Managing stress at workplace using rational emotive behavioral therapy (REBT) approach

This paper discusses how the Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT) approach can be applied on employees at workplace to manage their stress. Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) is a useful cognitive-behavioral approach in understanding the sources of stress among individuals who are frequently associated with irrational beliefs. Previous literatures shows that the REBT approach which consists of the multimodal, psychoeducational and comprehensive characteristics has demonstrated its effectiveness in helping to reduce the irrational beliefs system among employees. The REBT approach has contributed mainly to cognitive-behavioral therapy in presenting the roles of beliefs system and its differences on occuring psychological disturbances using the ABCDE Model. This paper also discusses types of irrational belief held by employees such as demandingness, awfulizing, low frustation tolerance, and global evaluation which are a great help to the REBT practitioners to understand emotional disturbances and behavior of employees and the implications on their well-being

Evaluation Framework for Assessing University-Industry Collaborative Research and Technological Initiative

AbstractThe purpose of this paper is to propose an evaluation framework for university-industry collaborative research and technological initiative at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, by identifying the success criteria of university-industry collaborative research and technological initiative as perceived by academics. Five type of research collaboration mechanisms, which are; Consultancy and Technical Services Provision, Cooperative R&D Agreement, Licensing, Contract Research, and Spin-off Companies discussed and success criteria for each mechanism adopted from previous models in other countries. Based on these data, initial framework proposed. This study provides a framework to assess success of research collaboration activities from perception of academics. It's useful for improving management of research collaboration activities in universities

An Investment Framework To Help Equity Financiers Select Tech SMEs In Malaysia

The research is geared towards understanding the development cycle of technology based companies especially in the small and medium sized sector and refer to a model to help private investors in Malaysia evaluate business proposals to make funding decisions. There is always confusión when technology entrepreneurs want to evaluate the right investors to approach for fund, becuase not all specialize in funding start-ups and risky ventures. Indept investigation of past research indicates that not much have been written on venture capital financing of small and medium sized companies in Malaysia, and this work aims to shed more light and to add to literature on venture capital. Past research have failed to recommend appropriate and a simplified framework for growth firms.However, there is need to understand the relationship between investment evaluation criteria and the development cycle.The research focusses on secondary sources available from literatures on venture capital activities. Findings from this research will be of interest to investors, investees, academics and government

A Conceptualised Approach towards Building a Growth Model for Venture Capitalists Financing of TBFs

The purpose of this study is to develop a conceptual framework towards building a model for venture capitalists to evaluate investments in technology based firms, considering them from their growth stage. Fast growth entrepreneurs need this model to determine the right investors to approach, since not all specialize in funding early stage high risk companies. Previous studies revealed that major problems TBF owners face is identifying financial institutions to approach for funding, and what criteria that financial institutions used to evaluate the technologies? And also, several capital are lying idle with retired and successful individuals who also encounter difficulty of identifying the right companies to fund, because they do not possess the requisite skills to evaluate businesses based on their proposals. Past research have failed to represent the growth stages of the TBFs in a model such as this, which makes it easier for interest parties to adopt when evaluating thousands of business proposals, though they all mentioned the various growth stages except the Death stage mentioned in this study. Literature review is from secondary sources such as journals, textbooks, e-journals, websites, newspaper articles, online materials, personal discussions with colleagues. The findings of this study are important because it contributes more insights to the academic research of financing technology based firms, and call for further research on presenting the growth stages using graphical approach. Furthermore, the result of this research will be useful to link theory to practice

Sustainable government policy as silver bullet to sustainable business incubation performance In Nigeria

Business incubation has variously been described as a support programme that assist the early-stage entrepreneurs to develop and stay on their own. Furthermore, business incubation programme has been acknowledged as an economic development tool most countries globally adopted. The aim of this study is to examine the contribution of government policy on the relationship between the critical success factors (CSFs) and incubator performance in Nigeria. The questionnaire method of data collection was used to gather 113 usable questionnaires from incubatees in Nigeria’s business incubators. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was performed to determine the result using the Partial Least Square (PLS) Software. Government policy as a moderator did not show a significant moderation relationship between the CSF and incubator performance

Measuring successful collaboration project between university and industry in the development research stages

The collaboration between the university and the industry is beneficial to both parties. However, it is difficult to develop a successful collaboration due to the difference in research and organisation background from both sides. It is subjective to define the success of the collaboration, which can be based on the collaboration partner’s objectives. Recently, some studies discuss the indicators to determine the success of a project, but there were limited studies that adapted this factor to measure the success of a research project. Thus, this study aims to measure the success of a collaboration project during the development research stages. The indicators of this study were process and outcome criteria to measure the success of a project. The respondents consist of 99 researchers who were involved in the project funded by a government grant scheme. In addition, 8 leaders were interviewed to measure the project’s success. The results show that there was a significant difference between both partners on the process-related criteria. In conclusion, most of the projects were completed and each researcher has their own definition of success

Performance of University-Construction Industry Collaboration: A Systematic Literature Review and Research Agenda

University-construction industry collaboration (UIC) has become an essential part of driving innovation and fostering construction industry growth. Measuring performance of such collaboration is an emergent field of study. The present research evaluated the literature related to measuring performance of university-construction industry collaboration taking into consideration the publications in selected scientific databases. Findings were discussed and confirmed in the context of Qatar education and innovation ecosystem through semi-structured interviews with two renowned scholars involved in university-construction industry collaboration. This study aims to (1) identify the most cited references in measuring UCIC performance (2) identify UIC performance indicators advocated by top cited references, and (3) refine and map UIC performance indicators in the context of the state of Qatar. The publications reviewed were obtained through a search of the Science Direct, Emerald Insight, Scopus, Web of Science, Springer Link, SAGE, Research Gate, and Taylor & Francis Online. Keywords used in searching for articles included university-construction industry, university-construction business, cooperation, collaboration, relation, performance, and measurement. The study revealed that universities are increasingly focused on measuring performance of collaboration with construction industry. As such, it contributes to a general understanding of measuring UIC performance and defining trends in this research field. It also highlights specifically the challenges for measuring UIC performance in Qatar. In this context, key UIC performance indicators include (1) Number of Publications, (2) Number of Citations (3) Number of Registered Patents, (4) Number of Patent Applications, (5) Number of Training Programs Provided and (6) Number of Innovations

Investment in technology based small and medium sized firms in Malaysia: roles for commercial banks

Financing is an important input in every business which allows for the smooth running of day-to-day operations, asset acquisitions, expert recruitment, and development of marketing and distribution channels. This is especially the case for high-tech startups that must undergo four development stages to turn ideas into commercial products and become full-blown enterprises; concept formation, amassing of resources, product development and business development. The purpose of this research is to understand the fundamental role of banks in Malaysia in bridging the startups financing gap, thereby, helping to grow technology based small and medium sized enterprises in the country. A qualitative research approach which aims first to identify all the commercial and investment banks in the country, then with a select sample size of ten biggest banks shall administer a semi-structured/open ended questionnaire. This methodology will allow respondents to open up on critical issues to be discussed and not limiting them to certain choices as in the case with a structured form of interview. Banks in Malaysia are not willing to finance high technology small and medium enterprises since it is a high risk industry. A the findings are compared to what is obtainable in other countries and Europe and America

Technology Based Firm's Financing: An Operational Model For Malaysia

Venture capital (VC) as a method of funding technology based firms (TBFs) is a concept which emerged from the United States of America since over 30 years and has spread tremendously across the world. This concept has gained considerable awareness in Malaysia since the early 1990’s when goverment established the first venture capital company to promote and accelerate the development of the venture capital concept and also encourage the commercialization of technology based products through the management of the technology transfer funds. Due to the difficulty technology based firms owners go through in the process of growing their innovations particularly during the initial phase of growth of their businesses their is need to encourage financial managers to take up equity stakes and help nurture technology based firms to maturity. As a result of the perception in some quarters that their is a dearth of investments in the Malaysian VC industry which they opined has contributed to the slow pace of growth recorded in the industry despite huge government financial support. This study adopts a grounded theory approach (within-method triangulation) to collect data from 34 respondents in the industry. The model proposed in this study will benefit stakeholders to evaluate technology based firms