Critical factors influencing Firms' risk-taking behaviour: CEO characteristics and the moderating role of the audit committee

This paper aims to explore the effects of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) characteristics on managerial risk-taking behaviour and the moderating impact of Audit Committee (AC) ownership and ethnicity in this relationship. The underlining theory employed in this study is the Upper Echelons Theory (UET). Data were hand-collected from annual reports of the top 100 Malaysian PLCs over 2015-2020 and were analysed through multiple regression analysis and Hayes’ Process moderation analysis. The findings suggest that CEO age negatively affects risk-taking. The results, however, do not support the use of CEO tenure and gender as proxies for managerial risk-taking behaviour. AC ownership has a significant positive moderating effect on the relationship between CEO age, tenure, gender and risk-taking. Contrarily, AC ethnicity only significantly moderates the association between CEO gender and risk-taking. This study further adds to the existing literature considering these independent variables. Implications for Central European audience: This study serves as a good yardstick for exploring the effects of CEOs’ characteristics. While this study is within the Malaysian context, it is undoubtedly useful within the Central European context. The risk-taking behaviour can be dispersed over all sectors, especially when this study employs the UET theory. The findings would set a comparison for those corporates in Central European countries

Capacity Behaviour using WSDV Scheme over WiMAX

The objective of this project is to create Mobile Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) for 4th generation mobile wireless networks in which it is foreseen that mobile Television (TV) services will reproduce rapidly. In television applications are bandwidth hogs that cause a challenging capacity problem in wireless networks. To address this challenge, a novel scheme for mobile Television services over WiMAX network, called the Wireless Switched Digital Video (WSDV) scheme, is proposed. Compared with the conventional broadcast or unicast schemes, the hybrid approach introduced in the proposed WSDV approach exploits the merits of two conventional schemes and mitigates their demerits, which enables it to increase wireless capacity for mobile Television services. The analytical model can capture the details of WiMAX resource allocation and take into consideration the popularity of the mobile Television contents being viewed by users enabling it to provide an accurate estimate of the amount of bandwidth required for WiMAX TV services and also enabling a designer to optimally select the number of channels via the WSDV service while meeting a desired level of blocking probability. The proposed optimized scheme outperforms the conventional schemes with respect to blocking probability. Finally, an end-to-end solution to the WSDV scheme is also presented

Predicting the fire-induced structural performance of steel tube columns filled with SFRC-enhanced concrete: using artificial neural networks approach

Predicting the axial Shortening strength of concrete-filled steel tubular (CFST) columns is an important problem that this study attempts to solve for civil engineering projects. We suggest using a deep learning-based artificial neural network (ANN) model to address this issue, taking into account the intricate relationship between steel tube and core concrete. The model, called ANN-SFRC (Steel Fibre Reinforced Concrete), surpasses an R2 threshold of 0.90 and achieves impressive R2 values across different types of CFST columns. Compared to traditional linear regression methods, the ANN-SFRC model significantly improves accuracy, with an observed inaccuracy of less than 3% compared to actual values. With its reliable approach to forecasting the behavior of CFST columns under axial compression, this high-performance instrument enhances safety and accuracy during the design and planning stages of civil engineering

Efficiency determinants of Malaysian conventional and Islamic banks - A 5-year period study

The growth of conventional and Islamic banking in Malaysia has been commendable and has brought positive impact into the overall economic growth for Malaysia. The efficiency of Malaysian banks has always been a point of debate. Based on certain studies by Awan (2009), Bader, et al. (2008), and Mokhtar (2006), draws the need to further deliberate on the area of banks efficiency, especially the efficiency of conventional and Islamic banks in Malaysia. This study visits three fundamental questions, which are; what is the efficiency for Islamic and conventional banks in Malaysia between the period 2009 to 2013?; does the efficiency of conventional banking supersedes that of Islamic banking in Malaysia during the same period?; and what are the factors influencing the efficiency of conventional and Islamic banks in Malaysia? Hence the purpose of this study is to address these three research questions between the 5-year period, which represents the period after the 2008 global financial crisis, revealing the required actions by regulators and industrial experts to further improve the banking landscape in Malaysia

An Exploratory Study on the extent of Budgeting Practices within Small and Medium sized Enterprises and the Factors Therein

The purpose of this research is to identify the extent of usage of budgeting practices among small and medium companies (SMEs) in Malaysia and to investigate the effect of size of firm, sophistication level of operations and level of competition, computerized accounting system, and workers participation in budgeting practices. To achieve these objectives, this research employed a questionnaire method to interpret and generate the results. Several statistical methods were used to analysis the responses, which are descriptive analysis and inferential analysis. In term of budgeting practices, the research revealed that the sales, production and purchase budget are the most heavily used among SMEs in Malaysia. In addition, the results also revealed that there are significant and positive relationship between size of firm, sophistication level of operation and level of market competition, computerized accounting system, participation of workers in budgeting practices among SMEs in Malaysia. This research provides new empirical evidences and contributes a better understanding of the use of budgeting practices among SMEs in Malaysia

Enhancing the fire-resistant performance of concrete-filled steel tube columns with steel fiber-reinforced concrete

Due to their excellent mechanical features, concrete-filled steel tube (CFST) columns are usually employed in high-rise constructions; it is also significant to consider fire safety while designing buildings. The fire-resistance performance of fibre-reinforced CFST columns is superior to that of unreinforced CFST columns under identical conditions. The post-peak behavior of CFST columns can be enhanced by incorporating fibres to reduce the brittleness of concrete. The research on this topic is limited and considerable research gaps are available in the literature. This research examines the structural performance of steel fibre-reinforced concrete (SFRC) filled steel tubes exposed to ambient and elevated temperatures. For this purpose, fourteen CFST columns were investigated and separated into two groups. The first group of CFST columns was filled with three diverse grades of conventional concrete with and without fibres, which was subjected to ambient temperature. The second group is identical to the first group except all columns are exposed to a temperature of 1050 ℃. The parameters examined were the mechanical properties of concrete, load-carrying capacity, load-deflection response, axial load, and axial strain and ductility ratio. Furthermore, using different codes, a comparison was made for the column's empirically determined load-carrying capacity with the theoretical value. Besides, the morphological characteristics of concrete were examined using energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), scanning electron microscope (SEM), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray powder diffraction (XRD). The findings show that the SFRC-filled column has superior structural qualities when subjected to elevated temperatures. At high temperatures, calcium hydroxide decomposes, and the steel tube yields, causing the column to fail by premature local bucking