Distinguished identification of halal and non-halal animal-fat gelatin by using microwave dielectric sensing system

Halal has been a long-disputed issue due to the reason of its complexity consequently of swift advancement in innovation and technology. Gelatin plays a vital role in modern food processing as it has been used in many food preparations and is commonly used to make the pharmaceuticals capsule these days. In this work, various types of animal fat will measure dielectrically to distinguish them for the development of the detection system. This project applied the measurement of reflection coefficient by using the high-temperature probes. These probes use the principle of microwave method and allow the measurement to be made in a fast and non-destructive way. For this project, the high-temperature probe is used to measure the sample of animal fat for instance chicken, beef and pork fat. The fresh animal fat was used and the moisture content of the animal fat was manipulated by using the oven-drying technique. The different levels of moisture content inside the fat will affect the measurement value of reflection coefficient as the moisture content will change the dielectric properties of the animal fat. The measurement of reflection coefficient was made with a network analyzer in the frequency range of 0.2 GHz to 20 GHz. From the experimental result, it can be concluded that pork fat shows distinguishable trend compared with chicken and beef fat which perform similar trend in variation of reflection coefficient (|S11|), dielectric constant (έ) and dielectric loss (ἔ) throughout the frequency range from 0.2 GHz to 20 GHz

FACTORS INFLUENCING E-COMMERCE ADOPTION:EVALUATION USING STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODELLING (SEM)

Electronic commerce (e-commerce) has become a rapidly growing phenomenon to date. A peep into the exponential growth of the main players in this industry reveals a large reservoir of market potential for ecommerce. Nevertheless, the prevalence of e-commerce adoption has attracted attention from the government, retailers, and academicians to place specific focus on this area. As such, this study determined the correlation between Chief Executive Officer’s (CEO’s) technology knowledge, relative advantages, and competitive pressure through the lens of Tornatzky and Fleischer’s (1990) Organisational, Technological, and Environmental (OTE) model in order to probe into the adoption of e-commerce. CEOs and managers of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) established in the Northern states of Malaysia were selected as the subject of analysis. A total of 283 out of 364 questionnaires distributed were valid for analysing and testing the hypotheses. Next, the gathered data were analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 18.0 and Analysis of a Moment Structures (AMOS) version 16.0. The Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was employed to assess model fit and to test hypotheses. As a conclusion, CEO’s technology knowledge and relative advantage displayed significantly positive influence upon adoption of ecommerce, whereas competitive pressure exhibited insignificant impact upon adoption of e-commerce. In precise, the insignificant influence of competitive pressure on e-commerce implementation appeared to be driven by other unseen variables worthy to be discovered. For future research, a comparison study can be conducted by selecting samples both from employers and employees, as well as other multiple variables associated with e-commerce adoption, so as to keep sampling bias at a minimum level

Exploring Domains and Determinants of Early Retirement among School Teachers

The retirement age of civil servants in Malaysia was extended to 60 according to Public Service Department Malaysia in 2013. However, lately, early-optional retirement among school teachers has become an issue in which the number of teachers opted for early optional retirement is increasing each year in Malaysia. Employee’s intention for early retirement is influenced by many factors, such as job and organizational, socioeconomic, individual and family situation. Studies show that motivation to leave the teaching profession is related to job satisfaction. However, there is scarce empirical evidence that academicians evaluate the factors causing early retirement among school teachers. This research is set out to explore this issue by identifying factors leading to early retirement among school teachers. Therefore, factors lead to early retirement among school teachers will be identified. The findings come up with a technique for identifying factors of early retirement among school teachers, thereby enable scholars to conduct a more effective and efficient literature review henceforth

International Students’ Satisfaction Level towards Service Quality in Academic Aspect and Loyalty to Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

In recent years, the number of international students has increased greatly in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). Despite the international dimension of higher education gaining more importance nowadays, there have been limited studies exploring the satisfaction of the international students. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to identify the international students’ satisfaction level towards the service quality in UTM. In addition, this study aimed to investigate the relationship between the students’ satisfaction level and their loyalty. A quantitative research methodology was adopted whereby a questionnaire consisting of three parts was utilized: Part A described the demographic data of the samples; Part B (44 items) investigated the international students’ satisfaction level which was adopted from the Parasuraman’s SERVQUAL model and; Part C (10 items) identified the students’ loyalty. A total of 334 international studentsstudying in UTM, Johor Bahru Campus participated in the questionnaire and the results were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, and multiple regression analysis. The findings showed that international students were not satisfied with the service quality provided in UTM. The expectation score was greater than the perception score in five dimensions of SERVQUAL model, namely tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. Furthermore, multiple regression analysis results showed that responsiveness, assurance, and empathy were the three dimensions which had significant relationship with the students’ loyalty. In conclusion, the findings of this study suggested that the administrators of UTM should improve the service quality in UTM to increase the students’ satisfaction

Identifying and Prioritizing Research Gaps in Studies related to Total Quality Management on Competitive Advantage in Malaysian Hotel Industries

Determining research gaps is a cardinal goal in literature review. While it has been diffusely conceded that literature reviews should determine research gaps, no methodological orientation is available on how to pinpoint research gaps amidst review of literature or to assure rigor and replicability. Hence, this study addresses this gap and puts forward a simple prototype that should assist scholars in this endeavour without suppressing creativity. Based on the study outcomes, a technique has been generated to identify research gaps, so as to enable scholars to conduct a more rigorous, effective, and efficient literature reviews henceforth

Current Trend and Development on Intellectual Capital and Performance : A Bibliometric Analysis

For both society and organizations, intellectual capital is critical. It could be a source of competitive business advantage that leads to the generation of wealth. This study aims to conduct a bibliometric review on current trend and development of ‘Intellectual Capital’ and ‘Performance’ over 63 years (1956-2020) on topics related to business, economics and accounting. By adopting bibliometric analysis, we derived data from Scopus online database as of December 12, 2020. Based on the ‘keywords’ search results, our study finalized 1,621 valid documents for further assessments. We utilised Harzing’s Publish and Perish to analyse basic evaluations before proceeding with VOSviewer for data visualization purposes. The findings highlight the trend of literature on ‘Intellectual Capital’ and ‘Performance’ since its inception in 1956. The number of publications achieved 100 publications since 2013 and keep increasing each year. Most previous publications were in English, with more than 178 authors from more than 97 different countries. Using specific keywords of ‘Intellectual Capital’ and ‘Performance’, the results were derived based on the titles and keywords of the documents. Thus, the results of the search query for other fields such as abstracts, and different keywords are excluded. This paper offers an overview and better understanding of the current trends and development of the topic since its inception in 1956, and also serve as a valuable reference and direction for future research

Assessing the ideology of total quality management towards hotel sustainability performance: empirical evidence using structural equation modelling

Total quality management (TQM) practices are one of the remarkable management initiatives adopted by the hotel industry to conserve the environment and ameliorate the quality of life while executing activities. Due to the existence of the value creation notion, economic value is no longer the only prerequisite assessing hotel sustainability performance, environmental and social aspects should also be considered when evaluating sustainability performance. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between TQM practices and sustainability performance, taking into account the environmental, economic and social aspects. A questionnaire survey is conducted among 238 hotels with ISO 9001 certification in Malaysia. Structural equation modelling is employed to assess the relationship between TQM practices and sustainability performance. The findings of this study reveal that employee management has the most significant impact on sustainability performance. Hence, it is posited that the hotels in Malaysia are extremely concentrated on employee engagement in the implementation of TQM practices to accomplish sustainability objective

The Determinants and Barriers of Outsourcing Third-Party Online Delivery : Perspectives of F&B Entrepreneurs in Malaysia

Online food delivery and food delivery apps have continued to grow exponentially in Malaysia. Fundamental aspects in entrepreneurship of the food and beverage industry, such as knowledge and attitudes towards online food delivery services being outsourced, have yet to be extensively recognized. The present study intends to explore this area of subject matter within the Malaysian context by using behavioral reasoning theory. The actual interview for this study took place in May 2020, and 14 interviews had been carried out. All interviews were audio-recorded with the consent from the respondents for reference purposes and subsequently transcribed verbatim. The transcripts were then checked against audio records. Content analysis was used to analyze the transcripts by focusing on n frequency counts and coding of themes. A qualitative method has been adopted by employing an interview to elicit the perspectives of entrepreneurs from Sarawak on the determinants and barriers in outsourcing online food delivery services. Results indicate that high potential in revenue, broad exposure to reach customers, convenience, and provision of job opportunities are the four factors that determine to outsource. In contrast, food quality maintenance, trustworthiness, high cost incurred, and consumer technology resistance are four factors that serve as barriers towards outsourcing third-party online delivery

THE IMPACT OF TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM) ON COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE: A CONCEPTUAL MIXED METHOD STUDY IN THE MALAYSIA LUXURY HOTEL INDUSTRIES

The widespread use of TQM has impacted the hotel industry worldwide and increasingly identified as the key issue in differentiating service products and building competitive advantage in tourism. Accordingly, hotel industries may face a wide variety of saturated and uncertain TQM practices available for their organization nowadays. As there is a lack of comprehensive knowledge regarding TQM issuesin hotel industry, there is an urgent need for a process which will assist hotel industries in Malaysia to evaluate these TQM practices and select the most appropriate one in order to provide the ideal management practices for the entire organization. As such, this study will propose a mixed method study where 10 hotel managers are initially interviewed, followed by a quantitative study of 122 additional managers. The aim of this study is to assist the hoteliers for identifying the proper TQM practices andthen evaluating the available practices that best fitted the hotel industry in Malaysia which could concomitantly help the Ministry of Tourism and Culture (MOTAC) to achieve its National Key Economic Area (NKEA) and contributing towards high nation incomein 2020