Relationship between perceived costs, perceived benefits and knowledge sharing behaviour among lecturers in educational institution in Malaysia

Knowledge sharing behaviour has positive impact on individual innovation capability. However, since sharing knowledge is often unnatural, effective strategies and sufficient initiatives need to be deployed to ensure lecturers communicate their teaching experiences with others. This paper examines the extent of knowledge sharing amongst lecturers in an educational institution in Malaysia, and whether their knowledge sharing behaviour is influenced by their perceptions of costs-benefits in knowledge sharing. The analysis is based upon questionnaire surveys of lecturers (N=50) on their perception of costs and benefits motivation factors affecting their behaviour in sharing knowledge. While perceived benefits explained better orientation towards knowledge sharing, certain cost factors tended to restrict actual knowledge sharing. The article notes the influence of some perceived benefits dimensions in facilitating knowledge sharing behaviour in academic work setting. Recommendations on maximizing the influence of the related perceived benefits are also discussed

Does university campus experience develop motivation to lead or readiness to lead among undergraduate students? A Malaysian perspective.

Do students’ experiences on university campuses cultivate motivation to lead or a sense of readiness to lead that does not necessarily translate to active leadership? To address this question, a study was conducted with 369 undergraduates from Malaysia. Campus experience was more predictive of leadership readiness than motivation. Student leadership opportunities, global leadership perspective development, leadership modeling, quality of staff support, and quality of leadership training programs contributed significantly more to leadership readiness than to motivation to lead

Students' perception of the quality of teaching and learning in business studies programs

A study was conducted to examine students' perceptions of the effectiveness of teaching and learning in business studies programs in their universities. About 1552 students enrolled as full time students in three public universities in Malaysia participated in the study. Three factors were employed to measure students' perceptions of effective teaching and learning. The factors were Lecturers' Factor, Teaching Methodology, and Course Relevance. Findings showed that a majority of respondents moderately agreed that their lecturers possessed and exhibited qualities described in all three constructs. Individual item description highlighted some interesting trends discussed in this paper. T tests and ANOVA showed significant differences in students' perceptions of all three factors based on their gender, ethnic background, highest academic qualification, and current CePA scores. There were significant differences in the perceptions of Overall Lecturer Factor based on students' previous work experience, and in the perceptions of Teaching Methodology and Relevance of Courses based on their level of English Language proficiency

Developing motivation to become leaders amongst undergraduates in institutions of higher learning

The management of academic and extracurricular programs to develop leadership skills amongst university students has become one of the top priorities in many universities since it is said that one of the core functions of universities is the development of future leaders (Astin & Astin, 2000; Zimmerman-Oster & Burkhardt,1999). While academic and extracurricular programs increasingly focus on the development of leadership awareness, character and skills, one of the missing links in the equation concerns the level of motivation to lead. This study reports on a study that involved 1860 undergraduate students in Malaysia in public and private institutions of higher learning (colleges and universities) on their motivation to lead, as well as university factors and personal factors affecting their level of motivation to lead. Based on the general findings of the study, literature review, and the authors’ experiences in training student leadership, an integrated model of a student leadership development program is then proposed. This paper also makes several recommendations based on the research findings to managers of higher learning institutions (HEI) pertaining student leadership training and development programs

Exploring the relationship between campus leadership development and undergraduate student motivation to lead among a Malaysian sample

Despite the number of studies investigating the perceived effectiveness of campus-based leadership development programming among undergraduates, most have focused on programme outcomes and few have investigated the role of the campus environment in enhancing students’ motivation to lead, particularly in non-Western contexts. To address these gaps, the current study investigated the relationship between perceived campus support for leadership development and both campus leadership involvement and undergraduate students’ motivation to lead. Data were gathered from 368 undergraduates from Malaysian public institutions of higher learning. An instrument to measure perceived campus support for leadership was developed through extensive review of the related literature. Exploratory multiple stepwise regression results showed that extent of involvement in leadership on campus, perceived quality of leadership training, perceived leadership opportunities on campus, quality of staff support for leadership on campus and programme of study accounted for a significant amount of the variance in predicting motivation to lead. The results lend initial support for the need for more experiential learning opportunities, high-quality training and greater staff–student engagement to enhance student motivation to lead. The findings draw particular attention to current university leadership training approaches that focus solely on transfer of skills and knowledge, such as those still employed in many universities. Implications for improving undergraduate student motivation to lead are discussed

The effects of leadership attributes and motivation to lead on preferred job characteristics: case study of undergraduates in Malaysian universities

The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between the leadership attributes and motivation to lead (MTL) of undergraduates in Malaysia with their inclination to choose specific types of job characteristics or job attributes. Many researches has proven that personality is positively related to preferred job characteristics, but no research to the researchers’ knowledge has been done on leadership attributes and motivation to lead with selected job characteristics. Data were collected from 711 undergraduates from Malaysian public universities. The results showed that leader attributes contributes a stronger predictive effect than the motivation or keenness to lead in determining the selection of specific job characteristics. This finding supports the research hypothesis that undergraduates who have been exposed to leadership training and development have gained greater emotional and cognitive maturity that enable them to be more open to a broader range of job characteristic types. No significant difference was observed between males and females, nor between Science and Humanity programs of study in the students’ selection of specific job characteristics. Findings, implications and directionsfor research are discussed

The quality of school development

School development consists of planning, implementation and evaluation process in order to improve the students achievement. School development is crucial because it provides a framework for schools to improve the quality of their education. In this study, school development represents eight core areas: curriculum development, staff development, student development, physical resources, school image, school finance, school administration processes, and continuous improvement. This paper reports on administrators’ and teachers’ evaluation of the quality of their school development. The study was conducted in 40 schools involving 782 respondents. Findings from the study indicated that overall school development attained was high average and schools tend to concentrate on curriculum development, physical resources, administration processes and continuous improvement areas compared to staff development, student development, school image and school finance. Study results also suggested that there were differences perception between administrators and teachers towards the quality of school development in all areas

Transformational leadership, school culture and risk management practices at elementary schools in Malaysia

This study involves a quantitative investigation on risk management practices and its relationship with transformational leadership and school culture. A quantitative study will be conducted at selected primary schools in Malaysia. The selection of the schools will be on random basis covering both urban and rural. The survey will be conducted among school teachers. Basically two quantitative survey instruments will be used in order to collect data for the research: principal transformational leadership, school culture and risk management practices. Responses from individual teachers will be averaged based on each item and factor to create the school-wide data that's needed for this study. The findings from this study will contribute to the body of knowledge in risk management and practices at schools. It provides guidance on skills required by school leaders for effective risk management practices in schools

Influence of career anchors, work values, personality traits towards employability orientation among Malaysian university students

Work environment is facing numerous challenges and this entails organizations to better understand the phenomenon of employability orientation. Thus, the primary aim of this study is to determine the level of employability orientation among university students and its influencing factors. This is a quantitative study whereby a total of 711 undergraduates were randomly selected from public universities in Malaysia to participate in the study. The dependent variable of this study was employability orientation and the independent variables were career anchors, work values and personality traits. The principal result of this study showed that there were eight sub-dimensions that contributed around 52.0% of the variation in employability orientation. It is believed that the findings will provide some interesting input in understanding the complexities associated with employability orientation among university students

Comparison of work values of Malaysian youth in different contexts at school and university

The social contexts of youth in different levels of the education system contain some differences. Youths in school are very much influenced by family orientations and peers towards work and work choices, whereas youths in colleges and universities gain wider exposure through socialization with fellow students and lecturers, administrators, external agents and through their involvement in a variety of campus activities. The exposure to different role sets and role models may engender differential influence on work values of students in schools and at universities. Although there are some researches of work values of adolescents, there are not many researches that compares youth work values across different age groups in school and university contextual settings. Yet this gap in knowledge is important if we are to examine the patterns of work values formation across different age levels and social-educational settings. This study aims to fill the gap in the knowledge of the formation of patterns of work values emerging amongst youths who are in the school setting, in comparison to those who have entered college and universities in Malaysia