Evaluation of the Perceived Effects of Management Training Programmes for Commercial Bank Managers in Peninsular Malaysia

The purpose of this study was to uncover the effects of management training programmes for commercial bank manager sin Peninsular Malaysia. Specifically,this study determined the commercial bank managers perceived effects of the management training programmes and to establish the relationship bet ween needs assessment techniques,instructional techniques, training aids, evaluation criterion,trainers' competency,emphasis of training by top management,and age with the perceived effects of management training by commercial bank managers

Students' need recognition for higher education at private colleges in Malaysia : an exploratory perspective

The objective of this study is to ascertain the influence of internal and external environmental and marketing stimuli on students? need recognition to study at private colleges in Malaysia. Eight hundred and eighty eight students who were enrolled in 72 multi-disciplined private colleges participated in this study. A two-part questionnaire comprising selected background data, and internal and external stimuli promoting students? need recognition was used. Internal stimuli comprised an individual?s past experience, characteristics and motive. External environmental stimuli encompassed family, reference group and social class; while external marketing stimuli include the quality of programs, promotion, pricing, distribution, lecturers, processes and physical resources. The results indicate that external marketing stimuli have the highest influence on students? need recognition (lecturer?s quality ? 76%; program quality ? 74% and quality of physical resources ? 73%), followed by external environmental stimuli (family ? 70%), and internal stimuli ? 65%. These findings will enable private colleges to formulate effective marketing strategies emphasising students? need recognition and family influence, which will allow them to maintain a sustainable competitive edge over their competitors in this dynamic and highly competitive industry

Private colleges in Malaysia: are the key marketing environment indicators promising? / Nooraini Mohamad Sheriff and Rozita Naina Mohamad

Private colleges have been long established in Malaysia since 1930's. Being the key sector of the private higher education market in Malaysia, private colleges have assumed great responsibilities in providing private higher education to Malaysians. Their concerted efforts have complemented al1d filled the vacuum left by the public higher educatiol1al institutions. Although private colleges have grown in leaps and bound, the dynamism displayed by its marketing environmental forces 11as been a cause for concern as they could pose as opportunity and threats. Henceforth there is a need for private colleges to understand the nature and magnitude of change plaguing these forces as well as the severity of their impact on operational and strategic activities. The main objective of this paper is to analyze the key marketing environmental forces surrounding the private higher educational market namely competition, legal and technology. An analysis of these forces has uncovered the presence of intense competition among private colleges in Malaysia. Two factors were identified as key sources of this competitive environment namely a large number of industry players (approximately 700) and homogeneity of courses offered. Competition too was present from a broader perspective that is internal, external and external territorial. As a result, the industry is currently face with saturation, thus making survival a priority. This has led to cost-cutting measures and sold outs especially by the small players. Additiol1ally competition too has compelled private colleges to enhance their present standard and hence giving customers an opportunity to choose their best option. Nevertheless, it was perceived that the private higher education industry is one that is not heavily regulated. However, the National Accreditation Board has played an active role to get private colleges to conform to their regulations. This has had some positive impact, namely improvements in the redressal system, feedback on students learning experience and a general enhancemel1t of quality and quantity across the industry. Technology Oil the other hand has been adopted in many facets of the education delivery process as well as administrative process of private colleges. However, working students tend to display a greater preference to this aspect of education. Technology compared to fresh school leavers. There are also cases where private colleges claimed to be on-line but their web sites are poorly maintained. Nevertheless, it is perceived that broad technological applications would propel the growth of private colleges and thus improving their prestige. Data for this exploratory research was collected from secondary sources and primary sources through in-depth interviews with middle to senior managers from established private colleges in the Klang Valley. Twenty private colleges in the Klang Valley were selected via simple random sampling using Wencom Higher Education Guide. However, only seven private colleges consented to participate. Fourteen middle managers were selected via judgment sampling to be interviewed. The researchers felt that only managers involved in strategy formulation would have a good understanding of the external environmental forces affecting their organization. In-depth interview was conducted at designated times with the use of a discussion guide to ensure a comprehensive coverage and smooth progress if each session. Findings were analyzed using the mechanical analysis method that allowed contradictions, majority and minority views to be reported

Applying service performance guarantees to reduce risk perception in the purchase and consumption of higher education / Nooraini Mohamad Sheriff and Faridah Hassan

The intangible nature of education is one contributor to consumers’ perception of risk prior to their purchase and consumption. This risk includes: functional risk, financial risk, temporal risk, physical risk, psychological risk and social risk. The presence of these risks often makes consumer evaluation prior to purchase and consumption difficult. Invoking a service guarantee is a platform available to enable higher educational institutions to minimize such risk perception so as to induce purchase. Specifically, service guarantee for higher education entails the application of teaching performance guarantee. This form of guarantee focuses on two important customer groups of higher educational institutions namely, students and faculty members, and focuses only on a specific performance aspect such as instructor’s performance. Thus, if students are dissatisfied with an instructor’s performance they are entitled to receive their money back. The imposition of such a teaching performance guarantee would implicate instructor’s accountability for certain aspects of their performance. It also establishes a mechanism to solicit feedback to better understand why and how instructors fail. Consequently, service performance guarantee creates a high level of customer focus and signals instructors’ care towards students

Research universities in Malaysia: What beholds? / Nooraini Mohamad Sheriff and Noordini Abdullah

The National Higher Education Strategic Plan Beyond 2020 aims at further strengthening Malaysian research universities and envisions that two Malaysian universities will be among the Top 100 world universities. To date there are 5 research universities in Malaysia, namely University of Malaya (UM), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) being the latest addition. These research universities are required to focus primarily on research and innovation activities, driven by highly competent academics and competitive student admissions. Research universities too are expected to explore their intellectual capacity and become models of Malaysian universities in conducting research activities aimed at knowledge advancement. Apart from this research universities are entrusted to generate their own income and establish holding companies responsible for conducting business ventures through the commercialization of their research products. Quality and quantity of researchers, research and postgraduates are also expected to increase in these research driven institutions. This calls for a visionary university leadership and the application of a new image and organizational principles. Education, training and employment policies too have to be reviewed, to ensure staff have the skills necessary for the development of research activities

Salient features of customer engagement, visual presentation and copywriting for effective social media marketing: an exploratory perspective / Nooraini Mohamad Sheriff, Aisya Syahira Zulkifli and Wan Nur Shahira Wan Othman

As internet-based marketing utilizes channels of social media to interact and attract prospective customers to make online purchase for apparels there is a need to ascertain the extent to which salient features of social media such as customer engagement, attractive visual presentation and copywriting that are capable of driving such purchase. A total of 128 usable questionnaires were included in this study. Distribution of online questionnaires was assisted where the online questionnaire link in Google document was emailed to the company’s sales team who in turn blasted the online questionnaire via email to all of their online customers in their data base. A positive significant (0.01) high correlation of .709 for customer engagement and .711 were obtained for visual presentation with online purchase for apparels. In addition, a positive significant (0.01) modest correlation of .653was secured for copywriting and online purchase of apparels. The study affirms that online firms using social media marketing must ensure they engage their online customers through discussions, reviews, contest and comments to understand them better and to build relationship between their brand and customer’s which has a positive impact on sales. Social media marketing too needs an exemplary visual presentation to explain abstract concepts and facilitates retention of information and maintain audience interest which ultimately has a positive impact on sale. Consequently, copywriting too performs an important role of convincing people about a product by transforming product features into benefits to convince readers into making a purchase

The relationship between consumer ethnocentrism, cosmopolitanism and product country image among younger generation consumers: the moderating role of country development status

Although the differences between developed and developing countries have been extensively studied in the context of globalization strategies, few studies have so far been conducted on the relationship between country development status and the possession by countries of a favorable (or unfavorable) product country image (PCI). Moreover, the results of such studies to date have been inconclusive. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderating role of country developmental status on PCI coupled with two antecedents of PCI, namely consumer ethnocentrism and cosmopolitanism. The paper also distinguishes between the PCI of the home and foreign country images of respondents. We test a new model that incorporates these constructs with a sample of 2655 younger generation consumers. The results show that country development status moderates some relationships but does not moderate others. These findings have significant implications for international companies from both developed and developing countries when developing global strategy

RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES IN MALAYSIA: WHAT BEHOLDS?

The National Higher Education Strategic Plan Beyond 2020 aims at further strengthening Malaysian research universities and envisions that two Malaysian universities will be among the Top 100 world universities. To date there are 5 research universities in Malaysia, namely University of Malaya (UM), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) being the latest addition. These research universities are required to focus primarily on research and innovation activities, driven by highly competent academics and competitive student admissions. Research universities too are expected to explore their intellectual capacity and become models of Malaysian universities in conducting research activities aimed at knowledge advancement. Apart from this research universities are entrusted to generate their own income and establish holding companies responsible for conducting business ventures through the commercialization of their research products. Quality and quantity of researchers, research and postgraduates are also expected to increase in these research driven institutions. This calls for a visionary university leadership and the application of a new image and organizational principles. Education, training and employment policies too have to be reviewed, to ensure staff have the skills necessary for the development of research activities

Applying Service Performance Guarantees to Reduce Risk Perception in the Purchase and Consumption of Higher Education

The intangible nature of education is one contributor to consumers’ perception of risk prior to their purchase and consumption. This risk includes: functional risk, financial risk, temporal risk, physical risk, psychological risk and social risk. The presence of these risks often makes consumer evaluation prior to purchase and consumption difficult. Invoking a service guarantee is a platform available to enable higher educational institutions to minimize such risk perception so as to induce purchase. Specifically, service guarantee for higher education entails the application of teaching performance guarantee. This form of guarantee focuses on two important customer groups of higher educational institutions namely, students and faculty members, and focuses only on a specific performance aspect such as instructor’s performance. Thus, if students are dissatisfied with an instructor’s performance they are entitled to receive their money back. The imposition of such a teaching performance guarantee would implicate instructor’s accountability for certain aspects of their performance. It also establishes a mechanism to solicit feedback to better understand why and how instructors fail. Consequently, service performance guarantee creates a high level of customer focus and signals instructors’ care towards student