Personal, social and organizational factors in usage of collaboration systems for research

This paper attempts to investigate the relationship between personal, social and organizational factors with the usage of collaborative systems for research.The target population for this study is the academic staffs of Malaysia research universities. The personal related factors are personal innovativeness and task-technology-fitwhereas the social factors are subjective norm and peer acceptance.The organizational factors are training and management support.The relationship of these three perspectives (i.e. personal, social and organizational) in relation with usage of collaborative systems is studied using a model adapted from Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) model and incorporating it with the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM).Data analysis presents the descriptive statistics of the respondents, the reliability and validity of the instruments used and correlational analysis of the factors.In conclusion, this paper proposes a framework incorporating these factors that are important in influencing usage of collaboration systems for academic research

Emotional Labor Strategies from Customer Point of View: A Systematic Literature Review

The behavior displayed by service employees affects customers’ perception of service quality and their level of satisfaction. Therefore, understanding emotional labor strategies has become a key competitive advantage for service organizations. The purpose of this study is to provide an in-depth review studies that discussed and examined emotional labor strategies from customer point of view. This study used a systematic literature review approach on emotional labor studies. The results showed that customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and word of mouth are considered the most important outcomes of emotional labor strategies. Further, the results showed that the majority of previous studies used dyadic questionnaire as a data collection method. More importantly, drawn from the review results, a research framework was developed to show the customer outcomes of emotional labor strategies and the mediators/moderators between emotional labor strategies and customer outcomes. This article is one of the earliest studies that provides a systematic review of previous studies on emotional labor from customer point of view and uncovers the definitions, models, and methods and factors in order to clarify the emotional labor concept. Keywords: Emotional labor, Surface acting, Deep acting, Customer satisfaction, Customer loyalty, Word of mouth, Systematic literature review, Research framework DOI: 10.7176/JMCR/57-03 Publication date:June 30th 201

Empowering Green Healthcare Supply Chain Management Practices Challenges and Future Research

The purpose of this paper is to explore the internal challenging factors of green healthcare supply chain management practices that contributed to the sustainable development in Malaysia. Green healthcare supply chain management practices are unique, different and more complex because of the impact on the environment and also the human health. This study thoroughly analysed, reviewed and explained each factor in detail from the various previous literature perspectives. This paper is one of the first to identify and conceptually discuss the use of green healthcare supply chain management practices that contributes to the sustainable development of healthcare industries in a single setting in a developing country. This study explored the internal challenging factors of green healthcare supply chain management practices that contributed to the sustainable development of a private hospital in Malaysia. The findings of the research will enlighten our view on green healthcare supply chain management practices. Besides, it contributes to researchers, the existing corpus of knowledge and a promise to expand the research stream on green healthcare supply chain management practices. The empirical findings will suggest to green healthcare supply chain to practitioner possible ways to obtain and maintain competitive advantages in the healthcare industries as proactive strategies that contribute to the sustainable development in Malaysia

Analysing the adoption of Lean production in remanufacturing industry

Purpose: This paper aims to analyse the challenges of lean manufacturing implementation in the remanufacturing industry. The research was undertaken in three types of remanufacturing company, torque converter, gearbox, and jet engine remanufacturers. This paper describes the characteristics of remanufacturing companies and compares them with the best practice company adopting lean manufacturing best practice: Toyota Motor Company. Through a comparison of the characteristics of the manufacturing environment, macro, and external condition, the challenges of adopting lean manufacturing are identified. Design/methodology/approach: This study utilised a case study method to analyse qualitative data collected from interviews, observations, and focus group discussions. Although case studies are typically used in inductive research, this study followed a deductive approach. Findings: The analysis demonstrated that remanufacturing companies experience challenges due to contextual differences to the benchmark company. The research found that there are some practices that are embedded in remanufacturing companies, but that the companies do not realise that these are lean manufacturing practices. On the other hand, there are a number of external factors that are beyond the remanufacturers’ control that hinder the adoption of lean manufacturing. In addition, the aftermarket business of remanufacturers has resulted in a number of distinctive macro condition characteristics that make the adoption of lean manufacturing more complex. Practical implications: Successfully addressing barriers to lean manufacturing adoption might enhance the performance of remanufacturing process. This is because the business of remanufacturing is not value creation, but capturing value from used products. Originality/value: This paper contributes to existing literature examining lean production in remanufacturing companies. It is novel in the sense that it is the first study examining lean production in the remanufacturing industry from organisational and managerial perspectives

Characteristics of methanogens and methanotrophs in rice fields: a review

Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide (CO2) with a global warming potential 25 times more than CO2. Rice fields are one of the main anthropogenic sources for methane and responsible for approximately 15-20% of the annual global methane efflux. Methanogens and methanotrophs are two microbial communities which contribute to the biogeochemical methane cycle in soil by producing and oxidizing methane, respectively. In fact, the total methane emission from rice soil is the balance between methanogen and methanotroph activities. Methanogenic archaea are more active in highly reduced conditions and anoxic soils. However, methanotrophs are more active in oxic soils. These microorganisms have been studied frequently in different soils from natural wetlands to rice fields. This article has mainly focused on the characteristics of methanogens and methanotrophs in a rice soil ecosystem with the objective of deriving solutions the high level of methane emissions from paddy fields

Factors that contribute to job stress among workers in workplace: a study of Selia Selenggara Selatan Sdn Bhd (SSSSB) and United Precision Engineering, Components and Automation (UPECA) / Muhammad Fazli Idris and Nurul Huda Abdul Rasid

This study conducted to identify the factors that contribute to job stress among workers in workplace. The researchers have chosen Selia Selenggara Selatan Sdn Bhd (SSSSB) And United Precision Engineering, Components and Automation (UPECA) to represent this study. Researchers have listed four variables which are work life balance, work overload, job match and job insecurity as the independent variables and job stress as the dependent variable. The researchers distributed 108 set of questionnaires to respondents which are Selia Selenggara Selatan Sdn Bhd (SSSSB) And United Precision Engineering, Components and Automation (UPECA). This study discussed the factors that contribute to job stress among workers in Selia Selenggara Selatan Sdn Bhd (SSSSB) And United Precision Engineering, Components and Automation (UPECA) and those factors will be the outcome of this study. The finding and analysis were made based on Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 20.0 to analyze the data. The finding of this study proves that work life balance, work overload and job match can positively contribute to job stress. Work life balance appears to be the most influenced factor towards job stress in Selia Selenggara Selatan Sdn Bhd (SSSSB) And United Precision Engineering, Components and Automation (UPECA)

Salary and Wages in Malaysia

This paper discusses the compensation practices in Malaysia against the backdrop of the legal framework for wage and salary deterination. It also examines the Malaysian labour market situation and trends in salary and wage administration together with the role of unions in compensation determination

Evaluation of methane oxidizer bacteria in the rice soil in Malaysia

Methane is known as a powerful greenhouse gas due to its global warming potential (GWP = 21). Rice fields are methane producers because of the flooding irrigation system. Two microbial communities are involved in methane cycle in the soil including methanogens and methanotrophic bacteria which are responsible for methane production and methane oxidation respectively. Methanotrophic bacteria as aerobic unicellular microorganisms dominantly exist in soil oxic area (e.g. surface of the soil and the rhizosphere). These microorganisms can regulate the methane emission from rice soil. This experiment applied PCR-DGGE to detect methane oxidizer bacteria (MOBs) within the rice soil from two depths 0-5 cm and 5-10 cm in different rice growth stages and cultivation systems. Consequently, several MOBs from type I and type II could be identified. However, type I was detected in depth of 0-5 cm and drained condition rather than 5-10 cm and flooding condition

Methane emission from paddy soil in relation to soil temperature in tropical region

Methane (CH4) is 21 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Wetlands including flooded paddy fields are one of the major sources for this gas. Paddy fields are responsible for producing 25 to 54 Tg of CH4 annually. Methane emission rate could be affected by several factors such as irrigation pattern, fertilizer type, soil organic matter and soil temperature. Among them, soil temperature is a determining factor which deserves to be investigated. This study performed with the aim of understanding the effect of soil temperature on the methane emission rate from paddy soil in a short period of time (hourly) and long term (during rice growing season). The results of this study suggest that soil temperature could control the amount of methane emission and there is a positive and strong correlation in both soil temperature and methane emission pattern in short period of time. However, in case of long term trend, other factors such as water management and plant age decreased this correlation from 0.768 to 0.528

Penentuan kepekatan radionuklid tabii dan indeks bahaya radiologi akibat penggunaan Condisoil® ke atas penanaman Hibiscus cannabinus (Kenaf)

Kajian ini bertujuan menentukan kepekatan aktiviti radionuklid tabii (226Ra, 228Ra dan 40K) dalam tanah, air dan tumbuhan serta faktor pemindahan daripada tanah kepada tumbuhan dan indeks bahaya radiologi akibat penggunaan Condisoil®. Sebanyak 4 sampel tanah, 14 sampel air dan 4 sampel tumbuhan telah dianalisis menggunakan sistem spektometri sinar gama. Keputusan kajian mendapati julat kepekatan aktiviti 226Ra, 228Ra dan 40K dalam sampel tanah yang menggunakan Condsoil® masing-masing adalah 13.8 - 17.6, 15.7 - 21.0 dan 44.5 - 57.7 Bq kg-1. Julat kepekatan aktiviti 226Ra, 228Ra dan 40K dalam sampel tumbuhan pula masing-masing adalah 5.0 - 18.5, 0.1 - 1.5 dan 42.7 - 321.8 Bq kg-1. Bagi sampel air, julat kepekatan aktiviti bagi radionuklid 226Ra, 228Ra dan 40K masing - masing adalah 0.3 - 0.9, 0.3 - 3.9 dan 1.4 - 11.6 Bq L-1. Julat faktor pemindahan radionuklid 226Ra, 228Ra dan 40K daripada tanah ke tumbuhan masing-masing adalah 0.42 - 0.71, 0.01 - 0.08 dan 0.85 - 5.34. Penilaian bahaya radiologi mendapati indeks kesetaraan radium berada di bawah nilai had yang dicadangkan iaitu 370 Bq kg-1. Sehubungan dengan itu, kajian ini mendapati penggunaan Condisoil® sebagai bahan penambahbaikan tanah tidak menyebabkan pertambahan radionuklid tabii ke dalam alam sekitar serta tidak mendatangkan risiko bahaya radiologi kepada manusia