Consumers' Perceptions and Expectations of Service Quality in Selected Fast Food Restaurants

In Malaysia, fast food restaurants have experienced high growth rates and have introduced more new products and services. As a result, the level of competition has increased. Now, the issue is how each individual restaurant will maintain its competitiveness in terms of service quality. The study examines consumers' perceptions and expectations of service quality in selected fast food restaurants. The service quality scale called SERVQUAL measured consumers' perceptions and expectations. SERVQUAL consists of five dimensions of service quality, which are tangible, reliability, assurance, empathy and responsiveness. The SERVQUAL technique provides an overall measure of quality across all the five dimensions of service quality. In this study, 20 pairs of questions were used. One question from each pair asked consumers' to describe their expectation while the other question asked for their perceptions. A total of 456 consumers were selected as respondents. Frequency counts and percentages were used to analyze the demographic characteristics of the respon dents. Gap analysis was used to identify the differences between the consumers' perceptions and expectations. Factor analysis was used to examine the underlying pattern of the statements in the 20 items of the SERVQUAL scale. The study shows that the reliability dimension constituted the lowest score on the SERVQUAL scale. This was followed by the empathy, tangible and assurance dimensions. The factor analysis results identified six factors that affect consumers' perceptions and expectations of service quality. These six factors are reliability, customer care, customer service, company-oriented item, visionary and caring

Examining Farmers’ Marketing Practices in the Fresh Fruits and Vegetables (FFV) Industry

This study is to examine the farmers’ marketing practices in the fresh fruits and vegetables (FFV) industry. It aims firstly, identifies the current marketing practices of FFV; secondly to determine the factors which motivate contract farmers to participate in contract farming; thirdly to identify the determinants of FFV farmers participating in contract farming and lastly to evaluates the nature of sourcing and procurement practices by FFV buyers (with a special focus on hypermarkets). The study utilizes both quantitative and qualitative research. The study was conducted a survey on FFV farmers by using a structured questionnaire. The survey was conducted from April 2007 to July 2007 in populous states namely Kedah,Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang, Perak, Selangor and Johor in Peninsular Malaysia. The study utilized a random sampling method. A total of 208 FFV farmers were interviewed. One hundred and sixty seven FFV farmers were independent farmers and the remaining were contract farmers. As for the qualitative research, an in-depth interview was conducted with FFV buyers which include Malaysian Agrifood Corporation (MAFC), Mydin, Giant, ECONSAVE and UO Superstore to get insights on FFV buyers sourcing and procurement practices. Factor analysis was carried out to identify latent factors that influenced FFV farmers in their participation in contract farming. The factor analysis uncovered five factors,as perceived by the FFV farmers, as reasons for their involvement in contract farming. These factors are: market assurance, access to marketing information and technology, transfer of technology to improve farming practices, access to inputs and indirect benefit. These factors, in sum, explained 76.8 per cent of the variance in the farmers’ decision-making process. The FFV contract farmers also agreed that the new approach in marketing their produce not only increased their income and knowledge but also enhanced their productivity. Logit analysis uncovers seven determinants of FFV farmers’ participation in contract farming. It was found that land ownership, farm size, education and perceived benefit were four determinants that positively influenced farmers’ participation in contract farming. Complicated process, lack of opportunities and price risk were three determinants that negatively influence the farmers’ participation in contract farming. Several forms of sourcing and procurement practices for FFV produce were observed among the FFV produce buyers. These practices included: 1) Lead or large scale FFV farmers deliver FFV produce directly to supermarkets; 2)wholesalers directly deliver to supermarkets and 3) supermarkets’ use of specialized sourcing and procurement agency such as FAMA. It was observed that supermarkets or hypermarkets do not have any contract agreement directly with farmers as well as any written document. FFV farmers deliver by arrangement. By buying directly from FFV farmers, supermarkets or hypermarkets by pass the middleman, enable them to obtain the supplies in cheaper prices. Supermarkets or hypermarkets buy in bulk and secured their supplies from wholesale market. This was mainly due to wholesalers’ ability in supplying in bulk as well as deliver in the right time and quality. Buyers’criterions in choosing suppliers were volume, price, quality and formed relationship of trust

Customers’ Awareness and Attitude in Purchasing Herbal Products in Kuala Terengganu

The growth of the herbal industry in Malaysia has sparked the economy and it is identified as one of the new incomes to the country. This industry is expected to bring more job opportunities to the citizen in Malaysia. Demand for herbal products also has been increasing for the past few years. This study aims to contribute the general understanding of customer awareness and attitude in purchasing herbal products and show the relationship between demographic profile and customer awareness and attitude in purchasing herbal products. This study was conducted in Kuala Terengganu and the online Google form was used as study instrument for data collection. There were around 150 respondents that answered the questionnaire. The questionnaire was divided into 2 sections. The first section which is section A, discusses the socio-demographic profile of the respondents. The second part which is section B were in Likert-scale design to obtain the customers’ awareness and attitude in purchasing herbal products. Data that were collected in this study were analysed using a statistical tool which is Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). The Descriptive analysis was used to provide simple summaries of the respondents while the Cross-tab with Chi-Square analysis was chosen to be used to test the statistical independence of the variables. From this study, the variable Age is the only demographic factor that shows a significant relationship towards the customers’ awareness and attitude in purchasing herbal products. Other demographic factors such as Gender, Education, Occupation, and Income shows independent and no relationship towards the customers’ awareness and attitude in purchasing herbal products. This study could be beneficial to researchers and marketers in understanding customer buying behaviour

An Exploration on Corn Industry Marketing Channels

This study was focus on the marketing margin analysis to deal with issues in relation to the marketing of corn produce in Terengganu. The price change in corn is the main problem in providing reasonable price to both farmers and consumers of products. The held up payment by the commission agents, rather high transportation cost to middleman and lack of education on definite marketing condition gave problems to the farmers in marketing their produce. The farmer suffered from high cost in corn production, while getting low economic return for their produce when the other members in the channel got higher profit. For this purpose this study had been conducted at all the districts of Terengganu and focusing the main location of corn production which is the Kuala Berang area. The data collected for this study were cost of production and net marketing margin of corn industry. The marketing margin analysis is used to interpret the data. The main factors that affects marketing margin in corn industry were marketing cost and the cost of production faced by the farmers. There were three channels that are involved in corn industry. The extent of price transmission among the different levels of the corn marketing chain in Terengganu had been studied during the survey, which had shown retailers as the main share contributor in the profit margin of corn. Keywords: Marketing margin, marketing channels, corn industry, farmers  ABSTRAK Kajian ini bertumpu untuk menganalisis margin pemasaran jagung berkaitan dengan isu-isu pemasaran hasilan jagung di Terengganu. Perubahan harga jagung ialah masalah utama dalam menentukan harga yang berpatutan kepada kedua-dua pekebun dan pengguna untuk mendapatkan produk. Pembayaran pengangkutan yang mahal serta kekurangan pengetahuan dalam unsur pemasaran merupakan masalah utama kepada petani untuk memasarkan hasilan jagung mereka. Petani mengalami kos tinggi dalam proses pengeluaran jagung serta pulangan ekonomi yang rendah, manakala ahli-ahli yang lain di saluran menperolehi keuntungan yang lebih tinggi berbanding dengan petani. Untuk tujuan ini, kajian telah dijalankan di semua kawasan di Terengganu dengan penumpuan kepada kawasan Kuala Berang yang dikenalpasti sebagai kawasan penanaman utama jagung. Data yang dikumpul untuk kajian ini ialah margin pemasaran serta kos pengeluaran dan margin pemasaran bersih. Analisis margin pemasaran telah digunakan untuk mentafsirkan data. Faktor utama yang menjejaskan margin pemasaran pada industri jagung ialah kos pemasaran dan kos pengeluaran yang dihadapi oleh pekebun. Telah dikenalpasti tiga saluran dalam industri jagung. Takat transmisi harga antara pelbagai tahap rantaian pemasaran jagung di Terengganu semasa tinjauan, telah menunjukkan peruncit sebagai penyumbang utama saham di dalam margin keuntungan jagung. Kata kunci: Margin pemasaran, saluran pemasaran, industri jagung, petan

Genre analysis of the literature review section in hospitality and management research articles

Writing an effective literature review is not an easy task for novice writers of research articles, who are oftentimes unaware of the exact functions and purpose of this section; they are often unsuccessful in establishing the necessary connection between what has already been reviewed and the proposed research. This paper discusses the rhetorical patterns of the literature review (LR) section of Hospitality and Management (HM) research articles (RAs) from the perspective of genre analysis using the move structures as posited by Swales (2004). Twenty literature reviews from research articles in the Hospitality and Management discipline were analyzed to determine the move structure of the LR section. A moves analysis was carried out to identify the main moves and steps in the LR section. The analysis indicates that the LR sections display cyclical move patterns that show the presence of the 3 moves and their respective steps as postulated in Swales (2004) revised CARS model, but with some variations. The findings show that the LR section has Move 1 as an obligatory step and that HM RA writers favour making general statements about current situations as a beginning strategy. The findings further show that Move 2 Step 1B, ‘Adding to what is known’, is prevalent in the LR section because the writers will go on to contribute to the existing field of research by adding other research findings that are deemed necessary. Another outcome is that only Move 3-Step 1 is prevalent while the other 6 steps are either not found at all or are present in only a few of the samples

Enhancing ESL students academic writing skills through the term-paper

Tertiary ESL students find writing the academic term-paper a complex process as they grapple with issues about academic writing conventions and ethics. This paper examines tertiary students’ thoughts and perceptions in co-constructing knowledge about academic writing and how multi-drafting and feedback strategies enhance their academic literacy skills through term-paper writing. In particular, we examine the use of the term-paper as a pedagogical instrument incorporating the process approach to writing for developing academic writing skills among tertiary level students in Malaysia including the importance of multi-drafting, where students reflect on the writing of the multi-drafts and evaluate their learning while working in groups. The respondents are 38 Diploma in Business Management students from a Malaysian university enrolled in an academic writing course. Focus group interviews, group observations and respondents reflective journal entries provided the qualitative data. Our findings show that group multi-drafting and feedback processes enhanced students understanding of writing as a recursive process and sharpened their academic writing literacy knowledge in the areas of referencing, planning, idea generation, editing and revising. We conclude that the multi-draft term-paper approach as a pedagogical tool seems to be a feasible solution to heightening the academic writing skills and confidence of tertiary students

Entrepreneurship education : insights into students’ learning experience / Kaarthiyainy Supramaniam and Nalini Arumugam

Entrepreneurship education is emerging as an important field that it is timely to closely examine the learning experiences of individuals who are immersed in a formal curriculum to inculcate entrepreneurship. There is a lack of insights into how the teaching methods adopted in the top-down approach affect students’ learning experiences. This paper adopts a case study approach in investigating an event organised by undergraduates at a Malaysian public university as universities in the local context heed the call to produce more entrepreneurs to spur socio-economic activities. Observations and interviews with the student leader and two other students, and their lecturers revealed that while the top-down approach preferred by the university in engaging students to spur them to become entrepreneurs has its merits, the response at the ground level revealed challenges that they faced in participating in the entrepreneurial event. Findings of the study underscore the importance of narrowing the gap between pedagogical prescriptivism and learner readiness to become entrepreneurs

News coverage of foreign sex workers in Malaysia: a critical analysis

The growing concern over the influx of foreign women in Malaysia as sex workers, has continually gained the attention of the local media particularly the mainstream newspapers. The media, despite playing an instrumental role in bringing about social transformation, has the ability to portray the foreign women in a positive way or to discriminate against them. This study, based on qualitative analysis, represents an attempt to study a social problem particularly in the way that foreign women in sex work have been represented in Malaysia by the mainstream English-language newspapers. The analytical tools of the discourse-historical approach (DHA) are employed in the analysis of the news articles. In particular, the argumentation strategy in the DHA demonstrates that a number of topoi (i.e., the topoi of control, number, threat, and victimisation) have been employed to represent foreign sex workers in the media. Investigation of the newspaper extracts from New Straits Times and The Star generally revealed that the media have portrayed foreign women in sex work in the offender orientation frame more so than as victims. Furthermore, foreign sex workers are also positioned negatively because of their illegal migrant status, making them doubly discriminated against. Such representations directly impact the women’s lives, leading to further discrimination on the basis of their trade and illegal migrant status, denying them a voice and depriving them of their legal rights. The paper concludes by discussing the contributions of the research and emphasises the need for social justice for these marginalised women

Supply chain analysis of fresh fruits and vegetables (FFV): Prospects of contract farming

The paper examines the factors that lead farmers to participate in c the contract farming in the Peninsular Malaysia. The primary data was collected through a survey using a questionnaire on the total of two hundred and eight farmers from various states in Malaysia. The study utilizes the stratified sampling method. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. The survey identified forty-one contract farmers. Factor analysis was carried out to identify the factors that lead farmers to participate in the contract farming. Based on the analysis, five factors were identified as the reasons for contracting, namely, market stability, and access to marketing information and technology, transfer of technology to improve farming practices, access to inputs and indirect benefit. Contract farming or contract arrangements can be a valuable source of an additional income and knowledge that can be employed to enhance the productivity of the entire farming enterprise