The mediating effect of employee's commitment in the relationship between organizational service orientation, job satisfaction and service oriented organizational citizenship behaviour

Organizational citizenship behaviour is important to organisations because it helps to promote organisational effectiveness and efficiency without the need for formal organisational resources. Hence, this study aims to examine the influence of organizational service orientation and employees’ job satisfaction on service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior (SOOCB) with the mediating role of service employee commitment. A research framework was established based on existing literature to test the relationship among these variables. Social Exchange Theory was employed to explain the relationship between the studied variables. In order to empirically test the research framework of this study, data were collected by employing a survey instrument. A total of 387 employees in the agricultural service sector was selected using simple random sampling technique. Data collected was analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). The empirical results revealed that organizational service orientation, job satisfaction and service employee commitment positively influenced employees’ service oriented organizational citizenship behaviour. In addition, it was found that service employee commitment mediates both the relationship between organizational service orientation and job satisfaction with service-oriented organizational citizenship behaviour. The results provide insights for managers to provide avenues for employees in delivering quality service to customers. The findings also suggested that employees with a strong sense of belonging as well as being emotionally attached to their organization will contribute to the excellence of the organization's service delivery. Given the growth of services in the agricultural sector, this study provides scholars and practitioners with suggestions and recommendations on how SOOCB can be encouraged in service settings

Dasar pertanian negara ke-3: Pemangkin pembangunan komuniti peladang, penternak dan nelayan

Ekonomi Malaysia telah mengalami transformasi yang begitu ketara sekali sejak beberapa dekad yang lalu, iaitu perubahan daripada ekonomi yang bergantung kepada sektor pertanian kepada ekonomi yang berteraskan industri. Pada awalnya, sektor pertanian merupakan nadi penggerak kepada pertumbuhan ekonomi negara terutamanya selepas merdeka. Namun demikian, disebabkan pemesatan pertumbuhan sektor perindustrian, secara relatifnya telah mengurangkan sumbangan sektor pertanian kepada pendapatan negara, perolehan eksport, guna tenaga dan juga pelaburan. Sepanjang Rancangan Malaysia Ketujuh, sektor pertanian telah kekal sebagai salah satu daripada sektor utarna ekonomi negara selepas sektor pembuatan dan perkhidmatan. Ia bukan saja memberi sumbangan sebagai pembekal bahan mentah kepada industri berasaskan sumber, tetapi juga memberi sumbangan dari segi pengeluaran makanan Dari semasa ke semasa, struktur ekonomi negara kian berubah mengikut keadaan perkembangan semasa dan perkembangan ini telah menimbulkan pelbagai isu dan cabaran kepada sektor pertanian, khususnya d&i segi kekurangan buruh, saiz tanah yang tidak ekonomik dan kos pengeluaran yang kian meningkat. Tarnbahan lagi, persaingan di antara sektor-sektor terus berlaku dalam pasaran global akibat liberalisasi perdagangan. Perubahan ini memberikan satu tamparan pada sektor pertanian dan telah mengakibatkan sumbangan sektor ini kepada Keluaran Negara Kasar (KDNK) telah berkurangan sebanyak 29.1 peratus (1970 - 1974) kepada 9.64 peratus (1995 - 1998) dan terus menurun kepada 8.7 peratus pada tahun 2000. Walaupun demikian, dalarn tempoh Rancangan Malaysia Kelapan, langkah-langkah barn dan berinovatif akan dilaksanakan melalui program-progran yang telah disusun oleh agensi-agensi di bawah Kementeraian Pertanian, untuk meningkatkan sumbangan sektor ini kepada ekonomi negara. Selaras dengan hasrat ini, Dasar Pertanian Negara Ketiga (DPN3) telah dirangka oleh pihak kerajaan bagi mempesatkan pertumbuhan sektor pertanian selari dengan sektor-sektor lain dan juga dasar-dasar kerajaan yang lain.Dalam DPN3, pengeluaran makanan tempatan akan terus dipertingkatkan dengan memberi galakkan supaya komuniti peladang, penternak dan nelayan mengusahakan bidang masing-masing secara berskala besar dan tersusun,menggunakan tanah secara optima, memperbaiki amalan agronomi serta menggunakan teknologi dan pengurusan secara moden

Salient beliefs and intention to shop online

This paper examines the relationships between salient beliefs and intention to shop online based on TRA model.Over 140 students of a Malaysian university completed a 4-page questionnaire consisting of 26-items measuring salient beliefs(convenience, information, product perception, shopping experience, customer service and customer risk) and 4-items measuring intention to shop online for 18 product categories.Regression analysis of factor scores (resulting from factor analysis of salient beliefs) shows that convenience, information and product perception jointly explain 43.5 percent variance in intention to shop online.The finding implies that online shopping is becoming more popular amongst students due to its convenience, ease of getting information and positive product perceptions.This implies that E-commerce operators should continue to make their presence known on the web. Limitations and practical implications of the findings are also discussed in the paper

Learning about learning styles: Pedagogical, curricular, and managerial implications

The way students acquire knowledge is an interesting issue and an important research agendum. Better understanding of the learning styles and their characteristics is a necessity not only to educators but also to learners (Vincent and Ross, 2001) because of the benefits if offers to both parties. This paper looked into the learning styles of secondary school students in a science boarding school in the state of Kedah, Malaysia. Specifically, it sought to determine what are the learning styles of science-stream students as well as identify if are there significant differences in the students’ learning styles grouped by gender, position in class, sibling order, father’s occupation, mother’s occupation, educational attainment of father, and educational attainment of mother.A Personal Learning Style Inventory (Wyman, 1999) was utilized in determining the learning styles of Forms 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 students. Data were analyzed via SPSS at .05 alpha. Findings showed that generally, the respondents’ learning styles was auditory. Learning styles differed significantly by gender and sibling order. Implications on curriculum, teaching, and educational management are discussed

Buying local brands: factors influencing consumers actual purchase behavior

The study empirically investigates the important antecedents: intention, patriotism, trust, family and government support to actual purchase of local brand in the Republic of Yemen.Though a lot of attention is given to study the relationship between key drivers in enhancing actual purchase and intention, patriotism, trust, family and government support.Still, there is a considerable confusion about how this relationship is developed and where it is directed. Each of the construct was measured in 7- point Likert scale ranging from 1 strongly disagree to 7 strongly agree, where actual purchase has 6 items, intention has 8 items, patriotism has 11 items, trust has 8 items, family has 8 items and government support has 8 items.Four hundred self-administered questionnaires were distributed to target respondents among education specialists in Aden, Southern Province, and Northern Sana of Yemen. 252 questionnaires were completed and returned, the response rate was 63%.The data were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) through AMOS 21. The goodness of fit indices of the revised structural model indicates adequate fit (GFI: 0.956, CFI: 0.984, RMSEA: 0.033, Ratio: 1.274, P-value: 0.066).The regression parameter estimates show three significant relationships between intention and patriotism (β=0.244, P-value> 0.002 and C. R=3.039), intention and family ((β=0.692, P-value = P <. 001*** and C.R=7.668), actual purchase and intention (β = 0.786, P –value = P <. 001*** and C.R = 6.904). The results show that purchase intention is positively related to consumer patriotism and family.In addition, the results also indicate that the impacts of purchase intention of the actual purchase are significant. These results are discussed in the context of improving domestic product brand in the Republic of Yemen

To share or not? Factors influencing word of mouth communication

In the consumer market, loyalty is an essential goal and a key element for a company to build a long-term sustainability and growth.Loyal consumers are more willing to make recommendations, advice and suggestions about a firms products to their friends or relatives through Word of Mouth (WOM) communication.In this relation, 90% of the advertising is viewed by consumers as non-credible while 90% of word of mouth communicated is treated as credible (Lee, Mullen and Fraedrich, 2011).The objective of this study is to determine the factors influencing word of mouth (WOM) communication among mobile phone users. Five factors which are Perceived Value, Perceived Quality, Customer Satisfaction, Brand Love and Brand Trust are examined to determine whether these factors influenced word of mouth communication.This study was conducted among 393 respondents from Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM), Sintok Kedah.The methods used to analyse the data are Reliability test, Descriptive Analysis, ANOVA, Independent Sample T-Test, Pearson Correlation Analysis and Multiple Regression Analysis.The findings indicated that all these five factors have a strong positive relationship with Word of Mouth communication.The results also showed that Brand Love had the strongest significant positive relationship with Word of Mouth communication with correlation value of 0.802, followed by Brand Trust with correlation value of 0.793.In addition, Pearson correlation analysis results showed that Brand Trust and Brand Love are factors that strongly influenced Word of Mouth communication. This study provides an understanding of the factors that drives word of mouth communication by a consumer.Word of mouth can be a main potential source for business to grow and hence it is very important for marketers to understand it

A data mining approach to profiling of MBA students

Data mining is the non-trivial discovery of meaningful, new correlations, patterns and trends, and the extraction of implicit, previously unknown, and potentially useful information from large amounts of data (Berry & Linoff, 2000).This paper explored the strategic application of data mining in higher education, more specifically in the MBA programme of Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM).The database known as Graduate Academic Information System (GAIS) was the main data source used for mining 847 usable out of 1,758 available data sets utilising E-miner.Analyses showed that age when enrolled for the programme and years of working experience were significantly important for segmenting the MBA students.It was also found that centre of study and entrance qualification were statistically significant in differentiating MBA students who are likely to complete their study successfully.Moreover, ethnic group (Chinese), mode of study (full-time), CGPA (3.13), marital status (married), and centre of study (UUM) were significant predictors linked to successful completion of MBA.The researchers recommend, among others, careful consideration of significant variables that had statistical bearing on programme completion

Dealer-supplier relationship satisfaction: Antecedent factors and its impact on trust and commitment

Relationship satisfaction is an important factor in understanding the development, enhancing, and maintaining of buyer-seller relationships in inter-organizational contexts.This study investigated the influence of antecedent and consequences of dealers’ relationship satisfaction in the context of supplier-dealer relationship in Malaysian automobile industry.This study explores the influences of use of power by supplier on dealers’ relationship satisfaction.This study also examined the relationship between dealers’ relationship satisfaction and its consequences, namely trust and commitment.Hypothesized relationships are tested using survey responses from a sample of 107 new car dealers.The study founds that only non-coercive power has significant relationship with dealers’ relationship satisfaction.Consequently, the study also indicated that dealers’ relationship satisfaction is positively related with their trust and commitment.Results are compared with earlier findings and implications for future research are discussed

Do not panic! enhancing service recovery of nursing services

Service recovery has been an important issue due to broader social and economic context that shows greater demand for health, care and support which can be concluded that it is critical to study the health care services. Predicting that factors such as top management leadership, teamwork, empowerment, training and commitment is critical to be understood because all these factors will affect the motivation and attitude of employees toward service recovery. Furthermore, employee is one of the source of sustainable competitive advantage to organisations. Nursing staffs are the ones who have variety of jobs to perform and need to juggle with many jobs at many places in the medical profession. Hence, there is no doubt that failure in their service might occur and service recovery is very crucial to make sure that nurses will perform better in-service recovery. This study, therefore, aims to determine the factors influencing service recovery among public nurses. Nurses from various public hospitals in Seberang Perai Utara, Pulau Pinang were chosen as respondents for this study. A total number of 400 questionnaires were distributed to respondents using simple random sampling method. Only 368 questionnaires were returned and used for analysis. The results of correlation analysis and regression analysis have shown that three independent variables (empowerment, training and commitment) had a significant relationship and influenced service recovery. In conclusion, the findings in this study revealed that nurse’s commitment is the most critical factors in service recovery

Optimasi Portofolio Resiko Menggunakan Model Markowitz MVO Dikaitkan dengan Keterbatasan Manusia dalam Memprediksi Masa Depan dalam Perspektif Al-Qur`an

Risk portfolio on modern finance has become increasingly technical, requiring the use of sophisticated mathematical tools in both research and practice. Since companies cannot insure themselves completely against risk, as human incompetence in predicting the future precisely that written in Al-Quran surah Luqman verse 34, they have to manage it to yield an optimal portfolio. The objective here is to minimize the variance among all portfolios, or alternatively, to maximize expected return among all portfolios that has at least a certain expected return. Furthermore, this study focuses on optimizing risk portfolio so called Markowitz MVO (Mean-Variance Optimization). Some theoretical frameworks for analysis are arithmetic mean, geometric mean, variance, covariance, linear programming, and quadratic programming. Moreover, finding a minimum variance portfolio produces a convex quadratic programming, that is minimizing the objective function ðð¥with constraintsð ð 𥠥 ðandð´ð¥ = ð. The outcome of this research is the solution of optimal risk portofolio in some investments that could be finished smoothly using MATLAB R2007b software together with its graphic analysis