The influence of communication, empowerment and trust on organizational ethical climates

In this study, communication, empowerment and trust were examined to determine their influence on an organization’s ethical climate. A total of 150 questionnaires completed by managers and executives based in the Klang Valley, Malaysia were analysed. The results demonstrated that empowerment was positively related to a benevolent-local climate while trust was positively related to both benevolent-local and principled-local climates. However, communication did not have a significant influence on all three ethical climate types. We discuss our results and the implications for both future academic research and practice

Ethical perception: are differences between ethnic groups situation dependent?

This study was conducted to determine how culture influences the ethical perception of managers. Most studies conducted so far have only stated similarities and differences in ethical perception between cultural or ethnic groups and little attention has been paid towards understanding how cultural values influence the ethnic groups' ethical perception. Moreover, most empirical research in this area has focused on moral judgement, moral decision making and action, with limited empirical work in the area of ethical perception. A total of 22 interviews were conducted and the questionnaire survey yielded 272 managerial responses. Three implications were obtained based on the findings of the study. The first implication is that differences in ethical perception can exist when one culture attributes moral significance to something that another culture does not. The results of the study also suggest that similarities in ethical perception can occur when a situation is viewed as an accepted and institutionalised part of doing business. Finally, the findings of the study also show that the influence of culture on ethical perception varied according to the different types of scenarios

The relationship between job insecurity, shock, and turnover intention, amongst survivors of organizational downsizing

It is often thought that survivors of a downsized organization should be thankful for remaining in their jobs, and that they should respond positively by helping the organization to achieve its goals. However, these individuals often have the intention of leaving the organization. The purpose of this study is to examine the factors that influence the turnover intention of survivors of downsized organizations. We hypothesized that survivors were more likely to think about leaving their organization when they perceived insecurity in their jobs and considered the downsizing decision taken by top management as a "shock." We tested this hypothesis on 187 surviving employees of downsized organizations in Malaysia. The important findings of this study are that the survivors' turnover intention is significantly related to shock, job insecurity, and organizational level. Hence, organization leaders need to plan carefully before implementing their organization's downsizing, as shocks do influence survivors' turnover intention

Institutional corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices: the influence of leadership styles and their perceived ethics and social responsibility role

This paper investigates leader's perceptions of ethics and social responsibility (PRESOR) on organisation's institutional CSR practices. The results indicate that while the managers in this study perceive that ethics and social responsibility play an important role in determining the organisation's long-term and short-term gains, they do not think that ethics and social responsibility are the only important factors in determining firm's profitability and survival, as indicated by the non-significant results of the PRESOR (social responsibility and profitability) dimension. Another objective was to determine the types of leadership style in influencing the adoption and practices of CSR. As oppose to many previous studies, the results indicate that among the leadership styles, transactional leadership influences institutional CSR practices, while transformational leadership does not. This finding implies that for CSR practices to be implemented, leaders need to use rewards, rules and regulations in a Malaysian context. In other words, in order to institutionalise CSR practices in Malaysia, corporations should start by introducing extrinsic incentives

Pressures, green supply chain management practices and performance of ISO 14001 certified manufacturers in Malaysia

As the language of environmentalism become more vocal globally— including in Malaysia—a growing number of organizations are intending to adopt green approaches throughout their entire supply chains. Issues of environmental protection are central and dynamic; as such, there is an ongoing need for studies to fully understand and update knowledge in this area. This paper investigates green supply chain management (GSCM) among 112 ISO14001 certified manufacturers in Malaysia. Specifically, the objectives of this study are to examine the influence of various pressures (regulation, marketing, competition, management, and cost) on the level of green practices, and the interrelationships between drivers, practices, and performance. The study also looks at the moderating effect of partner relationships. Results indicate that manufacturers in Malaysia experience high external pressures such as regulatory and marketing/customers pressures. The GSCM implementation, especially on external activities, are still at a moderate level except for internal environmental initiatives. GSCM practices affect firms’ financial/market performance and customer satisfaction, but are not significant to environmental performances. The partner relationship (trust and commitment) moderate the relationship between GSCM practices and environmental performances but is not applicable to relationships between GSCM practices and other firms’ performances such as market/financial outcomes and customer satisfaction. Subsequent implications for both theory and practice are discussed in the paper

Corporate Debt Policy of Malaysian SMEs: Empirical Evidence from Firm Dynamic Panel Data

Financing has been identified as a dominant constraint to Malaysian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Yet, limited attention has been given to the challenges faced by the SMEs in financing their operations. This paper investigates the determinants of capital structure and use of financing for Malaysian SMEs in manufacturing sector and examines hypotheses by utilising a static trade-off choice or pecking order framework by employing a series of firm characteristics including: size, age, asset structure, profitability, growth, taxation and risk. The system Generalised Method of Moment (GMM) approach has been used for the estimation. The findings suggest that most of the determinants of capital structure presented by the theory of finance appear to be relevant for the Malaysian SMEs. Firm size and asset structure have a significantly positive effect on the leverage ratio in SMEs, while age and taxation have a negative effect. Though, growth has an impact on the total debt of the firms, profitability and risk does not have any significant effect on the decision of debt decision making in Malaysian SMEs. Furthermore, the findings of the study show that Malaysian SMEs in the manufacturing sector generally operate based on a combination of the pecking order and the trade-off theory while borrowing in the long-term and short-term

Antecedents of Cloud Computing Adoption in the Malaysian context: A Systematic Literature Review

In a competitive marketplace, the competitiveness and survival of any corporation are often attributed to its ability to adopt innovative technology which bestows a competitive edge and reduced costs, improves the quality and the efficiency of its business processes. Cloud computing is a platform for the development of computational solutions for multiple fields of knowledge, as it offers cost-saving mechanisms and increased efficiency to organisations. Despite its maturity and enhancement, reviews pertaining to antecedents of cloud computing adoption in the Malaysian context are scarce. Thus, a systematic literature review using Scopus database for retrieving the related articles was carried out to shed light on the antecedents of cloud computing adoption in the Malaysian context. The review revealed that the antecedents influencing cloud computing adoption include technological context elements (relative advantages, technological readiness, cost-saving, and compatibility), organisational context elements (top management support), and environmental context elements (competitive pressure, external support/trading partner support/regulatory support, vendor reputation and trust). Understanding the antecedents of cloud computing adoption is crucial towards strengthening cloud computing adoption and, in turn, will improve the performance and competitiveness of corporate sectors. &nbsp

How green is your supply chain? Evidence from ISO 14001 certified manufacturers in Malaysia

Extraordinary current consumption in the developed countries as well as in the Asian region, as a result of rapid industrialization, has increased the levels of energy and material consumption. This has posed negative consequences on the natural resources and the environment. The question of how to make economic and infrastructure growth environmentally and socially sustainable, so that it can continue to benefits people while conserving the natural assets and ecosystem continues to challenge policy makers, industry, and consumers. This research investigates the level of green supply chain management (GSCM) practices adopted by ISO 14001 certified manufacturers in Malaysia. Based on the data collected through the questionnaire survey, it was found that most manufacturers have not yet fully adopted the green practices within their supply chain activities. Only 17 percent of the total respondents were proactive adopters of the GSCM practices. The internal environmental practices have been found to be the top GSCM practices, followed by eco-design and investment recovery. The least common GSCM practice is reverse logistics. The study offers implications to both theory and practice

CSR activities in SMEs: The impact of TPB’s factors to firm’s performance and firm size as moderator

This study employed the TPB to examine factors, intention, behaviour, firm performance and sample size in SMEs to engage in CSR. PLS-SEM was used to analyse the respondents. The findings confirmed to have a significant impact for every factor and the intention, intention and the owner's or manager's behaviour which reflected in the firm's performance. While for CSR activities and corporate performance has been found to be moderate by firm size. The result of this study is one of the few to empirically examine each of the TPB variables in CSR participation, supporting the paradigm proposed by Azjen