Big five personality traits and resistance to change among administrative staff in UUM

The aim of this research is investigating the relationship between big five personality traits and resistance to change. Extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness to experience are five traits hypothesised to have a significant and negative relationship with resistance to change. Instrument used to obtain the data for this quantitative research paper was a survey questionnaire. A total of 500 survey questionnaires were distributed to the administrative staff in Universiti Utara Malaysia. Of the distribution, only 331 responses have found completed and subsequently analysed for statistical results by using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 20.0 software. The two main data analysis techniques: correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis were used to verify the hypotheses. The Pearson correlation analysis confirmed a significant and negative though weak correlation between big five personality traits and resistance to change. By each trait, only emotional stability was found moderately correlated whereas agreeableness and conscientiousness have weak correlation. With analysis of standard multiple regression, a total of 6.3 percent variance of resistance to change was found explained by big five personality traits. As a whole, the findings have indicated that individual personality traits significantly predict resistance to change. ‘How’ an individual perceive change is the key to manage employees’ resistance to organisational change. The findings are believed to help the management practitioners to understand employees’ disposition towards change in order to attain effective change management at the workplace

EVALUATION OF ANTIMICROBIAL STUDIES ON ROOT OF CARMONA RETUSA (VAHL) MASAM

Objective: The evaluation of antimicrobial activity was carried to study the effect of root extract of Carmona retusa (Vahl.) Masam. Methods: The antimicrobial studies were carried out by using the cup plate method and the MIC was also determined. The microbial typed cultures namely Bacillus cereus, Bacillus subtilis, Enterobacter aerogens, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumonia, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Pseudomonas putida, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella typhimurium and Candida albicans were used. Results: The root extracts of both chloroform and alcohol showed promising activity against Bacillus subtilis (26 mm), Bacillus cereus and Candida albicans (24 mm), Pseudomonas putida and Staphylococcus aureus (20 mm) and Escherichia coli (18 mm). Conclusion: The study revealed that the antimicrobial activity of alcohol extract is comparatively higher than the chloroform extract

The Effects Of Environmental Quality On Revisit Intention Among European Tourists To Malaysia

Tourism is a sunrise industry in Malaysia. The extraordinary approach to a tourist destination, the tourist experience itself convertible as the selling point. This applies to the entire remarkable destination around the globe because of its image. Every highbrow tourism provider has the essential objective to bring back tourist to the destination with the less promotional activity which incurs budget. The environmental quality factors are the key attributes in attracting tourists to revisit or to recommend the destination to others. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between environmental quality factors toward intended to revisit intention. A self-administered survey was carried out at the selected airport and in the selected prominent tourist location in the east and west Malaysia. A sample of 482 European tourists was obtained using the purposive sampling approach. The data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software. The whole model was confirmed using SPPS PROCESS, a versatile computational tool for observing the mediating variable in the study. Major findings of this study complement the S-O-R theory. European tourists gathered information about Malaysia from internet sources predominantly. The key reasons for European tourists to visit Malaysia are reservation of heritage and historic monuments, less language barrier, the beauty of natural scenery and landscape and numerous activities for tourists. The finding shows, environmental factor nature and man-made does not support the relationship on revisit intention but social factor does. Interestingly, with the help of the mediator (tourist experience) the relationship turns out to be positive

Evidence of reverse brain drain in selected Asian countries: human resource management lessons for Malaysia

Reverse brain drain (RBD) is a fertile area to examine in the inter-countries movement of professionals. The basic idea of RBD is that the professionals who migrated to the industrialized nations represent potential human resources for the socioeconomic development of their home countries. It is argued that every ‘brain drain’ is a potential ‘brain gain’ for a country. However, there is inconclusive evidence on the best practices of RBD that may become lessons for any country to adopt in tapping the valuable experiences of the intellectual elites. Using ‘human capital theory’ and ’diffusion of innovation theory’, this conceptual paper specifically aims i) to illustrate evidence of the best practices of RBD in selected Asian developing countries of South Korea, Taiwan, China, and India that have commended track records in dealing with RBD; and ii) to suggest strategies for Malaysia, which is a beginner in developing the RBD programs, to adopt the best practices as experienced by the selected countries

Practice of code of ethics and accuracy in reporting by print media criminal court reporters

The practice of code of ethics among the media practitioners is still unclear. There is a gap in the studies over the meaning of the practice of code of ethics. Commitment to truth and accuracy in news reporting is recognized as a fundamental obligation of journalistic ethics. For journalists in Malaysia, they have their own Canons of Journalism (COJ) since 1989 (Shivadas & Krishnamoorthy, 2004) but there is no watchdog to oversee that such code of conduct of news media is strictly adhered to by the journalists (Kamarul Ariffin, 1996). COJ was chosen as the basis for the study on the criminal court reporters’ understanding on the practice of code of ethics in their daily work. The focus of the study is to explore whether accuracy, which is listed as the primary responsibility to be observed by the Malaysian journalists, is being subscribed as a core value by them. The study was conducted at the Kuala Lumpur Court Complex in Jalan Duta and Palace of Justice in Putrajaya. On the research design, the study used qualitative and phenomenology approach as its data collection method. The study used qualitative methods to obtain its data namely in-depth interview, observation and field notes. The reporters were interviewed until the data reaches to the saturation point. This has caused 12 reporters from the English and Malay newspapers to be purposively chosen for this research. Two senior news editors have also been interviewed to strengthen the findings of the study. The researcher conducted data collection, data management and data analysis concurrently. The researcher has used NVivo 7 software to manage and analyze the data. Thematic analysis and constant comparison were used to sort and analyze the data to get organized findings. The researcher conducted member check, peer debriefing and be a good listener to ensure validity of the study. An audit trail was adopted to ensure its reliability. Triangulation was also helpful to ensure internal validity, reliability and trustworthiness of the study. The data was also checked on the applicability of certain ethical principles of the Kant’s Duty Ethics Theory and Brockett’s The Dimensions of Ethical Practice Model thus contributing to its usage in the area of journalism. Among others, the findings of this study confirmed to Kant’s theory that it is the good will of the court reporters to practice code of ethics regardless of consequences and that reason demands them to act rationally by adopting accuracy in reporting news daily. In addition, this study supports the Brockett’s model, among others, to have a strong foundation of personal value system and priority to be accurate in reporting. The findings revealed that although majority of the criminal court reporters have various understanding on the practice of code of ethics in their line of duty, it all confirmed that ethics is more to do with guidelines or principles concerning the rights and wrongs of human conduct. However, the reporters’ understanding on the practice of code of ethics is at “elementary” level. The status of practice of all the elements of code of ethics among them is at “formative stage”. It is not a well-formed culture yet. The level of thinking on code of ethics which formed journalism values was still unclear. On the other hand, accuracy is considered as core value in the code of ethics of print media court reporters. The findings revealed that diversity is also a matter of accuracy. The reporters applied various ethical ways to co-operate among themselves in order to uphold accuracy in reporting court news. Most of them said that retaining accuracy did not affect the execution of their duties daily as they accept it as part of their job and responsibility

Carbon Nanotube from Unconventional Precursor-Optimization of Synthesis Parameters

Carbon is a versatile element of distinctive properties and has been described as the key element of living substance. Carbon nanostructures have attracted lots of interest, due their prominent properties. Spray pyrolysis method is adopted for synthesis of carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Contrast to any petroleum product, there is no fear of its ultimate shortage as it is a renewable source and can be obtained easily by cultivating as much quantity as required. Synthesize well crystalline multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) from unconventional precursor of methyl ester of Helianthus annuus oil by optimize the parameters such as reaction temperature, catalyst composition and feed rate of carbon precursor in order to obtain good yield with desirable morphology

Analysis of harmonics using wavelet technique

This paper develops an approach based on wavelet technique for the estimation of harmonic presents in power system signals. The proposed technique divides the power system signals into different frequency sub-bands corresponding to the odd harmonic components of the signal. The algorithm helps to determine both the time and frequency information from the harmonic frequency bands. The comparative study will be done with the input and the results attained from the wavelet transform (WT) for different conditions and Simulation results are given

Process improvement of conventional palm oil milling: depulper

One of the objectives of this study was to analyze the capability and efficiency of depulper in separating loose fruits cooked at atmospheric pressure into fibrous mesh and nuts. This analysis leads to possibility in replacing the function of conventional digester with depulper. The study confirmed that depulper gave better separation of mixture of nuts and light fibers for the fruit bunches cooked at 1 bar compared to those cooked at 3 bars. However, the equipment gave almost similar separation of fibrous mesh at both pressures. Thus the study confirmed the proposed depulper can be integrated to the rest of the palm oil milling process in a conventional palm oil mill as well as integrating it in the proposed alternative palm oil milling process