Family Business Succession Planning: Unleashing The Key Factors Of Business Performance

Family business studies are becoming more pervasive in Malaysia, and several studies have focused on factors that shape family-owned business performance levels. Succession planning issues, and specifically the succession issues and experiences of second or third generation family business owners (2GO/3GO), have not yet been explored at length. This study aims to revisit various factors that shape family firm performance by examining succession issues and transition experiences encountered by successors. Data were drawn from self-administered surveys completed by 55 2GOs and 3GOs. Descriptive, correlation and regression analyses were conducted to interpret our findings. The findings show that management styles, relationships between family members, values and beliefs and successor training significantly influence family business performance levels. The relationship between antecedents and business performance is found to be partly mediated by succession issues and fully mediated by sucession experience. Both theoretical and practical implications and avenues for future research are discussed

PRL-3, a Metastasis Associated Tyrosine Phosphatase, Is Involved in FLT3-ITD Signaling and Implicated in Anti-AML Therapy

Combination with other small molecule drugs represents a promising strategy to improve therapeutic efficacy of FLT3 inhibitors in the clinic. We demonstrated that combining ABT-869, a FLT3 inhibitor, with SAHA, a HDAC inhibitor, led to synergistic killing of the AML cells with FLT3 mutations and suppression of colony formation. We identified a core gene signature that is uniquely induced by the combination treatment in 2 different leukemia cell lines. Among these, we showed that downregulation of PTP4A3 (PRL-3) played a role in this synergism. PRL-3 is downstream of FLT3 signaling and ectopic expression of PRL-3 conferred therapeutic resistance through upregulation of STAT (signal transducers and activators of transcription) pathway activity and anti-apoptotic Mcl-1 protein. PRL-3 interacts with HDAC4 and SAHA downregulates PRL-3 via a proteasome dependent pathway. In addition, PRL-3 protein was identified in 47% of AML cases, but was absent in myeloid cells in normal bone marrows. Our results suggest such combination therapies may significantly improve the therapeutic efficacy of FLT3 inhibitors. PRL-3 plays a potential pathological role in AML and it might be a useful therapeutic target in AML, and warrant clinical investigation

Isoprene hotspots at the Western Coast of Antarctic Peninsula during MASEC′16

Isoprene (C5H8) plays an important role in the formation of surface ozone (O3) and the secondary organic aerosol (SOA) which contributed to the climate change. This study aims to determine hourly distribution of tropospheric isoprene over the Western Coast of Antarctic Peninsula (WCAP) during the Malaysian Antarctic Scientific Expedition Cruise 2016 (MASEC′16). In-situ measurements of isoprene were taken using a custom-built gas chromatography with photoionization detector, known as iDirac. Biological parameters such as chlorophyll a (chl-a) and particulate organic carbon (POC) were compared to the in-situ isoprene measurements. Significant positive correlation was observed between isoprene and POC concentrations (r2 = 0.67, p < 0.001), but not between isoprene and chl-a. The hotspots of isoprene over maritime Antarctic were then were investigated using NAME dispersion model reanalysis. Measurements showed that isoprene mixing ratio were the highest over region of King George Island, Deception Island and Booth Island with values of ∼5.0, ∼0.9 and ∼5.2 ppb, respectively. Backward trajectory analysis showed that air masses may have lifted the isoprene emitted by marine algae. We believe our findings provide valuable data set of isoprene estimation over the under sampled WCAP

HOMELESSNESS IN MALAYSIA: VICTIMS OF CIRCUMSTANCE OR BY CHOICE?

ABSTRACT This paper discusses the issues of homelessness in Malaysia, what constitutes and causes homelessness in Malaysia and how the society and government can help this marginalised group, according to public opinion. There is no official statistics showing the number of homeless in the city as only a few non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are aware of their existence. Needless to mention, the reasons why they end up sleeping on the streets. Homelessness affects thousands across Malaysia – people from all ethnicities, age groups, education levels, and geographic regions. Despite the pervasiveness of homelessness, people who are homeless are typically blamed for their homelessness. The media and public perpetuate myths of homeless women and men as "lazy", unmotivated people prone to making poor choices or as deviants who care nothing of the society or "being a burden". Observations, interviews and discussions were conducted among urban citizens. Data collected include their opinions, awareness and perceptions on the homeless in the country and various assistance currently available. Findings show not many are aware of the state of the homeless in the country. However, majority are concerned and willing to help through donations, food distribution, and creations of job and social services programs organized by the government or NGOs

Promoting organizational citizenship behaviour through high involvement human resource practices and organizational justice among hotel frontline employees in Malaysia : an attempt to reduce turnover intention / Wee Yu Ghee.

Acknowledging the need to pool human capital in the light of strong relational infrastructure so as to increase employees retention, this study examines the possibility of inducing organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) through human resource (HR) philosophy embraced by the organizations, high involvement HR practices and organizational justice administered at the workplace. Two bases which form the relational infrastructure, namely leader-member exchange and trust in supervisor are posited to be potential mediators. Based on the social exchange theory, an integrated model with three sets of predicting variables (human resource philosophy, high involvement human resource practices and organization justice), two mediating variables (leader-member exchange and trust in supervisor), and two criterion variables (organizational citizenship behaviour and turnover intention), is presented in this study. Data was collected from frontline employees working in the five-star hotels in Malaysia and tested through structural equation modeling. Consistent with previous findings, HR philosophy drives the formulation of the bundles of high involvement human resource practices. A new contribution is added to the existing body of knowledge where such philosophy is found to have led to employees’ willingness in exhibiting citizenship behaviour directed at organizations (OCBO) as a whole. High involvement HR practices, however, do not elicit OCB but these practices are significantly related to leader-member exchange, another new theoretical insight which should invite future research. Except for distributive justice, procedural and interactional justice remain essential in promoting OCB but these relationships are mediated by subordinates’ trust in supervisor. Overall, the hotel frontline employees who have participated in this study exhibit more of citizenship behaviour that is directed to benefit organizations as a whole, rather than discretionary behaviour that is dedicated to specific individuals (OCBI). Significantly, OCBO is negatively related to employee’s turnover intention. Both theoretical and practical implications as well as avenues for future research are discussed

Promoting Organizational Citizenship Behaviour Through High Involvement Human Resource Practices: An Attempt to Reduce Turnover Intention

This study examines the possibility of inducing organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) through human resource (HR) philosophy and high involvement HR practices administered at the workplace. Leader-member exchange (LMX) is posited to be a potential mediator. Data was collected from hotel frontline employees and analyzed through structural equation modeling. Findings show that HR philosophy drives the formulation of the bundles of high involvement human resource practices and such philosophy contributes to employees’ willingness in exhibiting citizenship behavior directed at individuals (OCBI) as well as organizations (OCBO) as a whole. High involvement HR practices, however, do not elicit OCB but are significantly related to LMX, a new theoretical insight which should invite future research. Although exchanges between supervisors and subordinates are proven to have influences on employees’ willingness in performing OCB, LMX does not mediate the relationship between high involvement HR practices and OCB. Overall, hotel frontline employees participated in this study exhibit more of OCBO as a whole, rather than OCBI; and such behavior reduce their intention to leave. Both theoretical and practical implications as well as avenues for future research are discussed

Nighttime Sleep Awakening Frequency and Its Consistency Predict Future Academic Performance in College Students

Although the relationship between sleep and academic performance has been extensively examined, how sleep predicts future academic performance (e.g., 2&ndash;3 years) remains to be further investigated. Using wearable smartwatches and a self-report questionnaire, we tracked sleep activities of 45 college students over a period of approximately half a month to see whether their sleep activities predicted their academic performance, which was estimated by grade point average (GPA). Results showed that both nighttime sleep awakening frequency and its consistency in the tracking period were not significantly correlated with the GPA for the courses taken in the sleep tracking semester (current GPA). However, both nighttime sleep awakening frequency and its consistency inversely predicted the GPA for the rest of the courses taken after that semester (future GPA). Moreover, students with more difficulty staying awake throughout the day obtained lower current and future GPAs, and students with higher inconsistency of sleep quality obtained lower future GPA. Together, these findings highlight the importance of nighttime sleep awakening frequency and consistency in predicting future academic performance, and emphasize the necessity of assessing the consistency of sleep measures in future studies