Factors Affecting Malaysian young consumers’ online purchase intention in social media websites

AbstractThe objective of this study was to examine factors that influence Malaysian young consumers’ online purchase intention through social media. The technology acceptance model and the theory of reasoned action were employed to develop the conceptual framework. Three factors, namely perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and subjective norm were tested. Data were gathered from 297 undergraduate students using the stratified sampling method and multiple regression analysis were conducted to analyse the data. The results revealed that perceived usefulness was the most dominant factors that influence young consumers’ online purchase intention through social media, followed by perceived ease of use and subjective norm. The practical implications of this study were discussed

The Performance of Export Manufacturing Firms: Roles of International Entrepreneurial Capability and International Opportunity Recognition

Purpose: The international entrepreneurial capability has achieved its legitimacy in international business literature. Leveraging capabilities to recognize opportunities are considered a pivotal strategy to achieve success. Drawing on entrepreneurship literature and opportunity perspective, this study investigates the role of international entrepreneurial capability in enhancing international opportunity recognition (IOR) process and the performance of export manufacturing firms. Design: Structural equation modelling has been used to test the hypothesised relationship on 388 export-manufacturing entrepreneurial firms operating in the apparel industry of Bangladesh. Findings: The results signify that three international entrepreneurial capabilities, namely, international networking capability, learning capability, and marketing capability positively enhance the IOR process of export manufacturing firms. IOR process positively mediates the relationships between these international entrepreneurial capabilities and firm performance. Originality: Merely having the international entrepreneurial capability is not sufficient to escalate the firm performance. It must be amplified by various strategic actions such as IOR process. Entrepreneurs need to capitalise on the international entrepreneurial capability to leverage IOR process and generate non-financial performance success. Entrepreneurial firms that focus more on stimulating non-financial performance can secure better financial performance

The Effect of Organisational Climate on Employees’ Creative Performance through Knowledge Sharing Behaviour

Malaysia has achieved significant industrial growth over the years due to the enterprising intervention of multinational companies (MNCs). The organisational climate in terms of its collaborative nature and innovative efforts has led to the enhancement of creativity among MNCs. The extent of knowledge sharing behaviour within MNCs, particularly in the Malaysian context, has not been thoroughly researched. A huge primary survey involving 20 MNCs with 155 respondents from both manufacturing and service sectors was included in this study. The findings of the study reveal that knowledge donating and knowledge collecting highly and positively influence creative performance. Interestingly, knowledge collecting mediates the relationship between an innovative climate and creative performance while a collaborative climate was found to highly and positively influence MNCs’ creative performance through knowledge donating. Thus, knowledge sharing behaviour is pivotal for the success of MNCs in terms of generating new ideas, promoting best practices, continuously improving and reducing the redundancy cost of learning to facilitate organisational effectiveness

Use of Rapid Microbial Kits for Regular Monitoring of Food-contact Surfaces towards Hygiene Practices

AbstractFood business operators should promote safe and healthy food, utilizing simple methods for microbe identification and verification. This study attempts to determine the practicability measurement of hygiene practices in two states of Malaysia. It used an inexpensive and user-friendly microbial kit to evaluate the cleanliness level of Food-Contact Surfaces (FCS). A total of 72 samples in triplicate detected 70% of all coliforms. The prevalent contaminations suggest that food service operators may need to improve the cleanliness of FCS. In conclusion, easy-to-use microbial kits are practical and self-check approach in hygiene and should be made mandatory or alternative for the operator

Antecedents and Consequences of Market Orientation in International B2B Market: Role of Export Assistance as a Moderator

Purpose: The significance of market orientation (MO) in the industrial marketing literature is immense. Separately, the role of dynamic managerial capability (DMC) as an individual-level capability has been found to be beneficial to B2B transactions. However, the assessment of DMC as antecedent to complement MO in achieving firm performance are rare. To address this knowledge gap, we build upon a research framework on the DMC theory and MO literature. Additionally, this study investigates how export assistance avails MO-firm performance relationship and assists entrepreneurs to thrive in the international market. Design: The research was conducted among the entrepreneurial export manufacturing firms in the apparel industry in Bangladesh. Structural equation modelling was used to investigate the hypothesized relationship among 329 firms. Findings: Two attributes of DMC namely, managerial social capital and managerial cognition of entrepreneurs improve the MO process of export manufacturing firms. MO mediates the relationship between DMC and firm performance. Additionally, export assistance positively moderates the relationship between MO and the financial performance of the firm. Originality/value: MO requires complementary capabilities to realize the value of it efficiently. This study strongly advocates entrepreneurs to nurture DMC to leverage MO and capitalize on emerging opportunities by productively utilizing export assistance. Firms in the emerging economies often suffer from resource-scarcity and export assistance mitigates barriers to expand international operations and yield financial liberty to the firms operating in the international B2B market

Configuring foreign market knowledge and opportunity recognition capabilities to predict the performance of export-manufacturing firms

Export-manufacturing firms survive and ultimately succeed when they can accumulate, harvest,and utilise foreign knowledge to better marshal the capabilities to recognise opportunities. Prior studies are replete with a single solution by combining foreign market knowledge (FMK) and firm performance. A shift from contingent theory to the configurational approach suggests that there are multiple solutions available to achieve intended outcomes. Based on the equifinality assumption, we configure FMK in conjunction with opportunity recognition capabilities to predict performance. In total, 382 export-manufacturing firms were investigated by employing fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) and necessary condition analysis (NCA). Salient findings suggest that young firms achieve superior performance from foreign business and institutional knowledge by enhancing opportunity exploration capability, whereas mature firms succeed from internationalisation knowledge and nurturing opportunity exploitation capability. The study is one of which that contributes to the methodology by introducing fsQCA and NCA in the knowledge management literature

Allozyme variations of Trichoderma harzianum and its taxonomic implications

Electrophoretic variation of nine allozyme systems encoded by 14 gene loci were studied on 47 isolates from 3 species of Trichoderma namely, T. harzianum, T. aureoviride and T. longibrachiatum. Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis was used to investigate the taxonomic circumscription of T. harzianum populations and to evaluate the levels of genetic variations and the population structure. The Level of genetic variations in T. harzianum populations were moderately high (P= 57.10%, A= 0.7857, Ap= 0.60714 and H = 0.1542) compared to E T. aureoviride and T. longibrachiatum. The genetic variation attributable to differences among populations was 7.857%. The mean gene flow among populations was Nm = 1.3351. Genetic identities (I) ranged from 0.9397 to 0.9642 with a mean of 0.94846. Outcrossing rates based on fixation indices average (t) was 0.2334. Nevertheless, the alleles for α-EST-b showed a very low frequency of 0.0400. The polymorphic locus of MDH1 was of the fast allele of T. harzianum, MD1-a, was prevalent in T. aureoviride and T. longibrachiatum populations. Using a UPGMA cluster analysis, T. harzianum and T. longibrachiatum populations were totally separated in these cluster except T. aureoviride populations. T. harzianum presents high levels of genetic diversity compared with other Trichoderma species