Islamic work ethics among employees of Islamic and conventional banks in Malaysia / Ahmad Saiful Azlin Puteh Salin … [et al.]

The current research intended to explore whether the religiosity play any critical role in influencing the work ethic of the employee. A lot of research that conducted in the area of the work ethic finds that there is a relationship between religiosity and work ethic. Zhu (2009) for example find that Confucian ethics are emphasis by Chine marketing managers while Parbooteah et al. (2009) finds that the cognitive, affective and the behavioural component of religion are negatively related to unethical practices. However, many of this research conducted are concentrated on the non-Islamic belief such as Confucius and Christianity while Islamic belief is widely missing in literature. Therefore, the current interested to examine the influence of Islamic work ethics among the employees of the bank. This study will review the fundamentals and the pillars of Islamic work ethic and investigates the empirical studies conducted on the banks in Malaysia. This research will extend the previous study by using a survey on the employees that works in conventional and Islamic banks. The sampling techniques is based on the systematic random sampling. In term of data analysis, descriptive analysis and inferential statistics will employed frequency, mean and other relevent statistical method to explain Islamic work ethic of the banks' employee generally, and to achieve the objectives of the study particularly. This study however only restricted to the full fledges Islamic and conventional banks and excluding the bank with a dual system. In addition, the sample selected only located in high density commercial areas in Malaysia, namely Klang Valley

Corporate social responsibility practices among the SMEs in Malaysia - a preliminary analysis / Norhafizah Norbit, Anuar Nawawi and Ahmad Saiful Azlin Puteh Salin.

There are four main objectives of this study. First, to examine the level of CSR practice in selected Malaysian small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Second, to determine the motivation of implementing CSR practices. Third, to determine the barriers on the implementation of CSR practices. Finally, to examine the attitude of twenty selected Malaysian SMEs owners towards CSR practice. This study employed a mixed method in data collection and analysis via survey questionnaires to the selected SMEs and archival analysis by examining the financial reports of those SMEs. This study found that SMEs is still lag behind in implementing CSR practices. Although they understand the benefits such as enhancing company’s reputation and promote brand name, limited fund available and proper training required prevent them to implement effective CSR practices. This study also found that the SMEs’ owners have a positive attitude on CSR practices

Corporate social responsibility practices among the SMEs in Malaysia – a preliminary analysis / Norhafizah Norbit, Anuar Nawawi and Ahmad Saiful Azlin Puteh Salin.

There are four main objectives of this study. First, to examine the level of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices in selected Malaysian small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Second, to determine the motivation for implementing CSR practices. Third, to determine the barriers to the implementation of CSR practices. Finally, to examine the attitude of twenty selected Malaysian SMEs owners towards CSR practices. This study employed a mixed method in data collection and analysis via survey questionnaires to the selected SMEs and archival analysis by examining the financial reports of those SMEs. This study found that SMEs is still lag behind in implementing CSR practices. Although they understand the benefits such as enhancing company’s reputation and promote brand name, limited funds available and proper training required prevented them from implementing effective CSR practices. This study also found that the SMEs’ owners have a positive attitude towards CSR practices

Improving tax compliance via tax education - Malaysian experience / Norzilah Hassan, Anuar Nawawi and Ahmad Saiful Azlin Puteh Salin

Tax education has always been one of central focus to the tax authority in Malaysia. It reflects the commitment of the agency to educate taxpayer in every possible ways. The objective of this study is to determine whether tax education program tax implemented by the tax authority does effect the compliance among the taxpayers. The sample was randomly selected from population with 60 responses. It was found that taxpayers really used the information on tax education wisely. Although it still need some improvement, it is still the best practise to encourage more people to know and learn about tax. It also shows that the taxpayers have a good perception toward tax education programmed. For future research, this study suggests the positive perception towards tax education programmed of the taxpayer need to be enhanced to give the taxpayers more exposure on tax education programme

Public sector accountability – evidence from the auditor general’s reports / Juliana Shariman, Anuar Nawawi and Ahmad Saiful Azlin Puteh Salin

This study aimed to identify the common issues frequently raised in the Auditor General’s reports and to investigate whether the levels of inefficiencies quoted in the Auditor General’s reports keep increasing or decreasing during the period of investigation. This study was based on the secondary data comprising the Auditor’s General report and was supported with feedback reports received from the ministry, department, state, and other government agencies. This study found that not in compliance with procedures recorded the highest issues highlighted in the Auditor General’s report, followed by the procurement and asset management. In addition, all the issues showed a decreasing trend for both federal government and statutory bodies, indicating an improvement in the efficiencies of management and higher accountability that have been demonstrated by civil servants

Risk management practices in tourism industry - a case study of resort management / Nur Rahifah Amirudin, Anuar Nawawi and Ahmad Saiful Azlin Puteh Salin.

The purpose of this research was to identify the risks factors associated with the operation of a resort and the risk management techniques used to reduce the risks. One resort was selected as the case study and document analysis and observation were used as data collection methods. This study found that the risks can be managed through the right combination of risk management techniques. Despite weak monitoring activities, incomplete operating procedures, and inferior attitude by the workforce seems to impact the management of the resort, fast and intelligent response may be able to overcome the situation and prevent the worst possible outcomes

The usefulness of financial statement reporting by charitable companies limited by guarantee in Malaysia / Ahmad Saiful Azlin Puteh Salin, Muhammad Faiz Tumiran and Anuar Nawawi.

The purpose of this study is primarily to scrutinize the usefulness of financial statement reporting by charitable companies limited by guarantee in Malaysia as prescribed in the rules and regulations. The main concern is whether there is limitation for the charitable company to follow this requirement in which, its performance and accountability will be analyzed. These attributions will lead to the improvement on the level of governance and accountability to satisfy all the relevant parties, especially the stakeholders and public interest. 50 companies were selected as a sample and three years of financial reports from 2009 to 2011 were scrutinized. Descriptive analysis was used to analyse the data. This study found that the majority of the charitable companies adopted PERS (Private Entity Reporting Standard) and FRS (Financial Reporting Standard) in preparing their financial report while less than 5 percent did not clearly state their accounting standard. For the establishment objective, at least half of the companies spent more than 50 percent contribution received for their institution. This study also found that more than 80 percent of the companies at least provided a minimum disclosure on the contributions received in their financial report with a moderate level quality of information. However, less than 50 percent of the companies fully complied with the basic requirement of the Companies Act 1965 and are being compounded by the regulators

Internal control weaknesses in a cooperative body: Malaysian experience

The purpose of this study is to examine the current state of the internal control practices in the cooperative body, an organisation area that has always been neglected in governance empirical research. This study also provides recommendations to overcome those weaknesses. A case study approach was selected for this study by selecting one cooperative body as a case. This study employed document analysis as the method of data collection and the data were analysed by using the latest COSO Internal Control – Integrated Framework. This study found that the selected cooperative body had very poor internal control. There was low data integrity where too many errors were detected in both the financial and non-financial data, while its daily transactions were recorded by using manual tools but without proper security leading to possible fraud. Furthermore, the effort to automate the system by acquiring a new software program has miserably failed due to incompetency of the workforce. To worsen matters, the employees also did not appreciate the importance of internal control

Firm Performance: The Role of Determinant Variables Water Awareness, Intellectual Capital, and Corporate Social Responsibility

Purpose: This study aims to investigate of firm's performance through water awareness, intellectual capital, and corporate social responsibility.   Theoretical framework:  The main goal of the signaling theory by Spence (2002) is to reduce the information asymmetry between two parties. Research by Ericson and Call (2008), Shabaati et al. (2010), Helena, Pedro, and Jardon (2010), and others have demonstrated that intellectual capital has a favorable impact on performance.  Clacher, Hagendorff, Jo, and Harjoto (2012), as well as Ameer and Othman (2012), discovered a beneficial relationship between CSR and a company's financial performance.   Design/methodology/approach: The present study was conducted on 21 manufacturing companies in Indonesia with a total of 106 samples. The data of the present study were financial reports and sustainability reports which were obtained from the Indonesian stock exchange website and each company's website during the period 2015-2019 by using purposive sampling techniques and multiple linear regression methods.   Findings:  The findings revealed that water awareness and corporate social responsibility affect company performance, but not the firm’s intellectual capital. However, a firm's sustainability is empirically proven to affect company performance.   Research, Practical & Social implications:  This study is useful for managers to examine the effectiveness of water awareness and sustainability practices including intellectual capital towards the company's performance.   Originality/value: The value of the study is useful for managers to examine the affect company performance, but not the firm’s intellectual capital. However, a firm's sustainability is empirically proven to affect company performance. This measurement of firm’s sustainability model will be very useful for decision makers and policy makers

Proposed model for islamic code of ethics for directors of public listed companies / Ahmad Saiful Azlin Puteh Salin

This research intented to proposed a new model of Islamic code of ethics for directors of public listed companies. Several corporate scandals and collapse locally (example Transmile and Megan Media) and overseas (example Parmalat and Enron) shows that the current corporate governance and regulatory reform is unable to prevent these events from recurring. Arguably, the code of ethics for directors is under research and the current code of ethics only concentrated to bind the work of the employee of the organization as a whole, without specifically put a direct attention the the directors, the group of people that responsible for the performance of the company. Furtheremore, this code of ethics is based on the western model. Thus, the study objectives is to establish a model of code of ethics that based on Islamic principles. This study will used a semi-structured interview of several well known Islamic scholars such as Mufti to develop the model. This Islamic model will be compared and analysed with the code of ethics that based on the western model. It is expected that the outome of the research is a comprehensive model of code of ethics that based on the Islamic principles that can be applied and used by the company to construct code of ethics for their directors. This research also will highlights the differences and weaknessess of the current western model code of ethics