A construal of the understanding level of quality assurance by internal stakeholders in two Malaysian universities

The “understanding” in terms of interpretation of quality assurance is essential for the acceptance, theorizing and the practical application of the methods proposed by it. A great deal of research papers have often pointed to the lack of understanding, among others, as the reason behind the inadequate nature of implementing quality assurance in higher education institutes. This paper examines the “understanding” levels of two key stakeholders in terms of the meaning they make out of the policy pronouncements on quality. It utilizes the qualitative case study scheme to provoke the thoughts of mainly the academic staff and their administrative counterparts in two public universities. The findings reveal that there exist differences which are mainly grounded on their role and experience in the scope of understanding the purposes served by quality, and the depths of quality management fulfillment among the two categories of stakeholders. This underpins the value of clarifying the philosophy of quality assurance to stakeholders and their involvement for better understanding and ownership

Quality management in Asian universities: lessons from the European and American universities

Quality management has taken ascendancy in the universities in particular due, inter alia, to the loss of their status as ivory towers. Hence, quality management in universities takes prominence over several other initiatives. Attention is not only drawn on whether it is primed in universities but also on its practicability and the mechanism for gauging how it is performing. The first pronouncement that comes from universities in their websites, advertisements, and banners and indeed in any policy pronouncement or at any other opportunity is how they are committed to quality, what is being done about it and the status of quality management. This paper compares the quality management in the western and American universities and what Asian countries have learnt from both. Their interaction and corresponding accountability to regulating agencies prompt them to align their existence to such needs into their higher educational frameworks

Students’ expectations and perceptions on service quality of e-learning in a selected faculty of a public university in Malaysia

The main purpose of this quantitative research is to examine students’ expectations and perceptions on the service quality of e-learning in a selected faculty of a public university in Malaysia. Data for the research are collected through a survey on sixth semester undergraduate students in one of the faculties in a public university. Questionnaire is adopted based on Parasuraman’s (1994) SERVQUAL model which includes five dimensions: reliability, responsiveness, empathy, tangibility and assurance. Descriptive analysis is conducted to indicate the level of students’ expectations and perceptions on service quality of e-learning as well as the gap between their expectations and perceptions. Paired t-test analysis is performed to test the significant difference between students’ expectations and perceptions. The findings indicate that the level of students’ expectations is high with tangibility regarded as the highest amongst the five domains examined. However, the level of students’ perceptions is medium. Among the five dimensions, the level of perception towards assurance is the highest, while the level of perception towards empathy is the lowest. There exists a gap between students’ expectations and students’ perceptions. Paired ttest shows that there is a significant difference between students’ expectations and perceptions indicating students are not highly satisfied with the service quality of e-earning provided by the selected university. Further initiatives should be taken by the university to improve the service quality of the e-learning facilities focusing on areas identified in the findings

Analyzing Theoretical Perspectives of Shared Governance Model

The purpose of this paper is to explore the perspectives of shared governance as this university governance model is adopted by universities in the world involving all stake holders in the governance process specially faculty. Shared governance model is mostly hallmark in American colleges and universities which was promoted by AAUP (American Association of University Professors). Although, some researchers have pointed out its limitations but on the whole this model is successfully practiced in the academia. Keywords Universities, Shared Governance, Participatio

The factors influencing knowledge entrepreneurship in Malaysian manufacturing companies.

Established firms that continuously and systematically implement entrepreneurial initiatives exhibit behavior that corporate entrepreneurship researchers label as “sustained regeneration”. A prime example of sustained regeneration is new product development activity in industries such as computers, electronics, and textiles where the introduction of new products is on-going and firm’s creativities have important implications to its performance. On the other hand, knowledge entrepreneurship describes the organizational ability to respond to learn to capitalize on an opportunity, or to protect against a threat by adopting an innovation. Successful adoption of innovation requires an organizational ability to manage the process within the organization that deals with new or newly interpreted knowledge and under conditions of uncertainty and in the face of controversy, develop and initiate a plan of action to respond with goal-oriented organizational behavioral changes. Knowledge entrepreneurship connotes a “drive to implement change, to accomplish this goal, and to adopt an innovation”. Knowledge entrepreneurship involves a motivated pursuit of competitive advantage, using knowledge as a means of developing sources of advantage similar to those described in the market orientation and absorptive capacity literatures. It describes a driven effort to utilize knowledge through innovation. This article is identifying knowledge entrepreneurship, and determining which factors may affect the nature of this concept. The selected criteria have been assessed according to their relative importance by utilizing analytical hierarchy process (AHP) approach and expert choice software program

Student teachers character development in teacher education institutes: a review

Teachers are the role models of character education in schools and as such student teachers during their training period should be educated to possess the required characteristics of effective teachers. This article reviews the contexts of character education and teacher character development programs, focusing on the elements of good character development training, and drawing experiences from practices in several developed countries. Challenges in character education are also highlighted in the discussions. It is suggested that teacher training institutes should pay serious attention particularly in the development of effective teachers during their training period in teacher education institutes

Relationship between perceived organizational support and organizational citizenship behaviour of academic staff at selected faculty in a Malaysian public research university

This is a preliminary study to reports the findings on the relationship between Organizational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB) and perceived organizational support of academic staff at selected faculty in Malaysian Public Research University (RU). The objective is also to identify the relationships between perceived organizational support with five dimensions of OCB namely altruism, courtesy, civic virtue, conscientiousness and sportsmanship. An instrument using a 7-point scale and consisting of 32 items was used to measure the perception of academic staff on the perceived organizational support and the organizational citizenship behaviour at the institution. Findings of the study indicate that the mean score of academic staff perceived organizational support is 5.36 and a standard deviation of 1.000, which is lower as compared to the score on the academic staffs’ citizenship behaviour towards the organization, which obtained a mean of 5.83 and a standard deviation of .615. This study also reported that perceived organizational support has a significant impact on organizational citizenship behaviour (r = .309, p < .05) which explains 9.55 percent of the variance in academic staffs’ citizenship behaviour towards their organization. The finding also exhibits the perceived organizational support has a direct effect on the dimension of altruism and sportsmanship

Entrepreneur Training Needs Analysis: Implications On The Entrepreneurial Skills Needed For Successful Entrepreneurs

This paper is one of the outcomes of the study from interview of 30 entrepreneurs in Malaysia, investigating the business competencies needed for successful in their business.&nbsp; In the paper, the training needs of entrepreneurs are identified and analysed with respect to a number of issues affecting business such as creativity and innovation, sources of business finance, accounting skills, financial management, areas in which the entrepreneurs find it difficult to acquire knowledge.&nbsp; The study confirm the view of entrepreneurship education makes a significant different in the performance of entrepreneurs, with entrepreneurs expressing a need for further training and education in specific business issues

Entrepreneurial leadership behaviour among school principals: perspectives from Malaysian secondary school teachers

Entrepreneurial leadership is a particular leadership behaviour that enables leaders to face the challenges of their tasks and roles in the current environment of organisations. Education scholars believe that this type of leadership empowers educational leaders to meet the diverse needs of students as well as the ever-changing demands of the school environment. However, many questions have been raised on how to measure entrepreneurial leadership behaviour in educational settings and in particular among school principals. The main purpose of this study was to determine Malaysian secondary school principals' entrepreneurial leadership behaviour through teachers' perspectives using the Entrepreneurial Leadership Questionnaire. A total sample of 300 school teachers were asked to rate the frequency of entrepreneurial leadership behaviour in their school principals. The data was analysed using Structural Equation Modelling. The results indicated that the questionnaire is highly valid and reliable to measure school principals' entrepreneurial leadership behaviour. Furthermore, entrepreneurial leadership is a multi-dimensional construct that can be explained by five leadership behaviours including general entrepreneurial leader behaviour, explorer behaviour, miner behaviour, accelerator behaviour and integrator behaviour. Implications of the findings are also discussed in this paper

Validity and reliability of clothing fashion design (CFaDC) competency instrument

This research intends to determine the validity and reliability of Clothing Fashion Design (CFaDC) Skills instrument among instructors (ITR) in Skills Training Institutes (STI). This instrument was administered on 330 instructors in STI that teaches in the field of fashion and clothing. Rasch Measurement Model and Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were used to evaluate the construct validity of this instrument. The CFaDC have reached the Cronbach alpha > 0.7 for the reliability of six sub constructs of skills competency. This instrument also obtained consistent and good internal validity which were convergent and discriminant validity. The goodness-of-fit measure of CFI, IFI, TLI > 0.90 and RMSEA < 0.08 further proved the construct validity. In summary, the research findings showed that the CFaDC instrument achieved sound psychometric properties and can be used to measure the competency level of instructors in STI