Nigeria’s Legal Instruments for Land and Water Use: Implications for National Development

This chapter critically assesses the administration of land and water resources in Nigeria. Reasons why the Land Use Act has not met its objectives are discussed. It also assesses reasons why despite abundant water resources, numerous laws, and multiple governing institutions, Nigeria is still struggling to meet the national demand for water supply. The chapter concludes by suggesting specific amendments to the administration of both land and water resources. The main thrust of the suggested amendments is to address the current situation where government arrogates absolute authority on all land and water resources to itself. It is suggested that the government should consider adopting a multi-lateral relationship where government, private investors, traditional land owners, and prospective land buyers are co-decision makers in charting the future for the administration of land and water resources. This is aimed at eliminating associated problems such as delays, tenure insecurity and proliferation of peri-urbanization the current system

A comparative study of the business activity of the Malays and Chinese in Sarawak, East Malaysia

When the Malaysian Prime Minister announced throughout the country in November, 1989, that the New Economic Policy, which had been aimed at encouraging the Bumiputras of Malaysia divulge into business, had only achieved 19.4 percent success rate, few were surprised. This was because it had been known over the two decades of the New Economic Policy that the Malays had achieved little impact in the local entrepreneurial scene. What was surprising, was that no one questioned why the NEP had achieved so little, as compared to the hundreds of millions of Malalaysian dollars which had been allocated for the purpose of helping them become more entrepreneurial. It is the view of this researcher that the Malaysian government and publics still have not achieved the expected 30 percent NEP objective of Malay participation because the main issue at the heart of the matter, that is the fact that little is known about the characteristics of the Malays who have become entrepreneurs overnight, is not fully understood. This research, even though only focussing on Sarawak, is meant to act as the springboard for future research into understanding Malay entrepreneurial attributes and what more better way to do that other than by comparing them with the Chinese entrepreneurs in the state, whose successes in business have enabled them to dominate the state economy. Comparison of the business activity of the two races is the prime focus of this research and it is hoped that the results of this study will be useful for future policy makers as well as the entrepreneurial development programmes they design. Failure to do this will result in more wastage in the resources and manpower employed, largely because of duplication of the activities such as seminars, workshops and entrepreneurial courses which everybody seems to be organising but where nobody seems to be keeping record of who is organising what courses, who has attended what courses, who is or is not eligible to attend, or more importantly, even who can achieve the most benefit from what is being provided. This research reveals the similarities as well as the differences between the Malay and Chinese entrepreneurs in the study. These attributes are compared and analysed statistically to see whether certain characteristics (variables) for the two groups are positively or negatively correlated, and if so, how strong the correlation is. The analyses from the study is then compared to earlier studies which have all been done for the Malays and Chinese in Peninsular Malaysia. It is pertinent to note at this point that no study of this kind has ever been undertaken for Sarawak, and this study happens to be the first

Malaysian cultural identities and their influence on entrepreneurial intention and practice

Within Malaysia’s developing economic context, policies have been designed to address the perceived inequality in wealth and income distribution among the Malay population. The Malaysian government plays a major role in promoting Malays’ interest towards entrepreneurship as an attempt to reduce Malays’ perceptions of their economic disadvantage. By utilising Smircich’s conceptualisation of culture as a variable and culture as a root metaphor, as an aspect of social constructionist theorising, the researcher adopts a communicative-oriented perspective in researching upon these issues.Based on an inductive qualitative approach, forty Malay entrepreneur interviewee participants had been selected through purposive sampling and had been interviewed for this study. Based on the social constructivist theoretical perspective, this study adopts an interpretive approach by using semi-structured techniques to capture Malay entrepreneurs’ knowledge about intersection of entrepreneurial intention and practice with the social categories of their ethnicity, Islam, and culture within the Malaysia context. By using thematic analysis, this study provides evidence of an intersectionality which are both enabling and constraining at multiple levels of codes in the process of constructing Malay entrepreneurs’ entrepreneurial intention and practice within the business environment of Malaysia.Islamic values are pivotal upon the life of these Malay entrepreneurs, where entrepreneurial intention and its practiced relation and work are predicated on Islam, in their enactment in entrepreneurship. This study reflects individualistic values in it where it celebrates a comparison towards achievement-oriented approach which is a requisite in the western model values; existed within the Westerners’ entrepreneurial intention and practice. Thus, their findings are not necessarily transferable to Malaysian plural society, which is based on different cultural practice among ethnics and the existence of politically organised cultural communities, together with the overwhelming prominence of race in the modern Malaysian multicultural society

Entrepreneurial development in Malaysia with specific reference to training and development initiatives

The thesis aims at studying the Entrepreneurial Development initiatives in Malaysia with specific reference to training and development initiatives. The concept of entrepreneurial development itself suffers from a lack of consensus as to whether entrepreneurs can be developed or not. Gibb's model maintains that the development of entrepreneurs can be influenced. This is supported by empirical evidences from investigations in both developed and undeveloped countries. The Malaysian entrepreneurial development initiatives are targeted at the indigenous people known as the Bumiputera who do not form the business community of the country. The research issue is whether the emergence of Bumiputera entrepreneurs can be explained by the government initiatives that have tried to overcome (or compensate for) the disadvantages of their background and culture. In implementing the entrepreneurial development policy the Malaysian government creates a range of assistance. One of the most important instruments which the Malaysian government has used is entrepreneurial training aimed at overcoming the technical and management handicaps of the indigenous people who tend not to be exposed to the business/private sector. To analyse the role of entrepreneurial training and other development initiatives primary data have been collected from 202 respondents, out of which 200 were used in the final analysis. The results of the study show that the background and culture of the Bumiputera are important elements in understanding Bumiputera entrepreneurs. The general environment is not found as being important but the specific environment created by the various initiatives is found to be significant. It was found that the entrepreneurs themselves considered the initiatives as inadequate but nevertheless were benefitting from them. It was also found that there were no significant differences between the retailers and the manufacturers and the entrepreneurs in the developed and less developed areas of the country

Chinese entrepreneurial proclivity and the conjectured link with the experience of foreign sojourns: an empirical study involving undergraduate students based in Beijing

This research set out to investigate whether a sojourn abroad experience can develop the entrepreneurial proclivity of Chinese university students, and whether the sojourn abroad experience positively promotes student’s entrepreneurial behaviour and may lead to them to start-up their own business. This PhD aims to explore the impact that a sojourn abroad experience has on the entrepreneurial proclivity (enterprising tendency and entrepreneurial intention) of current students, and also explore the sojourn abroad impact on entrepreneurial behaviour of gradates. Thus, the research objectives of this study were to (i) examine whether Chinese university students who had the opportunity to study in the UK developed or enhanced their entrepreneurial proclivity through a period of study abroad; (ii) if so, why entrepreneurial proclivity developed or was positively enhanced through the study abroad experience, and (iii) to investigate the entrepreneurial behaviour of returnee entrepreneurs. This PhD undertook two studies which started with a quantitative study (Study One), using sojourning students as a treatment group and domestic students as a comparison group. Study One made use of an adapted General Enterprising Tendency Test (GET2) to explore the enterprising tendency of the students. Study Two was qualitative and further explored the impact of an overseas sojourn amongst returnee entrepreneurs. The most important finding of this project is that international education can develop entrepreneurial proclivity, as the Difference-in-Differences (DiD) approach by means of independent sample t-tests, ANOVA and a Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) model does show a positive effect on entrepreneurial proclivity from studying abroad, and there are substantial returns to international education in terms of entrepreneurial behavior. The findings of this PhD make a number of contributions to the current literature in the field of “entrepreneurship” and “international education”. Firstly, this is the first study to link the students’ foreign sojourn experience with entrepreneurial proclivity in developing countries like China. Secondly, this is the first study to explore enterprising tendency among university students in China using a reliable and validated quantitative scale – the General Measure of Enterprising Tendency (GET2) test. Finally, the research findings support the argument that study abroad enhances an inclination towards entrepreneurship development (entrepreneurial proclivity and entrepreneurial behaviour)

Malaysian Listed Firm’s Tax Avoidance: Another Earnings Management Strategy?

This study examines the role of tax avoidance on firm’s earnings management for a sample of 149 listed public firms in Malaysia over 2009 – 2013. Beneish M-score is used to measure the earnings management and effective tax rate to measure the tax avoidance. After controlling firm size, growth, leverage and profitability, the result shows that only two variables which tax avoidance and growth are positively significant towards the earnings management. The result implies that firms may manage their earning to enjoy tax advantages. Moreover, management in growth firms’ tent engages better earning performance and thus it may affect the firm investment strategies

The impact of customer satisfaction on purchase intention in Malaysian takaful industry

To date the study of customer satisfaction and purchase intention have dominated the services literature. This study is aimed to investigate the impact of customer satisfaction on purchase intention among Takaful participants in Malaysia. A self-administered questionnaire is distributed to eight Takaful companies in Malaysia as a study setting for this study. Out of the total 600 distributed questionnaires 390 were finally selected for data analyses. It is expected that findings from this study will contribute to the existing literature to both theoretical and managerial approaches in order to better understand the pattern of customer satisfaction and purchase intention in Takaful industry settings

Values and Identities of Women Entrepreneurs: A Study of Muslim Women of Malay Ethnicity in Malaysia

This thesis investigates how Islam, culture, and gender intersect in Malay women’s construction of their entrepreneurial identities. Interest in this research study grew out of my own experiences of working as an entrepreneur in Malaysia in 1996. Entrepreneurship has long been internationally recognised as an engine for economic growth and development, and this is equally the case in Malaysia. Yet research and theorising of entrepreneurial experiences remain largely rooted in traditional functionalist perspectives which tend to be androcentric, white, and Western in bias. These perspectives and have also limited the range of ways in which women’s experiences of entrepreneurship have been defined and understood. This study built upon culture as a root metaphor perspective, an aspect of social constructionist theorising as a methodological framework to underpin the study. Based on the interview data, the construction of women entrepreneurs’ identity is complex because of the interweaving of religion, culture, and gender which simultaneously enable and constrain at multiple social levels and categories. The women demonstrated various forms of entrepreneurial identity which are simultaneously Islamic, culture-driven – through their Malayness – and feminine while also embracing entrepreneurial values. Rather than supporting a view that women entrepreneurs should be moulded in particular ways to be efficient and successful, these Malay women participants exhibited inherently rooted entrepreneurial values. Moreover, gender plays an important role that reveals the notion of intersectionality between gender and multiple influences that shape how entrepreneurs think about their own identities in an entrepreneurial setting. This study also suggests that as well as being an economic phenomenon, entrepreneurship can also be read as a cultural one, hence culture as a root metaphor, in that entrepreneurship is culturally produced and reproduced in social practices. This study adds to understanding of the intersectionality of religion, ethnicity, and gender within the entrepreneurial context