Barriers to e-commerce technologies adoption in third party logistics companies

This paper focuses on the barriers to e-commerce technologies adoption in third party logistics companies in Malaysia.Despite multiple benefits, such as improved accuracy of information dissemination, improved product movement visibility and better customer service levels, the level of ecommerce technologies adoption among the third party logistics companies in Malaysia are not high because of several barriers such as data communication too slow and the customers not ready for ecommerce

Supply Chain Risk Management for the SME’s

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are a vital component in economic development and bring benefits to the country as they provide employment, increase income, and foster economic growth. However, SMEs have many shortcomings including small size, short capital, and reliance on support from the government. In addition, SMEs are usually companies that are less structured, with small management group, inadequately organised, as well as having informal risk management structure. This study argues for the benefit of adopting SCRM in Malaysian SME. Supply chain risk management (SCRM) focuses on supply chain risk phenomena and provides models for the analysis of several types of supply chain risks that occur in both supply and demand sides of the supply chains. The purpose of SCRM is to recognise the potential supply chain uncertainties and prevent the uncertainties with appropriate action. SCRM is made of four basic categories; risk sources, risk consequences, risk drivers, and risk mitigation strategies. This study focuses on risk mitigation strategies that should be implemented by SME to overcome challenges that they faced. The main problem is that there is lack of knowledge in the application of SCM, especially SCRM in the context of SMEs. In fact, there are still plenty of companies that have not establish a structured supply chain risk management and mitigation system and unaware of supply chain disruption risk management. Therefore, this study seeks to examine risk mitigation strategies and their effect on the company’s performance in Malaysian SME’s. Data was collected through survey questionnaire and the respondents consist of SMEs located in Malaysia. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS and findings indicate that there is significant relationship between risk mitigation strategies adopted by the SMEs and their company performance. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2015.v4n1s2p15

Factors influencing the choice in Incoterms among Malaysian manufacturers

The International Commercial Terms (Incoterms), introduced and governed by International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) are standard trade terms used in international and domestic sales contract. The latest version, INCOTERMS 2010 states the obligations and responsibilities of importers and exporters regarding transport costs and risks as well as the responsibilities for insurance and customs formalities.This paper seeks to find out the most frequently used Incoterms and examine the factors that influences the choice of Incoterms among Malaysian manufacturers. Data was collected using survey methods and then analysed using univariate (descriptive) analysis. A total of 335 questionnaires were distributed to manufacturers in Malaysia using a sampling framework from the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM). Of the 335 questionnaires distributed, 60 were returned yielding a response rate of 17.9%. Findings indicate that FOB (Free On Board) were the most frequently used Incoterms and that the factors that influence choice of Incoterms can be divided into two types: external environments and internal factors. Among the external environment, the strongest influence are freight issue, transport issue and tariff classification. For the internal environment, the strongest influence comes from mode of transportation, habits and practices of the organization and experience of the company.The main contribution of this study is towards narrowing the gap in knowledge regarding Incoterms as past research indicated that it is still relatively unknown and should highlight Incoterms selection, among others

Risk sources, agility strategy and company performance among manufacturing small and medium enterprises in Malaysia

Small and Medium Enterprise (SME), with its significant contribution to a country’s economy is gaining a corresponding interest from the research community. However, SMEs face numerous risks that could affect their performance resulting in its inability to rise to its full potential. Thus, this paper seeks to study the effect of risk sources (innovation and technology adoption risk, infrastructure risk and legal and regulation environment risk) towards company performance while introducing agility strategy in improving performance. Data was collected through a survey to Malaysian SME manufacturing companies yielding a response from 152 companies. Data were analysed using PLS-SEM. Findings indicate that innovation and technology adoption risk and legal and regulation environment risk have a significant effect on company performance. Meanwhile, the introduction of agility strategy does indicate a role in improvement of company’s performance in handling these risk sources. It would seem that agility strategy plays an effective role in mitigating risks therefore improving SME’s performance, contributing to knowledge of effective mitigating strategies in the field of risk management in supply chain for SMEs

Examining the Most Severe Logistics and Supply Chain Issues Experienced by Malaysian SMEs

Literature revealed that both the internal and external factors may result in business failure among Small and Medium Size Enterprise (SME). One of the external factors identified is non-availability or deficiency in logistics and supply chain operations. Thus, this study was conducted with the objective to identify the most severe logistics and supply chain issues faced by SMEs in Malaysia. Quantitative research design was employed, where data were collected through mail survey questionnaire. The frequency of respondents selecting 4 (Severe) and 5 (Very severe) for each survey item were calculated, in order to determine which issues are the most severe among Malaysian SMEs. The items are then ranked based on the highest number of respondents selecting 4 and 5. It provides more meaningful information on the most severe logistics and supply chain issues faced by SMEs, if compared to analysing the mean score of each item as the mean value may be distorted by high standard deviation. Findings indicate that difficulties and inaccuracies in forecasting inventory top the list, followed by inability to fulfil orders due to inventory shortages and keeping wrong mix of inventories. Thus, it can be concluded that inventory related issues are the most critical problems faced by Malaysian SMEs. This study contributes towards logistics and supply chain management literature as it provides an in depth information on the logistics and supply chain related issues faced by SMEs. For practitioners and the relevant government agency, this study sheds light on the most severe issues so that firms and government agency can focus their efforts on rectifying these severe logistics and supply chain issue

Reverse logistics: Pressure for adoption and the impact on firm’s performance

One of the new challenges faced by Malaysian firms that want to go global is the fact that many countries have introduced legislation or directives to ensure effective disposal of manufactured products and its waste.Furthermore, the increase in awareness on environmental issues, sustainable development, corporate citizenship and the benefit of recycling had also placed more pressure on firms to adopt sustainable business initiatives such as a better reverse logistics strategy.Manufacturing firms however often focused on forward logistics and as a result, they tend to overlook at the importance of reverse logistics activities and its potential of improving the firm’s performance.The objective of this study is to look at the current level of reverse logistics adoption among manufacturers in Malaysia and to identify the influence of customer/stakeholder pressure, regulatory pressure, financial and competitive pressure, and corporate citizenship pressure on the level of reverse logistics adoption. In addition, this study also aims to determine the relationship between reverse logistics adoption level and firm’s performance. Data was collected through survey questionnaire, and the respondents consist of managers at manufacturing firms located in the Northern State of Malaysia and the Klang Valley. 101 samples were collected and data analysis was conducted using the Partial Least Square (PLS) regression analysis, through SmartPLS 2.0 software. Findings indicate that the level of reverse logistics adoption among Malaysia manufacturers is considerably low. Out of four independent variables, only the regulatory pressure has a significantly strong influence on the level of reverse logistics adoption, while customer and stakeholder pressure has a significant but moderate influence. No significant relationship was observed between the level of reverse logistics adoption and firm’s performance

The pressure for reverse logistics adoption among manufacturers in Malaysia

This study aims to examine how the level of reverse logistics adoption among manufacturers in Malaysia can be influenced by customer/stakeholder pressure, regulatory pressure, financial and competitive pressure, and corporate citizenship pressure.Data were collected through a survey questionnaire, and respondents were managers of manufacturing firms located in the Northern States of Peninsular Malaysia and the Klang Valley.Partial Least Square (PLS) regression analysis was applied and the findings indicate that regulatory pressure has a significantly strong influence on the level of reverse logistics adoption, while customer/stakeholder pressure has moderate influence

Effect of cultural intelligence, emotional intelligence, social intelligence and Islamic work ethics on individual work performance

A high performance public service is increasingly recognized as a critical ingredient in international competitiveness.The success of public service organizations depend on the availability of globally competent workers.Due to cultural challenges and complexities, public service workers need to embrace the right capabilities to deal effectively with global customers.One of the key managerial competencies that are needed for dealing effectively with people from different cultural backgrounds is ‘Cultural Intelligence’ (CQ).Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is another complementary form intelligence that has a potential to contribute to more positive attitudes, behaviours and outcomes. When interacting with customers, Social Intelligence (SQ) is an important competency used to describe and predict human behaviour.The main purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship of CQ, EQ and SQ on employee work performance in cross-cultural service encounters.This study also will investigate whether Islamic Work Ethics moderate the relationship between the intelligences (CQ, EQ and SQ) with employee work performance in the public service organizations

Qualitative Research on the Impact of Information and Communication Technology on Penang Port Sdn. Bhd

The use of (ICT) in logistics has been advocated to enhance the performance of the logistics sector especially in the seaports. A huge number of researches showed the importance of using RBV in analyzing performance. RBV however has been adopted in accordance to address the implication of IT on performance for many years, and the latest findings on “IT-performance” relationship is very unclear to make a conclusion. Therefore, further study on application of this theory in the ICT-performance relationship in port industry. This study seeks to examine the impact of ICT implementation on Penang Port Sdn. Bhd. (PPSB) performance. This research is exploratory in nature and the data was collected through a series of interviews. The result from this study shows that there are impact on the ICT usage, container management and Smart-Rail system on port performance. However, this study indicates that port security system does not give an impact towards achieving overall port performance. This study found that technology resources raise internal and external capabilities, which in turn affect port performance. Port resources positively affect organizational efficiency through its impact on internal capabilities thus directly impact the port performance. The results of this study provide direction for investing and managing organizational it resources to achieve competiveness

Moderating effect of logistics and supply chain issues on the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation

Business expansion either locally or internationally is a vision of most firms, even for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). In order to achieve this market expansion, previous studies have identified the importance of market orientation towards superior firms’ performance. At the same time, firm-level market orientations are also important. However, the existence of logistics and supply chain issues such as transportation, packaging, documentation and warehousing are expected to thwart firms’ effort in establishing their market orientation. This study focuses on identifying the effect of logistics and supply chain related issues on the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation among SMEs in Malaysia. The result indicates that logistics and supply chain issues moderate the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation. However, the moderation effect is weak, based on the Cohen f2 effect size calculation. This study shows that logistics and supply chain issues do have some weak effect on the relationship between both variables. Thus, SME managers need to resolve any logistics and supply chain related issues experienced by the company in order to improve their market orientatio