Knowledge management initiatives, innovation and GLC performance

A model of knowledge management initiatives, innovation and performance evaluation was developed and tested on listed Malaysian Government-Linked companies (GLC). Data collected from 273 employees representing the three different levels of management were subjected to structural equation modeling analysis. The proposed model fits the data well. Results indicate that employees perceived knowledge management initiatives as important antecedents of innovation in the GLC, and innovation in return resulted in better organizational performance

Tahap kepercayaan guru besar terhadap guru: Satu penilaian

Malaysia adalah salah sebuah negara yang memberi perhatian utama dalam pembangunan pendidikan dengan memberi kepekaan kepada pengurusan pendidikan yang berkesan serta kualiti dan profesionalisme guru. Bertitik tolak daripada aspirasi tersebut, kepercayaan pemimpin sekolah terhadap guru perlu dikenal pasti dalam usaha melihat sekolah mencapai kecemerlangan hasil jalinan yang positif antara pemimpin pendidikan dengan guru. Secara umum, kajian dilaksanakan adalah untuk menentukan tahap kepercayaan guru besar di sekolah kebangsaan terhadap guru berdasarkan Model Kepercayaan multi-dimensi oleh Tschannen-Moran (2004). Sampel guru besar untuk kajian ini telah dipilih melalui kaedah persampelan rawak iaitu 155 orang guru besar yang mewakili sekolah kebangsaan di seluruh negara. Kajian berbentuk tinjauan ini juga telah menggunakan soal selidik utama iaitu Principals Trust Inventory yang turut dibina oleh Tschannen-Moran yang telah diterjemahkan, dinilai ketekalan dalaman serta diubah suai untuk tujuan kajian ini. Secara keseluruhan, kajian mendapati bahawa tahap kepercayaan guru besar terhadap guru adalah pada tahap yang tinggi hasil maklum balas 154 orang guru besar. Penilaian tahap kepercayaan ini turut didapati tidak berbeza serta tidak mempunyai perkaitan dengan faktor latar belakang mereka

A study on factors that influence organization commitment among employees at corporate office Kulim (M) Berhad / Nurhafizah Mohd Dahwam and Suraidah A Rahman

Changes are an ongoing-challenges faced by organization to be overcome ahead of the competitors to ensure companies gain competitive advantages. In other words, it is common place for firms to face changes both internal and external the company has to adapt to these changes. Recently, organizations need to improve their competitive advantages as to maximize the achievement from the needed changes of transformation process in order to compete with competitors. Therefore, reaching optimum productivity is the most considerable aim of each organization and it depend on human force as to plays a significant role in changing the level of productivity to ensure that organization can perform well and achieving competitive advantages. However, in today competitive world, organization cannot perform well unless the employees in such organization are committed and work effectively as a team’s in organization. It good to have a faithful employee’s who do their job task independently but in our challenging world today, employees have to work together as a team’s and have to prove that they are worth being part of these organization due to want to be half of successful organization that provide a good income and opportunities of growth and development to them (Mohamed Madi; Dr. Ismael Abu-Jarad; Ali H. M. Alqahtani, 2012). In addition, to stay be competitive, organization itself need to maintain their worker to stay and remain work with them and willingly to support organization without need to change one’s loyalty to other organization that offer more than what organization provide to them especially those worker that have an special skill or abilities. This is because changes in our life today might change the nature of work and necessity of worker in term of work environment, salary and compensation and job satisfaction that organization need to paid more attention to that issues. Meanwhile, the dissatisfaction among a special worker to organization might make them leave company and go to other company that offered more to them. On the other hand, if organization provide them with enough necessity that worker need as to keep they stay working, they will stay loyalty and committed to give all of effort to help organization become success and able to face with changes while competing with other organization. Thus, feel of loyalty and commitment to organization are important to ensure that organization might perform well, keep productive and able to stand in a line together with a successful organization in the world. According to Natalia Sarkisian, Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes, Rucha Bhate, Jungui Lee and Rene Carapinha (2011) stated that organizational commitment among respondents at the worksite in the United States does not significantly differ from the organizational commitment of employees in other country. About 83% of respondents at the worksites in the United States moderately to strongly agree that they are willing to work harder that they have to in order to help their organization succeed while 77.3% of respondents moderately to strongly agree that they feel proud to be working for their organization. Organization commitment is an important area of study to many researchers and organization because the outcome of this behavior or value may help to determine many works related interaction of the employees. It is related to the employee’s desire to stay continue working with the particular organization. Thus, both of researcher and practitioners are so keen and interested to understand the factors that may influence an employee’s decision to stay or leave the organization (Muhiniswari Govindasamy, 2009). From previous studies, there are many factors that may influence organizational commitment such as demographic, leadership, salary and compensation, job satisfaction, training and development, job security

Essential oil constituents of Alpinia mutica Roxb.

The oil of Alpinia mutica Roxb was produced by hydrodistillation from fresh rhizomes, collected from cultivated plants in Universiti Pertanian Malaysia. The oil was analyzed by GC/MS and 24 components were identified which constituted 87.5% of the oil. The major components of the oil were camphor (35.6%), 1,8-cineole (9.4%) and borneol (8.3%)

Pricing and Causality Among Selected Fats and Oils

This paper studies the nature of price relationships among selected prices of five fats and oils (palm oil, soybean, coconut, fish oils and tallow) to provide empirical evidence as to the competitive structure of the fats and oils market. The fats and oils market is highly competitive and price is shown to be simultaneously discovered by the market with minimum lags and distortions. Statistical causality models developed by Granger, Sims and Haugh-Pierce were used to examine this hypothesis. Inferences are made as to the applicability of the models in understanding the nature of the market

Knowledge, attitude, and practice regarding cholera among non-academic staff of International Islamic University Malaysia Kuantan Medical Campus

Background: Cholera is a water and food-borne infectious disease caused by Vibrio cholerae. Cholera usually causes fatality in the case of severe infections. Furthermore, cholera outbreaks are still recurring over time, especially in many developing countries. Cholera outbreak may be due to lack of basic knowledge, awareness and preventive attitude among public. The objectives of this study are to evaluate the knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) regarding cholera among non-academic staff of IIUM Kuantan community, to find the related factors of KAP regarding cholera and to find the association between KAP regarding cholera. Methods: This was a questionnaire-based cross-sectional study. This study used convenience sampling. The sample size for this study is 100 and was analyzed by using SPSS software using various tests. Those tests were independent t-test, Mann-Whitney test, Kruskal Wallis test and correlation test. There are six independent variables affecting knowledge, attitude and practice regarding cholera which are genders, marital statuses, and categories of occupation, different faculties, age-groups and level of education. Results: Categories of occupations showed no significant difference between administrative and clinical staff knowledge (p=0.360) and practice (p=0.437) level. Respondent’s attitude however showed significant difference (p=0.034) between clerk and clinical staff. As for other sociodemographic variables, the results showed no significant difference for knowledge, attitude and practice level. The results showed low positive correlation between knowledge and practice regarding cholera (r=0.338), between attitude and practice regarding cholera (r=0.331) and between knowledge and attitude (r=0.233). Conclusions: KAP practice scores were at an acceptable level

TEACHERS’ ENGAGEMENT IN SOCIAL SUPPORT PROCESS ON A NETWORKING SITE

This paper is part of a larger study investigating teachers’ engagement in social support process on a networking site. It concentrates on the social and discursive practices of 20 Malaysian English language teachers as they co-construct social support on Facebook Timelines. The main data generated from participant observations were analysed using discourse analysis approach. The findings revealed that the teachers mainly post about negative experiences at school, such as facing colleagues and students whom they perceived as problematic and time pressure. By posting their negative experiences, teachers can be seen to initiate the co-construction of both emotional and informational support with Friends they believe are like-minded and supportive. This paper thus argues that teachers' postings on social networking sites are more than just an account of mundane teaching-related experiences, but serve as a mechanism for them to obtain social support to help them reflect on their practice and cope with the emotional turmoil arising from day-to-day challenges at school. Keywords: Social support, Malaysian English language teacher, Facebook Timeline, co-construction, discursive identity.Cite as: Rashid, R.A., Rahman, M.F.A., & Rahman, S.B.A. (2016). Teachers’ engagement in social support process on a networking site. Journal of Nusantara Studies, 1(1), 34-45.  http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol1iss1pp34-4

Dynamic mechanical properties of Polyurethane Shape Memory Polymer Composites (SMPC) with different volume fractions of chopped strand mat glass fiber

Polyurethane shape memory polymer (SMP) are comparatively low in modulus. Hence, there is a need for incorporation of chopped strand mat glass fibers as reinforcing materials for the development of SMP composites (SMPC). In this study, glass fibers in different volume fractions which are 0%, 5%, 10%, 15% and 30% were used. The aim is to obtain the optimum volume fractions of glass fibers in SMPC based on the dynamic mechanical properties. The dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) was carried out to determine the dynamic mechanical properties of the composite material. The dynamic parameters which reliance to temperature such as storage modulus (E’), loss modulus (Eâ€), damping factor (tan δ), glass transition temperature (Tg) values and others will gives the data regarding the adhesion of fiber-matrix of the composite material. The result shows that upon the addition of reinforcing fibers, an improvement in storage modulus was obtained. The tan δ peak value were decrease when the fiber volume fractions were increased, which confirming the reinforcing effectiveness of glass fibers in SMPC. It was also observed that the (Tg) increase upon the addition of reinforcing glass fibers. Summarizing, 15SMPC was chosen as the optimum volume fractions of glass fibers in SMPC. The parameter of the damping vibration demonstrates main significance for civil applications for building reliability and performance enhancement. Besides, it can foresee the impacts of temperature and time towards the polymer viscoelastic performance under various conditions. This study will provide several information to determine its functional application in future research

Preparation and characterisation of inexpensive porous kaolin hollow fibre as ceramic membrane supports for gas separation application

Low-cost, porous ceramic kaolin-based hollow fibre membrane support (HFMS) for gas separation application was developed via phase inversion technique. The ceramic suspensions with various ratios of kaolin to polyethersulfone (PESf) binder (5:1 to 9:1) were extruded and then sintered at 1200 to 1500 °C. The HFMSs were characterised by several analyses to investigate the effects of kaolin/PESf ratio and sintering temperature on the sample properties. The results showed that the kaolin/PES ratio and sintering temperature affected the considerable structure and physical properties of the kaolin membrane. It is observed that with increasing sintering temperature, the porosity and gas permeation of the HFMS decreased, while the bending strength and density of the HFMS increased. As a result, a porous HFMS with sufficient mechanical strength and high gas permeation characteristics is achievable if the appropriate kaolin/PESf ratio and sintering temperature are chosen