, medium- and long-term borrowing are much more sensitive to inflation.

Creating value for stakeholders is a crucial goal for many organisations, including Islamic banking institutions. Value-Based Intermediation (VBI) is the most recent initiative issued by Bank Negara Malaysia to improve the role of Islamic banks towards achieving innovation, transparency, financial stability and sustainable growth. This paper aims to shed light on the VBI disclosure practices among Islamic banks in Malaysia and analyse the use of integrating reporting (IR) framework to communicate VBI information to stakeholders. The content analysis has been conducted on the annual reports of 16 Islamic banks in Malaysia to collect the data for the years 2017 and 2018. The findings showed that the IR framework, including business model, could present the VBI disclosures in a concise, holistic and efficient way in comparison to conventional reporting approaches. Furthermore, there is an increase in the implementation of VBI and IR among Islamic banks. Almost 69% of all Islamic banks have VBI disclosures in their 2018 annual reports. Nearly half of these banks used IR to report their VBI disclosures. This study contributes to the literature by providing critical insights to management, analysts, investors and policymakers in improving the VBI disclosure through IR as a new practice in the Islamic banking industry.

The purpose of this study was to conceptualise a framework that reflects an intertwined relationship between the green board committee and firm performance. Agency and stakeholder theories hold a basic notion of supporting the relationship between the green board committee and firm performance. The moderating role of intellectual capital (IC) was introduced in the intertwined relationship between green board committees and firm performance based on a resource-based view theory. This study proposes a new measurement index, namely, the “green board committee index”, to measure the green practices of organisations. This index is comprised of four dimensions: strategy and policymaking, monitoring and control, sustainability, and risk management. The current study hypothesised a significant and positive relationship between the green board committee and firm performance. It was believed that the moderation effect of IC strengthens the relationship between the green board committee and firm performance. The data for this study were proposed to be measured through a content analysis of the company’s annual and embedded reports and a Thomson Reuters DataStream terminal. It adds to the body of knowledge by alluding to an integrated notion of green board committees and IC concerning firm performance. The mentioned conceptual framework sends signals to legislators, regulators, policymakers, and practitioners on the critical insights and actions of green board committees in setting strategies and objectives, addressing sustainability issues, forging a relationship with stakeholders, and increasing the firm’s value from the business operations.

Academic and industry interest in sustainable development has increased significantly, which is evident from the number of publications in recent years. To develop the field further, this study conceptualizes a framework to establish the nexus of Islamic Corporate Governance (ICG) and Sustainability Performance (SP) in Islamic Banks and Financial Institutions (IBFIs). Although strong corporate governance practices are crucial for maintaining financial stability and development. Nevertheless, scant practical guidance is available on how multidimensional functions of Islamic CG affect the IBFIs' sustainability performance. A conscientious examination of the extant ICG literature facilitates the development of a research framework consisting of several research propositions. This study has derived the most influential Islamic CG mechanisms from the theoretical perspective of Agency Theory, Institutional Theory, and Legitimacy Theory and established their relationship with sustainability performance. Explicitly, this research focuses primarily on the key elements of Islamic corporate governance - namely Shariah board attributes and ownership structure - and aims to examine its impact on economic, social, and environmental SP. This study posits the ordinary least square (OLS) for the anticipated analysis. This study offers a rationale way for future research. In theory, Islamic CG's impact on sustainability performance has been elusive and needs more academic consideration. In this study, a total number of six propositions were developed to provide responsible decision-making opportunities to enhance sustainability performance. The research framework and propositions were developed to address the need for Islamic corporate governance procedures to encourage sustainable banking for maintaining financial stability and sustainable growth. This research is likely to add to the existing developmental plans of the Islamic development bank and other concerned authorities in addressing sustainability-related issues. This study provides policy insights to policymakers, practitioners, and corporate boards of the IBFIs to promote sustainable and cleaner operations through Islamic corporate governance. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that extends the current literature by establishing the nexus of Islamic corporate governance and triple bottom line performance in IBFIs.

Auditing firms rely on audit fees to generate revenue. The audit fee is generally agreed upon by auditee and auditor. For the calculation of audit fees, no standard formula exists. Pakistan's regulatory body for audit firms ‘ICAP' has imposed certain cost constraints on audit firms. As per the literature, stipend rates have been used rarely to determine audit fees. As a result, this paper examines audit fee determination using variables such as the company's assets, turnover, current ratio, inflation, and minimum stipend rate. These variables are especially influential in a developing country such as Pakistan. To determine audit fees, a panel regression model is being de-veloped. We used data from 40 publicly traded companies from 2014 to 2017 to regress on our model. After extensive testing with the Hausman and F-tests, the fixed effect model is finally applied. Empirically, it was discov-ered that the current ratio, the entity's turnover, and the stipend amount all have a significant positive effect on the calculation of audit fees. T The study's findings have significant implications not only for audit firms, but also for auditees in determining audit fees.

In economics, the investigation of the association between government revenues (GR) and government expenditures (GE) remains an essential discussion because of its vital role in policy implication concerning the Budget deficit. This paper aims to conduct a causal analysis of these two fiscal variables (government revenue and expenditure) using financial time-series data covering the period from 1990 to 2019 of Malaysia. The analyses used the unit root, Johanson Cointegration, and the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM). Unit root test proposed tested variables are integrated at a level first. Johanson's cointegration test disclosed the fact that long-run relationships exist between the tested variable. Finally, Granger causality analysis reveals a one-way relation between government revenues and expenditures and this unidirectional association is from revenues to expenditures which indicates that in Malaysia, expenditures are supported by revenues; in other words, the Tax-spend hypothesis is supported. In VECM short-run analysis, government revenues can affect government expenditures significantly and 11% disequilibrium can be corrected in the short-run. In short-run and long-run revenues are supporting expenditures. The study recommends that to avoid a high risk of economic problems like a fiscal illusion, unnecessary financial burden, and inflation policymakers should not be imposing a high tax rate to cut the budget deficit.

Limited considerations have been given to transform the agile development activities in global software development (GSD). In GSD, agile development becomes more complex due to geographically distributed teams. This study reported the factors that are important to transform the agile in GSD, using systematic literature review. A total of 30 success factors (SFs) were identified from the 75 selected primary studies. We further analyse the investigated SFs based on organisations types and organisations size with the aims to analyse the significance of identified SFs with respect to organisation types and size. Moreover, the identified SFs were mapped into six categories of the robust framework and the mapping results shows the project management is the key category of the identified factors. We believe that this study can provide a framework for tackling problems associated with agile activities in a GSD, which is significant to the success and progression of GSD firms.

The purpose of this study is to examine the bankruptcy profile of the Islamic banking industry in Pakistan for the post-crisis period 2007-2008. This study used Altman’s Z-score bankruptcy evaluation model for evaluating bankruptcy rates of the sampled Islamic banks from Pakistan for the post-crisis period 2009-2015. ANOVA result shows the P-value with 0.002, which implies that the sampled Islamic banks from Pakistan do differ in their rates of bankruptcy. Regression results show that the variables liquidity and productivity ratios have a significant positive impact on the bankruptcy profile of the Islamic banking sector in Pakistan. While profitability and insolvency, ratios indicated an insignificant impact on the bankruptcy profile of the Islamic banking industry in Pakistan. The overall analysis of this study is viable to draw the attention of researchers and practitioners towards the deteriorating bankruptcy profile of the Islamic banking sector in Pakistan. The study also persuades the researchers to design a separate Shariah-based bankruptcy evaluation model for the Islamic banking industry of Pakistan.

This paper presents important dimensions for an effective implementation of enterprise risk management (ERM) framework, namely the structure, governance and process dimensions. This paper also examines the penetration intensity of ERM implementation among the sampled public listed companies in Malaysia. The significant elements for the proposed ERM implementation framework, its implementation challenge and the perceived benefits are also discussed. Based on a theorized effective ERM implementation, 3 constructs and their measurement variables are highlighted for further discussion through factor analysis in relation to the significance of the variables’ factor loadings. Discussion on the results of the factors extracted vis-a-vis each dimension of ERM implementation intensity, its challenge and the perceived benefit measures will provide insights to a productive practice of ERM by corporations.

This paper intends to vindicate the influence of Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) implementation on firm performance. A sample of 11 oil and gas Public Listed Companies (PLC’s) were selected in this study. Data were collected using content analysis with regard to the companies’ ERM practices and their financial performances. ERM implementation was measured using COSO’s ERM integrated framework while the firm financial performance was assessed through return on assets (ROA) measurement. Multiple regression analysis was performed to test eight developed hypotheses. Results indicate that four components of the ERM framework, i.e. supportive internal environment, objective setting, control and monitoring activities, are found to be positive and significant predictors for the firm’s performance. The findings support the efficacy and potential strengths of ERM implementation in the oil and gas companies.

To increase the success rate of software project development, the review of literature suggests the need of effective risk management practices. However, significance and varying views regarding software project effective risk management in literature would suggest that the time is ripe for an exploration of the phenomenon; software project effective risk management. In this paper researchers contacted 14 experts of 6 different countries through an open ended questionnaire to take their opinion about software project effective risk management. Results indicated that the most of the experts have consensus about the strategies need to be followed and hurdles need to be removed for effective risk management. Moreover, results indicated that to measure the effectiveness of risk management, it must be viewed in broader context of project success.

The rapid expansion of the public sector’s investment in the early 1970s and 1980s in Malaysia had resulted in a bloated bureaucracy, inefficiency, high costs and low productivity. The emergence of privatization policy in Malaysia aimed to reduce the financial burden of government, increase the level of efficiency and productivity, increase firm’s revenue, improve the country’s fiscal position and encourage foreign direct investment. Nevertheless, some privatization initiatives are controversial. This paper reexamines the relationship between privatization and economic growth in Malaysia. Two sets of annual macroeconomic data from 1984 to 1990 and 2009 to 2015 were used. Descriptive and frequency analysis was used to test the hypothesized relationship between privatization program and its impact on the nation’s macroeconomic benefits namely GDP growth, job creation as well as FDI inflows. By looking at the economic data sets, this paper found that the influence of privatization in Malaysia on economic growth, job creation and foreign direct investment inflow varies.

The Electric Train Service (ETS) was introduced as a faster, safer, greener and more reliable mode of public transportation between the major cities of Ipoh and Kuala Lumpur. This service holds great potential in benefitting the society and the nation. A significant issue which affects the effectiveness of the ETS however, is the absence of an efficient feeder bus system. This paper presents a research to design a efficient and effective feeder bus route using the Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) technique. The objective function is designed such that the optimized route should provide the broadest service coverage, highest operation profit, shortest total travel time, and meet the highest demand. For the intents and purposes of this research, the Ipoh, Perak ETS station has been selected as a case study. The results obtained from simulations show that solving the route optimization problem using ACO can yield a wide coverage route which provides highly efficient and effective feeder bus service.

Different software risk management process models, professional standards and specific techniques have been presented in literature by researchers and practitioners in the software industry to make the development of software projects more likely to succeed. In this study different software risk management process models and Professional standards have been evaluated against the most effective risk management techniques and processes proposed by the different researchers in the last 13 years to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of different risk management process models. The results show that, there is no model which can be called the de facto effective risk management process model.

Financial data is characterized as non-linear, chaotic in nature and volatile thus making the process of forecasting cumbersome. Therefore, a successful forecasting model must be able to capture long-term dependencies from the past chaotic data. In this study, a novel hybrid model, called UKF-NARX, consists of unscented kalman filter and non-linear auto-regressive network with exogenous input trained with bayesian regulation algorithm is modelled for chaotic financial forecasting. The proposed hybrid model is compared with commonly used Elman-NARX and static forecasting model employed by financial analysts. Experimental results on Bursa Malaysia KLCI data show that the proposed hybrid model outperforms the other two commonly used models.

Customer's perceived trust towards an e-commerce Web site is crucial for the success of online business. Effective design of Web interfaces increases perceived trust of customers. Given many associated usability issues when performing tasks on a Web site, it is important for technopreneurs embarking on online business to understand issues related to usability problems of an e-commerce Web site and the techniques to identify these issues. In this study, usability evaluation was performed on an online gift shop with a group of potential consumers with age range of 18-22. Four different evaluation methods were used: Feedback Capture after Task (FCAT), Retrospective Think Aloud (RTA), Retrospective Think Aloud with Eye Movement (RTE) and observation. This study reveals that the major defects found were language and content, user guidance and support, flexibility and control, and visual clarity. Therefore, this study suggest that applying good user interface design could provide better user experience and thus increase perceived trust and user satisfaction towards the Web site.