The personal networks of small firm entrepreneurs in Malaysia: an exploratory study

The study demonstrates that Bumiputera entrepreneurs have a huge social resource which can provide them with a variety of help and support in business. A model for networking management has been developed in order to understand the relationship between entrepreneurs and their personal networks. This model includes four stages of development of the relationship i.e. the planning, establishment, development and maintenance stages. The research also suggests that people in the entrepreneurs' personal network can be categorised into three groups, based on the nature of the relationship. Primary networks consisted of family and old friends; Secondary networks included new friends, government staff (of agriculture and its related areas) and people in agriculture, trade and commerce, and other associations; and tertiary networks comprised of suppliers, customers, bankers and government staff (directly involved in the development of Bumiputera entrepreneurs). Since the Bumiputera culture certain relationships with people of personal networks have existed for some time, it was found that some of the management stages were missing. The qualitative discussion suggests that the stages, especially those of development and maintenance, have a crucial impact on the development of entrepreneurial businesses. It was also found that male entrepreneurs were active in networking while women were more selective in their networking due to cultural and economic limitations. In addition, women included men in their networks while men tended not to include women. Men therefore found it easier to create a stronger tertiary network than women. Government policy also plays an important role in structuring the personal networks of Bumiputera entrepreneurs. Bumiputera entrepreneurs include staff of government agencies as a part of their personal networks. This enables them to seek help and support for their business development

Jaringan usahawan: Satu pengenalan

Jaringan usahawan merupakan satu perkara yang sangat berkaitan dalam dunia keusahawanan. Dalam membangunkan perniagaan, usahawan seharusnya memahami jaringan usahawan antara diri sendiri dengan sumber-sumber manusia di sekeliling perniagaan mereka. Datam masa yang sama juga usahawan perlu memahami jenis hubungan dan sifat-sifat hubungan berkenaan agar ia dapat digunakan sebagai kelebihan strategi bagi menghadapi persaingan sengit dalam dunia perniagaan hari ini. Jaringan usahawan itu sendiri merupakan sumber bagi kelebihan kompetitf mapan. Artikel ini akan membincangkan tentang jaringan usahawan, jenis dan faedah daripada jaringan dan bagaimana usahawan dapat menguruskan jaringan perniagaan dengan berkesan

Exploring the factors of organization structure to improve WAQF management in Malaysia

Waqf is one of the Islamic financial instruments that has been proven historically in empowering Muslim society.In Malaysia, waqf is managed by the State Religious Islamic Council (SIRC) of each state as the sole trustee of waqf.Hence, this situation has resulted in different management and organization structures. This study was conducted to explore the differences in organization structure and its waqf management.In depth interviews were conducted involving 12 informants from seven waqf institutions. The findings revealed that appropriate arrangement within the organization structure can help the institution to focus on their waqf management; hence the desired performance can be achieved.Two options in changing the structure were revealed, namely internal and external re-organization. Three factors of organization structure need to be carefully examined and considered, which are organization size, professionalism and authority to execute the reorganization, both internally and externally.SIRCs have to carefully examine the number of staff needed including staff with professional background to make sure the workload can be reduced and the management can be improved. Most of the SIRCs do not have the authority to hire more staff and change their structure. External re-organization of waqf management is one of the suggestions to gain the authorit

Jaringan usahawan holistik: Strategi usahawan menuju al-falah

Kepentingan memahami konsep jaringan usahawan amat penting dalam dunia perniagaan kontemporari kerana jaringan usahawan menjadi satu strategi untuk usahawan mencapai kejayaan dalam perniagaan mereka.Namun kebanyakan skop penulisan semasa tentang jaringan keusahawan dan kejayaan usahawan terhad ruang lingkupnya.Lazimnya perbincangan jaringan usahawan hanya memfokuskan kepada jaringan perniagaan dengan pihak berkepentingan secara langsung dan tidak langsung dengan perniagaan seperti pelanggan, pembekal, pembiaya, pekerja, kerajaan dan beberapa pihak lain.Manakala kejayaan yang ingin dicapai hanya tertumpu kepada kejayaan material iaitu keuntungan semata-mata. Dengan kata lain, kejayaan hanya terhad kepada ruang lingkup kehidupan di dunia sahaja.Dari perspektif Islam, kejayaan di dunia dan akhirat atau al-falah sepatutnya menjadi matlamat usahawan bagi mendorong kejayaan perniagaan.Usahawan boleh mengeksploitasi jaringan usahawan sebagai strategi mencapai al-falah. Kertas kerja ini seterusnya akan membincangkan jaringan usahawan menyeluruh meliputi jaringan diri usahawan dengan Pencipta sebagai asas kepada jaringan-jaringan usahawan seterusnya.Jaringan tersebut akan menjadi panduan kepada aktiviti jaringan perniagaan bagi memajukan perniagaan usahawan.Seterusnya dengan asas hubungan dengan Pencipta dan kemajuan perniagaan, usahawan dapat mewujudkan jaringan yang lebih harmoni dan bertanggungjawab dengan masyarakat dan alam sejagat

Successful women enterpreneur: Islamic life practice

Entrepreneurship is a challenging career. There are many Muslim women entrepreneurs who venture into entrepreneurship, but not all succeed. Successful entrepreneur certainly have different practices with those who fail. Hence, this study aims to explore the practice of Islamic lifestyle based on the characteristics of faith, worship and morality practiced by successful Muslim women entrepreneurs. This study uses a qualitative research approach with phenomenological methods to learn the true experience of successful Muslim women entrepreneurs in managing their business. The selection of entrepreneurs involved in the study was based on purposive sampling techniques and in-depth interviews were used to collect data from them. The data were analyzed using data condensation method, data presentation and formulation and validation. The findings of the study show Muslim women entrepreneurs to believe in the concept of sustenance, sustenance of God's provision and prayer. Meanwhile, the elements of worship that they practice including zakat, alms, dhuha prayer, reading al-Quran and friendship. Moral elements show gratitude, tawakal, patience and generosity as the practice of successful Muslim women entrepreneurs. Therefore, to succeed and achieve al-falah, Muslim women entrepreneurs need to apply the values of faith, improve worship and be virtuous. They need to work hard in managing their business wisely, then praying and trusting God to gain success of the world and the hereafter

Access to credits and indebtedness: Islamic perspective

The purpose of this paper is to describe, from Islamic perspective, Muslims’ concern on loans and indebtedness.The paper intends to enlighten working class Muslims on the consequences of taking unnecessary loans.Due to increasing access to financial services, banks and other financial institutions are increasingly offering loans to their customers.Thus, increasing unnecessary borrowings at the expense of their future well-being.The paper concentrate on Islamic perspective of over borrowing and indebtedness. Muslims are expected to live a moderate life, free of embezzlement and misery.Therefore, are called upon to avoid unnecessary expenditure and improve savings.The study contributes to literature of borrowings, by considering loans as last alternative and by necessity

m-Government: Benefits and its Key Attributes for Personalized Services

Personalization can play an important role for m-government to provide the right service to potential users at this moment. Due to the widespread of m-government services annually by government agencies, citizens feel burdened with the services and they do not know which services are appropriate for them. Hence, personalization can enable the citizens to obtain information from the government easily and quickly based on their needs. This study explores the literature review regarding the benefits of personalization of m-government and identifies the key personalized attributes in m-government. The benefits of m-government services then were proved by conducting the questionnaire survey to respondent at five selected government agencies which are JPJ, JPN, MOE, MPM and KPDNKK. In this study, researchers related to m-government and personalized m-government were collected and the purposes of identifying the attributes were stated. To achieve this, 36 articles obtained for this study from Science Direct (9), IEEE Digital Library (8), Springer Link (8), ACM Digital Library (6) and Emerald Insight (5) databases covering the period from 2006 to 2016 have been analyzed based on the attributes of personalized m-Government. This study also gives an idea to the researchers regarding the appropriate attributes in providing the personalization of m-government services that are effective and easy to use. The research result can provide insights and acts as a guideline for researchers to study important aspects of the personalization of m-government services that can facilitate the development of m-government services

The Measurement of Islamic Unit Trust Investment Decision in Malaysia: An Exploratory Factor Analysis

The objective of this study is to develop the constructs in Islamic Unit Trust Investment Decision (IUTID) and examine its determinants. The determinants of Islamic Unit Trust Investment Decision are Islamic Financial Literacy (IFL), Information Sources (IS), Investment Risk (IR), Religiosity (RE) and Product Knowledge (PK). The measurement developed is based on the literature review and has been validated by the construct's experts, and among Islamic Unit Trust Investors. The validity and reliability test have tested to all the constructs. The data have been analyzing using SPSS. Results of the analysis show that Islamic unit trust investment decision can be measured using ten (10) items of investment selection criteria. The others determinants such as Islamic financial literacy construct consists of seven (7) items, information sources construct consists of ten (10) items, investment risk consists of eight (8) items, religiosity consists of eight (8) items and product knowledge consists of seven (7) items. The variance of the construct shows that information sources have the highest variance followed by investment risk, Islamic financial literacy, religiosity and product knowledge. These instruments can be used by unit trust companies, the authorities of Islamic unit trust (FIMM, SC, BNM) and other banking's product to understand the behavior of their clients and later, can implement it to the expected new customers

Commitment and customer loyalty in Business To Business context

Understanding what makes business-to-business (B2B) relationships lasting and stable is one of the main areas of academic interest in the study of organizational relations. To retain the organization’s current customers and to make them loyal is a critical component for a company to be successful. Customers should identify groups of suppliers based on develop strategies that are appropriate for further increasing loyalty under the conditions that exist for the product and service. In the current paper, the authors investigate the different factors, which influence commitment and customer loyalty on B2B context. The following paper explains the relationship between commitment and customer loyalty by investigating relevant theories and past studies. This paper uncovers that the literature proffer a affluent, yet fragmented, photograph of which variable or key success factor is, and how it can be increased and profitable to customer loyalty in automotive industry. The outcomes must lead management with the ability to map out a typology of loyalty using the available composite measures of loyalty, purchase intentions and attitudinal loyalty. The classification system can be useful to industrial customers as they try to increase their loyalty

Determinants of Islamic Home Financing Product Selection among Lower Income Group in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Recently, affordability of housing in Malaysia has becoming crucial issue especially in big cities due to economic growth and high living cost. Hence, these studies aim to investigate the factors that influence customer in Kuala Lumpur in selecting Islamic home financing product. In this study, we assume the factors that will influence customer selection for Islamic home financing are attitude, subjective norms, pricing, religious obligation, government intervention and service provision. This study used samples of 150 respondents who had an experiences purchasing house in Kuala Lumpur. This study employed Pearson Correlation and Multiple Regression method to achieve the objective. Finding shows that there is a significant relationship between attitude, religious obligation, and service provision towards Islamic homes financing selection. Therefore, it is recommend that the Islamic financial provider to improve several factors is including but not limited to marketing, operation and customer service in order to attract customers to purchase Islamic home financing product.  Most importantly, all the products offered must in line with Shariah in terms of the content of the product, the contract and also the way it is delivered to the customer. Keywords: Islamic home financing, Attitude, Subjective norm, Pricing, Religious obligation, Government intervention and Service provision JEL Classifications: R31, G21, E21