Green management adoption for sustainable business performance of small and medium-sized companies

The emergence of green management has become a big challenge for the survival of small and medium-sized companies in Malaysia to safeguard the environment, economic and social impacts. The small and medium-sized companies found difficulties to comply with green implementation due to lack of understanding, unavailable of specific guidelines, and financial limitation. Utilisation of internal resources and capabilities (other than financial source) are essential in order to adopt the green practices for small and medium-sized companies’ transformation into green business. Thus, the study investigated the relationships of management strategy, product development, process technology, workplace resources, community obligation, and knowledge management on the sustainable business performance. As a quantitative research design, the 5-points Likert Scale survey questionnaires were distributed to middle management of the small and medium-sized companies who attended various trainings, seminars, workshops and expositions held in Melaka, Johor, Kuala Lumpur, and Selangor. The use of multistage sampling strategy was managed to collect 324 data, where only 281 responses were considered after screening for analysis using SPSS (version 23) and PLS-SEM (version 3.0). Results shown that management strategy, process technology, workplace resources, community obligation, and knowledge management were significantly related with sustainable business performance or the triple-bottom-line goals. However, the outcome also indicated that product development factor did not influence the sustainable business performance of the small and medium-sized companies. The study confirmed that internal resources of companies played an important role between the relationship of green management and sustainable business performance; and the result is achievable. Findings implied that the government through its relevant agencies should encourage small and medium-sized companies to explore and identify their internal resources and capabilities in order to enhance their sustainable performance. Besides, the ministries and agencies concerned could design suitable modules and train the small and medium-sized companies’ management on relevant manufacturing tools to use for their problem-solving and decision-making purpose

Modelling Sustainability Of SMEs Business In The New Economic Transition

Green management is nowadays synonym with the small medium enterprises (SMEs). It has challenged these types of companies to transform into green business and urged them to start making green products. Many entrepreneurs are aware that in order to move on, they somehow need to acquire a new way of doing business, more relevance to their future growth and existence. Organizational processes should start using green resources to comply with the green principles that stretched beyond the nature of product life cycle concerns. It now becomes critical to built-in sustainable development around the business ecosystem. The significant improvement made on the entrepreneurial activities should result in safeguarding our Mother Nature and the future generation survival. Hence, the paper intended to discuss the major influences on the SMEs to take up the green entrepreneurship. Consequently, the green economic transition also emphasized the needs to adopt green business strategy for the business competitive advantage. Overcoming the current economic setback must be in-line with the performance of a sustainable business

Displacement Of Migrant Workers In Malaysia

Paradoxically, while the demand for foreign workers in Malaysia is increasing due to mega developments, the possibility of social protection for migrant workers has been restricted. The need for decent accommodation, health care, are not in State agenda. Refusing to accept social protection responsibility tend to displace migrant workers. This kind of displacement of migrant workers are incompatible with goals of creating conditions of equity and social protection as enshrined in the Federal Constitution on fundamental liberty. This is due to development planning that are more interested on macro-scale gain but refusing to assume responsibility when migrant workers become displace upon relocation and replacement for work. Migrant workers who are regulated to work in Malaysia are not regulated by a special social protection regime but by employment agents and outsourcers who are keen of profiteering rather than ensuring their wellbeing while in the placement process. Similarly, the enforcers are more keen to legalize workers or deporting them accordingly while displace migrant workers needs support to be able to find job since they have been a while in the receiving country. This paper intends to dwell into the reasons for the displacement of migrant workers in Malaysia. The fact that they were in the country, there is possibility to regularize the migrant workers to become documented worker, and being a receiving country it is a duty to provide social protection for these migrant workers until the document expired. For this reason, Malaysia should deal with displaced migrant workers differently from other kind of migration offences because in the long run Malaysia would be able to benefit from these displaced migrant workers in the midst of Malaysia becoming developed country in the near future. The ability to manage displaced migrant workers will benefit all parties, that are the sending countries (receiving continual remittance), the receiving country (influx of labour sources) and the workers themselves (continual productive to produce products). On the other hand, failing to manage migrant workers accordingly may lead to violation of the human rights principles and may depreciate Malaysia image globally

Basic Support Of Migrant Workers In Malaysia: A Legal Perspective

Migrant workers are regarded as backbone to the development of Malaysia. As such, the importation of migrant workers in Malaysia is a necessity when the country is facing an acute shortage of labour force in various work sectors such as plantation, manufacturing, construction, agriculture, domestic workers and services. The 11th Malaysian Plan (2016-2020) aim is to reduce dependency and reliance on lowskilled migrant workers especially in labor-intensive activities and to ensure migrant basic support such as basic rights are provided as determine by the existing governing laws. Basic support such as food, clothing, shelter and education are regarded as basic natural human necessities to sustain life. These necessities have been recognized as basic rights for every individual and as a form of human rights that is right to life. Migrant workers upon migrating from their country of origin uphold their civil rights that need to be respected by the receiving countries. Rights to basic support are guaranteed under the Federal Constitution and being the supreme law of the land, it protects everyone who resides in Malaysia, including the migrant workers. This paper discusses on the meaning of basic support in the context of migrant workers; the different forms of basic support made accessible to migrant and local workers and how they were channeled? Finally, to determine the extent of protection accorded by law on the basic support given to the migrant workers

Urban Displacement In Malaysia: A Social-Legal Analysis

Urbanization has caused the people to be victimized, marginalize, discriminated, their right denied and finally displaced. Development-caused displacement (DIDR) is a highly diverse global social problem that occurred worldwide and addressed in humanitarian base approach or right based approach. This dilutes the real issue that citizen are victimize and marginalize in the course of realizing the development induced onto the people. Vulnerabilities emerge through rapid urbanization that resulted in conflict when urban violence, psychosocial health and gender‐based violence become more obvious. For purpose of human security, people should be allows for a comprehensive examination of the requirements for minimum levels of survival health, personal safety, livelihoods and shelter) as well. Dispossession and (public displace-ment have radically changed the landscape of human vulnerability and security. Accumulation by dispossession and displacement in various forms that associated with policies of neo-liberalization, worsen human vulnerabilities and constitute to inequalities among the people. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the main causes of development-induced displacement practiced by the people in power and how were they enforced on the vulnerable population? It is significant to establish when and how human security becomes threatened. Inadequate security, legal and economic protections may cause misappropriation of power and simultaneously victimize the people in need otherwise. Finally, what are the strategies identified by the Malaysia government to overcome the development-induced displacement caused on to the people? Ironically, Malaysia does not only faced domestic displacement but also international displacements that migrate into Malaysia for work, seek refuge and illegal migrants

Aryl diazonium modification on graphite electrode in microbial fuel cell: a review

Usage of graphite electrode in a microbial fuel cell (MFC) is favored due to their electron conductivity and stability as a base material for the electrode. Also, graphite is favored as it allows the growth of biofilm, which can enhance the cell’s performance. The efficiency is reported improved through modification. Aryl diazonium modification has been reported to induce biofilm formation on the electrode faster. The modification can be done spontaneously or through electrografting of aryl diazonium salt onto the electrode surface. Control over the quantity of grafted aryl diazonium is essential. A thick layer will cause the performance of the system to drop, which may impede the electron transfer from biofilm to the electrode. Aryl diazonium is preferred as it allows a robust biofilm formation when used as a surface modification on the graphite electrode. Modification using aryl diazonium allows the electrode to be more accommodative for biofilm growth, which will increase the performance of the system. However, it does not act as a redox mediator for the system. It has been reported that power density obtained using aryl diazonium modified electrode is 250 mW.m-2, higher than unmodified graphite electrode of 125 mW.m-2. However, not all bacterial species is compatible with aryl diazonium modification. The unmodified graphite biocathode allows a higher power density compared to aryl diazonium modified biocathode. Hence, depending on the quality of aryl diazonium modification and the types of inoculum used, MFC performance can be further maximized

Leaving child without reasonable supervision in Malaysia: An overview under child (amendment) act 2016 and international legal framework / Irma Kamarudin...[et al.]

The focal point of this paper is on the right of the children who have been left without reasonable supervision by their parent or guardian. Even though we already have law to govern this issue, there are still numerous of cases occurred in Malaysia which has caused traumatizing consequences to the nation. It would be detrimental to the children in Malaysia if there is no attempt taken to figure out the solution. The prevalence of this issue in Malaysia has invite us to conduct a study on this matters from the perspective of Malaysian’s legislation and other countries’ rule and regulation

Green Technology Compliance in Malaysia For sustainable Business Development

Economic growth, industrialization and growing population in developing countries such as Malaysia, demands a huge growth for renewable energy as global environmental problem call for drastic cuts on fossil fuel consumption. It has resulted in the promotion of green technology that presents the most viable way of meeting with the new green-related activities for environmental conservation. The Malaysian government has played a strong role in ensuring environmental sustainability by way of introducing necessary policies and implementing them. This research intends to explore the opportunities that green technology might bring to entrepreneurs by complying with new business success factors (BSF) particularly in term of the green demand and supply among the Malaysian companies. The research would also enhance some of the existing relevant literatures and discuss several practices useful for business consideration of the green technology adoption

Aplikasi Model Rasch bagi kesahan item kosa kata kerja Quranic Vocabulary Test (QVT)

al-Quran diturunkan untuk difahami isi kandungannya. Pemahaman al-Quran di peringkat asas melibatkan pengetahuan makna kosa katanya. Justeru, satu ujian bagi mengukur tahap penguasaan makna kosa kata al-Quran wajar dibina. Kajian rintis ini bertujuan membina instrumen Quranic Vocabulary Test (QVT) dan menilai kesahan dan kebolehpercayaannya. Artikel ini melaporkan penilaian kesahan dan kebolehpercayaan sebahagian daripada instrumen tersebut. Melalui pendekatan kuantitatif, 130 item kata kerja dalam al-Quran dipilih secara persampelan sistematik dari 500 kosa kata kekerapan tertinggi yang disenaraikan dalam The Quranic Arabic Corpus. Item-item ini dibahagikan kepada 3 set ujian, setiap set mengandungi 40 item berbeza dan 10 item sepunya. Set ujian ini ditadbir menggunakan Google Form kepada 69 orang mahasiswa mewakili pelbagai jurusan di Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Data dianalisis menggunakan Model Rasch melalui perisian Winsteps versi 4.5.4. Nilai kebolehpercayaan kesemua set ini sama ada dengan indeks Cronbach Alpha (α) mahupun person reliability melebihi 0.8. Secara keseluruhannya, nilai infit sebagai indikator kualiti item ujian menunjukkan hampir kesemua item adalah produktif untuk mengukur pengetahuan makna kata kerja al-Quran dalam kalangan responden. Kajian ini menunjukkan kebolehukuran pengetahuan kosa kata al-Quran. Ia perlu dilanjutkan dan diperluaskan sampelnya bagi meningkatkan nilai kesahan QVT sehingga dapat mengukur saiz kosa kata al-Quran yang tepat dalam kalangan mereka yang mempelajari jurusan al-Quran atau Pengajian Islam mahupun orang awam

Foreign Migrant Illegal Trespassing In Sabah Forest: The Need For Legal Awareness

Sabah is one of the states in Malaysia, which have gazetted forests reserves with a total area of 3.6 million hectares. The forestry sector through its timber revenue has acquired the annual tax collection amounted to millions of ringgit. This economic sector is one of the main contributors to Sabah state revenue. Sabah forest is rich in forest products as well as the flora and fauna are constantly maintained and monitored by the Forestry Department of Sabah from any trespassing activity. However, there are still attempts by foreign migrants to intrude the forest illegally to acquire forest products, especially in the forest reserves and violate the existing legislation. This paper aims to discuss the causes of the invasion of forest reserves by foreign migrants, the offenses committed by foreign migrant activities in the forest reserves, violation of specific legislation such as the Immigration Act 1959/63 and the Forest Enactment 1968. Finally, to propose adequate measures to create awareness among various interested groups and local communities and to always be responsible for preserving and protecting the forests from illegal trespassing by the foreign migrants