An Evaluation Of Soft Skills Development Of A Degree Programme In A Public Higher Education Institution

Tujuan kajian ini adalah untuk menilai program ijazah Sarjana Muda (program AB) dari satu fakulti di sebuah universiti awam (Universiti AA) di Malaysia, dalam membangunkan kemahiran insaniah dengan menggunakan model penilaian Tyler. The purpose of this study is to evaluate a Bachelor’s degree (AB programme) from a faculty in AA University, one of the public universities in Malaysia, in developing soft skills utilizing Tyler’s evaluation model

The Application of Knowledge Management in Enhancing the Performance of Malaysian Universities

The government’s aspirations of making Malaysia a leading international educational centre in the Asian Region has put a strong pressure on local universities to improve the quality of education they offer. One of the major steps that has been identified by the government to achieve this goal is to enhance the performance of local universities through the application and implementation of an excellent knowledge management (KM) system. An effective KM system requires every academician to practice appropriate management of knowledge in his or her teaching and learning activities, which includes, generating, acquiring, storing and disseminating knowledge effectively to users of knowledge, especially students. A study by the Centre for Academic Development (CADe) of Universiti Putra Malaysia in 2005 found that the level of knowledge management practices in Malaysian universities was merely moderate; and to meet the national aspirations, KM practices need to be developed further from various aspects of structure, facilities and culture among the academic players. The objective of this study is to evaluate the level of practice among the academicians and to determine factors contributing to the effectiveness of knowledge management practices at individual, faculty and university level. Eight local universities, both public and private participated in the study. Factor Analysis was used to determine factors affecting the practices of knowledge management while Multiple Regression Analysis was used to analyse and determine the importance of various variables that will add value, thus improve the performance of Malaysian universities. The results indicate that info-structure support; infrastructure capacity; info-culture; and knowledge acquisition, generation, storage and dissemination; are important factors in shaping the KM initiatives. Info-\ud structure is found to be the most significant variable. This is consistent with other studies, which confirm that people and cultural issues are the most difficult problems to resolve, but tend to produce the greatest benefits. (Authors' abstract

The Role of University-Industry-Government Relationship in Cluster Development: The Case of MSC Malaysia

Malaysia is a transition economic country that aims to be a developed country by 2020. In realising this mission (Vision 2020), the cluster concept has been an interest and adopted by the central authorities. There are few years ahead to reach the targeted year and it interest of this study to investigate the relevant development on its own engineered cluster of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) that was put forward on the success of Silicon Valley in the US. This thesis focuses on the development of the MSC cluster in the Malaysia context. It examines and measures the state of the cluster, the role played by its core actors (from Triple Helix perspective) and their relationship in the MSC. The role of collaboration has been used to measure the relationship among actors with the key determinants of cluster formation. A mixed data collection method was used to answer the research question and objectives involved. A conceptual model for analysing the MSC cluster is proposed, bringing together insights from the literature on clusters, role of actors, collaborative relationship and the complex systems of innovation approach. This conceptual model uncover the weaknesses of social dimension (social infrastructure) in Porter’s diamond model and the general approach of Triple Helix model in the cluster development. The cluster lifecycle model is used to add the depth to the analysis on the condition of cluster development

The development of a sustainable framework for an industry driven career-focused ICT curriculum in producing sought after ICT graduates

The employability of ICT graduates is a critical issue that needs to be addressed by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). It can be argued that there are different challenges for higher education institutions, employers, and regulatory bodies around graduates’ readiness to join the modern workplace. The media and academic research is often critical on the matter of employability and continue to question the issues of (i) mismatches in the skills needed for and supply of ICT graduates; (ii) how faculty can keep themselves abreast with the changes in technology skills needed; (iii) how industry practitioners can be an integral part in the design and delivery of the curriculum that produces graduates with the global skills required by the workplace as demanded by Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs), Multi-National Companies (GNCs) and by the growing number of startups; and (iv) industry-academia collaboration for curriculum design and delivery. Typically, ICT remains the key driver and enabler of growth in all business sectors and is a recession-proof career; hence, all stakeholders should collaboratively design and deliver its curriculum. This study seeks to investigate the challenges Higher Education Institutions face in designing and delivering an industry-driven curriculum that would satisfy the expectations and requirements of students, academics, regulatory bodies, and employers. It aims to address the gaps and identify the mismatches in the expectations of these stakeholders. The goal is to develop a sustainable framework for curriculum design that contains strategic and measurable provisions in curriculum delivery, ensuring that experiential learning is genuinely embedded in the ICT curriculum. The research has achieved its research goal to develop a proposed framework from an extensive literature review and in-depth analysis of the findings obtained from online surveys and focus groups involving the different stakeholders – students, alumni, academia, and employers. This study contributes to the literature where minimal research is available on collaborative design and delivery of an ICT curriculum involving the different relevant stakeholders

Strategy formation at Malaysian higher education institutions : interaction between deliberate versus emergent approach

There is a large body of literature on what strategies are, and how they are formed in organisations. Building upon the two traditional approaches of deliberate and emergent strategy, recent studies have suggested that strategy formation should seek to integrate various processes, especially in different contexts. In the area of strategy formation in the higher education sector, however, it remains the case that some strategic researchers advocate more deliberate planning while others favour emergent strategy formation. Literature on strategy formation is in large part theoretical rather than empirical, especially in the private higher education sector. To fill the gap, the purpose of this study is to identify how strategy formation takes place in Malaysian Private Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The main objectives of this research are to examine the key reasons behind typical strategy formation activities, and whether HEI leaders in Malaysia believe that the actions taken are effective in achieving their strategic objectives. This study takes a unique research approach to investigating strategy formation processes. Informed by subtle realism ontology and social constructionism epistemology, symbolic interactionism is employed to inform the research’s theoretical perspective. Consistent with this research philosophy, ethnography is employed in this study. To ensure the high quality of this research, reflexivity is also used as an important methodology to evaluate the whole research process. A total of eight in-depth interviews were conducted amongst Malaysian Private HEI leaders, all of them key strategic decision makers and who have been involved in strategy formation at their institutions. The findings of this study suggest that strategy formation in the HEI industry in Malaysia is more emergent than deliberate, reflecting the dynamic environment and unique features of Malaysian HEIs. Some important patterns, including logical incrementalism, the political /generative process and cultural/symbolic process, were discovered in relation to emergent strategy formation processes. These emergent approaches were however not employed entirely independently, but were combined with externally imposed deliberate strategy processes. This study further explores why this is the case, and identifies the key reasons why certain strategy processes have had to be adapted in the Malaysian Private Higher Education sector. These are to be found mainly in the external environment, namely uncertainty, scarcity of information, and the significant influence of the MOHE (Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education). In addition, the study identifies three moderating factors in relation to the choice of strategy formation process: multidivisional versus simple/small insitutions; main versus subsidiary level campuses; and collective versus high power distance and high uncertainty avoidance cultures in HEI organisations. This research has been designed with the intention of bringing new insights to strategy formation in different contexts. Its conclusions make substantial contributions from both theoretical and practical perspectives. Theoretically, the study extends the mainstream of strategy formation literature into the context of private higher education in an Asian context (in this case Malaysia). For practitioners, the findings confirm that strategic decision makers face no easy task. Strategy formation is a complex process, and is highly dependent on the given context. Practitioners may use multiple strategy formation processes, balancing more emergent and deliberate thought. The findings also signal the importance of understanding the rich reality of strategy formation, which requires practitioners to have an open mind

Factor that Contributes to the Success of Green Technology Implementation in Malaysian Public Universities

Abstract The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between technology and green technology implementation. Besides that, the author also determines the effect of government support as moderator to the relationship between technology and green technology implementation. The respondents for this study are three hundred and eighty-four (384) staff from Malaysian Public Universities in northern region. The primary data (using questionnaire) then were analysed using Statistical Packages for the Social Sciences (SPSS) by referring to Pearson Correlation, Hierarchical regression and Simple Slope analysis. The finding from Pearson Correlation shows that technology has a positive relationship with green technology implementation. Hierarchical Regression and Simple Slope analysis confirmed that government support moderates the relationship between technology and green technology implementation. Keywords green technology implementation, public university, moderator, hierarchical regression, government support, green supply chai

Capacity building for transnationalisation of higher education

Purpose – Transnationalism and transnational concept are extensively researched in many social science areas; however, transnational management and transnational marketing is relatively a less explored research domain. Also, knowledge management for transnational education (TNE) marketing is not well-researched. Capacity building is an established research-stream, with a key focus on socio-economic and ecological development; however, prior research on capacity building from the context of TNE’s knowledge management and marketing is scarce. The purpose of this study is to analyse TNE marketing mix, to understand the influence of transnational stakeholders’ causal scope(s) on knowledge management in TNE to uphold their transnatioalisation processes through capacity building in TNEs’ marketing management. Design/methodology/approach – An inductive constructivist method is followed. Findings – Organisational learning from the context of transnational market and socio-economic competitive factors, based on analysing the transnational stakeholders’ causal scope(s) is imperative for proactive knowledge management capacity in TNE marketing. Following the analysis of transnational stakeholders’ causal scope(s) to learn about the cause and consequence of the transnational stakeholders’ relationships and interactions, an initial conceptual framework of knowledge management for TNE marketing is proposed. Practical insights from different TNE markets are developed in support of this novel knowledge management capacity building framework of TNE, and its generalisation perspectives and future research areas are discussed. Practical implications – These insights will be useful for TNE administrators to better align their knowledge management perspectives and propositions with their transnational stakeholders to underpin TNE marketing. Academics will be able to use these insights as a basis for future research. Originality/value – This study proposes a novel conceptual stakeholder-centred capacity building framework for TNE’s knowledge management to uphold TNE marketing and supports the framework, based on practical insights from three different transnational markets

A Longitudinal Analysis of Malaysia’s Innovation System in Shaping Innovation Capability, 1965–2016

This thesis assesses the policies and strategies implemented between 1965 and 2016 in building Malaysia's Innovation capability through the National Innovation System lens. Malaysia, a newly industrialised economy, became an upper-middle-income country relatively early due to its open economy and industrialisation efforts. However, its development story is between a rock and a hard place. It is no longer an attractive alternative for foreign investors, nor can it compete at the innovative frontier

Towards a knowledge management assessment tool : the operations management perspective

Copyright and all rights therein are retained by the authors. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and conditions invoked by each author's copyright. These works may not be re-posted without the explicit permission of the copyright holdersPractitioners are often confused by the wide range of Knowledge Management (KM) solutions that researchers and consultants offer. Part of this confusion is because they cannot determine how these solutions fit into their existing KM systems. KM assessment should be the starting point for any KM initiative yet extant literature provides little guidance in this area. In this paper we propose a tool that organisations can use to assess their Knowledge Management (KM) practices in order for them to make informed decisions and invest wisely. To that end we propose the Operations perspective of KM which encapsulates existing thinking. Our proposal goes further to outline key elements that a KM assessment tool must have and review existing tools against these elements. The KM assessment tool proposed in this paper has its roots in Quality literature and is ideal for assessing as well as designing KM systemsFinal Published versio