The relationship between entrepreneurial orientation, human resource management practices, organizational innovation and managerial ties to SME performance

Malaysian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) still have not performed to their fullest potential. SMEs have to focus on factors required to improve their performance. Therefore, this study is undertaken to investigate the possible variables that could better explain the performance of SMEs by investigating the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO), human resource management (HRM) practices (i.e. communication and information sharing, compensation, job design, performance appraisal, selection, training and development) and organizational innovation on organizational performance. Specifically, it aims to investigate both the mediating roles of organizational innovation on the relationship between EO and HRM practices towards organizational performance and the moderating role of managerial ties on the relationship between organizational innovation and organizational performance. Resource-based view theory and social capital theory are integrated to explain the possible relationship between the variables in the research model. A total of 321 owners/managers of manufacturing SMEs, representing a response rate of 60.5%, participated in this study. Data was collected via self-administered questionnaires. PLS-SEM was used to analyze the data and test the hypotheses. Statistical results show that EO and certain HRM practices (i.e. communication and information sharing, compensation, performance appraisal, selection, training and development) are positively related to organizational innovation. Organizational innovation is also found to be positively related to organizational performance. Moreover, results reveal that organizational innovation mediates the relationship between EO and certain HRM practices (i.e. communication and information sharing, compensation, performance appraisal, selection, training and development) and organizational performance. However, no empirical support is found for the moderating effect of managerial ties on the relationship between organizational innovation and organizational performance. Finally, theoretical and methodological contributions, managerial implications and recommendations for future research are discussed

Enchancing organizational performance of Malaysian SMEs through human resource management (HRM) practices and organizational innovative capability: A proposed framework

Generally, the literature says that SMEs play an important role in the development of the country to a superior level. However, the performance of Malaysian SMEs still has not reached the stage of full potential.To improve the performance, the SMEs need to realize their full potential and seize any opportunities to upgrade them to become more competitive.To remain competitive, SMEs have to shift towards higher value added activities, and adopt be st industry business practices.Thus, SMEs need to change their mindset to transform themselves to support the strategies of Malaysia to become a high-income, developed country by 2020.This transformation requires SMEs to develop their organizational resources and capabilities that will move them to become more competitive, innovative, and with a technologically strong SME sector. Unfortunately, empirical studies on the impact of organizational resources and capabilities of SMEs to the issue of their performance, particularly in the Malaysian context have been less than encouraging. Given the importance of organizational resources, such as human resources (Abdullah, Ahsan, & Alam, 2009), and how they play a crucial role in the organizational operation and success, there is a need to investigate how the HRM helps the organization manage their employees in achieving higher performance and success.Apart from that, in order to be more effective, more successful, and keep on surviving (Damanpour & Schneider, 2006), SMEs should be actively involved in innovation. This is due to the capability of the organization to innovate mostly in promising positive implications for its performance (Pinho, 2008). Potentially, improved SMEs performance can begained through HRM practices and organizational innovative capability. A survey to the SME manufacturing companies can show the relevance of HRM practices and organizational innovative capability towards improving performance. Therefore, empirical work in this relationship is needed to overcome this shortcoming

Persepsi pengurus terhadap peranan pengurusan dalam organisasi

Kajian ini bertujuan untuk melihat peranan pengurusan yang dimainkan oleh pengurus lelaki dan wanita di dalam sesebuah organisasi. Rangka kerja CVF oleh Robert Quinn menunjukkan bahawa terdapat lapan peranan pengurusan yang perlu dimainkan oleh pengurus sekiranya mereka ingin menjadi efektif; Lapan peranan tersebut ialah pendorong inovasi, broker, pengeluar, pengarah, koordinator, pemantau, fasilitator dan mentor. Secara khususnya kajian ini adalah untuk mengenalpasti kekerapan lapan peranan tersebut dimainkan oleh pengurus Ielaki dan wanita serta menentukan sama ada terdapat perbezaan dalam peranan pengurusan yang dimainkan oleh mereka Kajian ini dijalankan ke atas pengurus STMB zon utara Malaysia Seramai 56 orang pengurus, 28 daripadanya terdiri daripada wanita telah memberi respon kepada kajian ini. Soalselidik diedarkan kepada semua pengurus tersebut dan kadar respons adalah 43.75%. Hasil kajian menunjukkan bahawa pengurus wanita lebih aktif memainkan lapan peranan pengurusan tersebut berbanding pengurus lelaki. Walaupun begitu, Ujian T menunjukkan bahawa tiada perbezaan yang signifikan dalam kesemua peranan pengurusan yang dijalankan oleh pengurus lelaki dan wanita kecuali peranan pendorong inovasi (p = 0.021).Kajian membuat rumusan bahawa pengurus sememangnya memainkan kesemua lapan peranan yang dikaji.Oleh itu semua pengurus di semua peringkat pengurusan sama ada pengurus lelaki atau wanita perlu membangunkan diri mereka dengan memahami dan memperbaiki peranan mereka supaya dapat memperbaiki hubungan dan interaksi mereka dengan ahli-ahli organisasi yang lain.Hubungan yang berkesan ini seterusnya dapat meningkatkan keberkesanan dalam organisasi

Theory and empirical evidence of the gender wage gap

Women participation in the labor force has steadily increased over the last several decades, Despite this, women still remain in lower status, less interesting and less well paid jobs. Differences in family and economic roles between men and women have resulted in wage discrimination between men and women. Attempts to explain the gender wage differential generally rely on human capital and labor market segmentation theories. The human capital theory attributes wage differentials to differences in education, training and work experience. Labor market segmentation theory on the other hand attribute wage differentials to the segmentation of the labor market into primary and secondary sectors. The human capital theory remains the dominant theory explaining wage differentials between male and females. Research evidence does suggest that differences in the level of education and experience between male and female influence wages

A Conceptual Model on People Approach and Smart Manufacturing

The purpose of this study is to emphasize the important role of people approach in the revolution of smart manufacturing and industry 4.0. Two hundred years ago, industrial revolution in the West transformed or evolved from water-driven or water-driven mechanical production, and to date, we are in an era characterized by cyber-physical systems. This transformation or industrial revolution was driven by people who used creative minds to solve problems. Rapid development of technology has brought about many disruptive technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence and cloud computing. These technologies are penetrating almost in all industries include manufacturing industry. The fusion of these state-of-the-art technologies and manufacturing brings together the physical and virtual worlds through Cyber-Physical System (CPS), which marks the advent of the fourth stage of industrial production – Industry 4.0

The Impacts of Relational Norms and Relationship Quality on Franchise Firm’s Performance: The empirical of Malaysian Franchisee

Franchising is one of the best way for expanding a business in the competitive industry and global market. Franchising industries are growing rapidly in most countries and have contributed to the growth of gross domestic product. This study adopts a quantitative approach, applying a cross-sectional study. This study attempts to examine empirically relational mechanisms which may influence the relationship quality and business performance in franchising relationship from franchisees perspective. The findings reveal that relational mechanisms are crucial in affecting franchisee relationship quality. The results provide strong evidence that franchisee relationship quality is found to significantly affect business performance in the franchise system

Theory and empirical evidence of the gender wage gap

Women participation in the labour force has steadily increased over the last several decades.Despite this, women still remain in lower status, less interesting and less and less well paid jobs.Differences in family and economic roles between men and women have resulted in wage discrimination between men and women.Attempts to explain the gender wage differential generally rely on human capital and labour market segmentation theories.The human capital theory attributes wage differentials to differences in education, training, and work experience. Labour market segmentation theory on the other hand attributes wage differentials to the segmentation of the labour market into primary and secondary sectors.The human capital theory remains the dominant theory explaining wage differentials between males and females. Research evidence does suggest that differences in the level of education and experience between male and female influence wages

Relationship between driving anger, support for counter measure, situational factors and driving behavior among drivers in Malaysia

This study aims to investigate factors like driving anger, support for counter measures and situational factors affect drivers’ driving behavior. One important reason for studying driver’s aggression is that it has been cited as a frequent contributing factor in traffic collisions. The sample size was collected using convenience sampling as the actual number of driver who drove to work around all the targeted area cannot be identified by the Road Transport Department. The questionnaires weregiven to the driver who passed the targeted area during normal day. Further sample was taken from participants from commuting accidents and safety and health seminars. The data analysis was done using statistical analysis from the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 20.0. Analysis of data was done using correlation and multiple regressions to test the hypotheses. The results revealed a positive relationship between driving anger, situational factors and driving behavior. Results of regression showed that driving anger, support for counter measure and situational factors influenced driving behavior. Thus, it is suggested for future research to identify more factors that will affect driving behavior. Thus, the study contributes by providing other potentials antecedents for aggressive driving which includes attitudes, styles and habits of driving

Development of Microwave-Assisted Sulfonated Glucose Catalyst for Biodiesel Production from Palm Fatty Acid Distillate (PFAD)

Microwave-heating method for catalyst preparation has been utilized recently due to its shorter operation time compared to the conventional method. Glucose, a renewable carbon source can be partially carbonized and sulfonated via microwave heating which could result in highly potential heterogeneous carbon-based acid catalyst. In this study, the impacts of the carbonization and sulfonation parameters during the catalyst preparation were investigated. Catalysts prepared were characterized using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Brunauer-Emmet-Teller (BET), and Temperature Programmed Desorption–Ammonia (TPD-NH3). Analysis of the carbonization screening process discovered that the best incomplete carbonized glucose (ICG) prepared was at 20 minutes, 20 g of D(+)-glucose with medium microwave power level (400W) which exhibited the highest percentage yield (91.41%) of fatty acid methyl ester (FAME). The total surface area and acid site density obtained were 16.94 m2/g and 25.65 mmol/g, respectively. Regeneration test was further carried out and succeeded to achieve 6 cycles. The highest turnover frequency (TOF) of the sulfonated catalyst was methyl palmitate, 25.214´10−3 s−1 compared to other component of the methyl ester. Kinetic study was developed throughout the esterification process and activation energy from the forward and reverse reaction was 3.36 kJ/mol and 11.96 kJ/mol, respectively. Copyright © 2021 by Authors, Published by BCREC Group. This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0).

A Two-Step SO3H/ICG Catalyst Synthesis for Biodiesel Production: Optimization of Sulfonation Step via Microwave Irradiation

Conventional heating, a common method used for heterogeneous solid acid catalyst synthesis unknowingly consumes massive time and energy. In this study, acid catalyst was prepared through sulfonation process of incomplete carbonized glucose (ICG) via microwave-assisted technique to shorten the heating time and energy consumption. Optimization of the sulfonation process of ICG via microwave-assisted was carried out. Four-factor-three-level central composite design (CCD) was used to develop the design of experiments (DOE). Interaction between two factors was evaluated to determine the optimum process conditions. A quadratic model was proposed for prediction of biodiesel yield (Y) from palm fatty acid distillate (PFAD) and its conversion (C). The application of DOE successfully optimized the operating conditions for the two-step SO3H/ICG catalyst synthesis to be used for the esterification process. The optimized conditions of the best performing SO3H/ICG with maximum Y and C were at 7.5 minutes of reaction time, 159.5 mL of H2SO4 used, 671 rpm of stirring rate as well as 413.64 watt of power level. At these optimum conditions the predicted yield percentage and conversion percentage were 94.01% and 91.89%, respectively, which experimentally verified the accuracy of the model. The utilization of sulfonated glucose solid acid catalyst via microwave-assisted in biodiesel production has great potential towards sustainable and green method of synthesizing catalyst for biodiesel. Copyright © 2021 by Authors, Published by BCREC Group. This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0).