Intention to adopt e-Business amongst small medium enterprises: a case study in Terengganu / Nurmuslimah Kamilah Abdullah and Azyanee Luqman

This research focuses on Terengganu Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) established in Terengganu developed districts which are Kuala Terengganu and Kemaman. The aims of this study are to identify the relationship between relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability and observability with e-business adoption and to identify the e-business adoption level among SMEs in Kemaman and Kuala Terengganu. A questionnaire was the instrument used in getting the data with ninety samples from Kuala Terengganu and sixty-four samples from Kemaman. The Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT) was adapted based on the five factors identified by Rogers (2003) which are relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability and observability that affect the level of e-business adoption. For this exploratory study, all identified independent variables had relationships with e-business adoption but with less than moderate level of association. Five adoption levels were identified namely innovator, early adopter, early majority, late majority and laggard. Respondents in Kemaman dominated the innovator, early adopter and late majority categories whereas respondents in Kuala Terengganu dominated the early majority and laggard categories

Assessing the employees’ awareness towards the Total Quality Management (TQM) at Inland Revenue Board Of Malaysia (IRBM), Johor Bahru branch / Nik Noor Afizah Azlan, Nurmuslimah Kamilah Abdullah and Norudin Mansor

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a wide, broad, continuous improvement initiative that many organisations have joined the growth of this phenomenon in order to drive their business into sustainable profitability. Therefore, this study examined the employees’ awareness towards TQM at IRBMJB. The objectives of this research are to identify the most relevant factors that contribute to the employees’ awareness towards the TQM and to find the relationship between employees’ awareness and independent variables (Top management commitment and support, employee involvement, and training and education). In assessing the goodness of measures, the factor and reliability analyses were conducted. The factor analysis was revised for three times in order to make sure that there was no item scored for loading less than 0.5. The Cronbach’s Alpha for each concept was between 0.930 - 0.965. Cronbach’s Alpha that was larger than 0.60 indicated that the items measured the intended concepts. The descriptive analysis (frequency distribution) was conducted in reporting the demographic information. The dichotomous scale was used to elicit the yes-and-no answer for the question: “Do you understand about Total Quality Management (TQM) that has been practised by the organisation?” There were 249 employees or 75.5% of the respondents declared that they were aware about TQM which practised by the organisation. The hypothesis testing was conducted by using Pearson Bivariate Correlation. The findings showed that the independent variables which were top management commitment and support, employees’ involvement, and training and education had a strong and significant relationship with employees’ awareness of TQM. As the extension of these results, the multiple regression analysis was conducted. Blending all the three independent variables in explaining the employees’ awareness formed 71.9% of a contributing factor. However, when we went in depth for each independent variable, only two variables would significantly contribute to the employees’ awareness of TQM which were employees’ involvement, and training and education. Thus, the study proved that employees’ involvement, and training and education would influence the employees’ awareness of TQM. To conclude, the organisation should try to focus on top management commitment and support, employee involvement, and training and education in assessing the implementation of TQM in the future since they were associated variables that would influence the awareness of TQM

A review of organizational relationship quality, trust, commitment and lecturers’ perceived performance in institution of higher learning / Zainuddin Zakaria ... [et al.]

As a result of globalization and the influence of working remotely, it has become more important to develop high-quality relationships in the organization for more cohesive teamwork among employees. High cohesiveness and synergy among employees will help organizations to achieve their goals. Management needs to understand how to interact with employees in ways that boost job satisfaction and engagement as perceived by employees. Many scholars agree that organizational performance is an indicator of how well an organization attains its desired goals. In addition to the roles played by the managers and superiors, organisational performance is also dependent upon the synergy of each employee’s performance and their teamwork. Whether it is private or government agencies, service or manufacturing, employee performance is very important. In this paper, we hope to discuss and describe the relationship between three elements of Organizational Relationship Quality with the lecturer performance. The dimensions of Organizational Relationship Quality include Organizational Trust, Organizational Commitment and Organizational Relational Norms. In addition, we hope to better understand the relationship and how the dimensions of relational norms are associated with a lecturer’s performance in an institution of higher learning

Assessment Method for Potential Educational Technology Competency Standard based on TPCK in Malaysian Higher Education Institutions

Technology in education is purposely designed to help both educators and&#x0D; students in knowledge transfer and knowledge gain simultaneously. In many&#x0D; aspects, technology in education is supposed to prove that education can&#x0D; be delivered effectively and efficiently. However, there are cases in which&#x0D; technology in education can be frustrating and annoying for both parties.&#x0D; Government and university management have invested a lot of money to&#x0D; ensure that educators and students can really benefit from the technology.&#x0D; In spite of huge investment on educational technology tools (hardware and&#x0D; software) over the past decades in various education initiatives, the potential&#x0D; of technology usage at university level has not reached the desired level&#x0D; among educators and students. What is the missing link for the realisation of&#x0D; the expected return-of-investment? Recent researches (C Akarawang, 2015;&#x0D; Bibi, 2017; Hersh, 2014) indicate that the problem is due to the gap between&#x0D; technical ICT skills and the knowledge of good pedagogical practice among&#x0D; educators. The outcome of this study proposes an Educational Technology&#x0D; standard to be applied in university setting using TPCK (Technological&#x0D; Pedagogical Content Knowledge) as the basic framework. However, this&#x0D; paper will only discuss a part of our standard development highlighting&#x0D; the assessment method that was used during the implementation of ETC&#x0D; 68 standard in our institutions. Overall, the descriptive result using pre and&#x0D; post means scores as assessment method towards proposed standard shows&#x0D; that the educators’ acceptance score in our institutions are mostly good.&#x0D; However the element within the standard least accepted are TCK (Technology&#x0D; Content Knowledge) and TPK (Technology Pedagogical Knowledge). The&#x0D; assessment and finding in this study nevertheless are suggested to be used&#x0D; as a guidance for ETC Standard implementation in university setting in&#x0D; order to stress the importance of considering technological possibilities in&#x0D; light of developmentally appropriate practices and specific learning goals&#x0D; in ICT/ET training provided for educators in HEI in Malaysia.&#x0D;  &#x0D; Keywords: educational technology; TPCK, ICT standard, university,&#x0D; educators, student</jats:p

Economic order quantity: an approach in improving inventory management / Mohd Azrai Naim Mohd Mawardi, Nurmuslimah Kamilah Abdullah and Ruzaidah Sulong @ A. Rashid

A basic research was conducted at a Routine Maintenance Company in East Coast of Peninsula Malaysia regards to inventory management discipline that focused on one high draw item, which is fluorescent lamp PLL 36 watt. This study was aimed to determine the EOQ, total annual inventory cost, number of orders and expected time between orders. It was found that the EOQ for the item was 518 units per order, at RM 43483.60 of total inventory cost with 6 times of order per year and 52 days of expected time between orders. It was recommended to the company to identify the inventory cost for the current practice and make a comparison with the finding of the study. On top of that the management has to consider specific assumptions before they proceed to the total implementation of EOQ in the future. An ABC analysis should be done to their inventory items in strategizing the company’s inventory management system