E-commerce, one of the areas of ICT that interests governments, has received particular attention. It is said that e-commerce is crucial for economic success and gives SMEs a major advantage in the marketplace. Yet, reality seems to be quite different from this rhetoric. This paper explores the extent of e-commerce adoption amongst SMEs in Malaysia that have received government e-commerce grants. It highlights preliminary findings from an exploratory study of 101 websites of funded SMEs. Only 68 of the 101 websites are operational at all. Many SMEs have e-mail and websites, but very few bother with anything more sophisticated. This result is surprising if e-commerce really is so valuable to SMEs. Implications are discussed and some concluding thoughts are made. Keywords Internet, government, e-commerce, SMEs..

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Evidence from the literature suggested that there is a positive relationship between education and earning. However, to what extent the returns differ according to the choice of individual_s economics activity remain debatable particularly in developing countries? For various reasons, some would prefer to work independently, but others like to join a formal sector and received earnings frequently. Education returns of wage earners and self-employed workers are the main objective of this study. The method of this study is using Ordinary Least Square estimation on wage equation. Using males sample of a cross sectional data from 2002 to 2004, we found a trend of occupational choice and level of education for the formal sector is positive relatively. This paper argues that self-employed workers always obtained higher returns to education than their wage-earning counterpart. The data suggested that for those who obtained a higher credentials are more likely to involve in wage salaries rathe.....

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This paper examines whether corporate diversification will have any effects on firm excess value in Malaysia and whether diversification will enhance the firm value when companies diversify to more segments. The findings reveal that diversification destroys firm excess value in Malaysia during year 2006 to 2008. Furthermore, the higher of a firm_s diversification level, the lower firm value it has, suggesting single-segmented firms in Malaysia perform better than multi-segmented firms. The Malaysian firms should therefore invest surplus fund in their core business operations as diversification does not add value to portfolio. Keywords Corporate diversification, firm excess value, (another three keywords)..

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Stock price is one of the most important leading indicators in the economy. It can be affected by a many factors including volatility of the market, current economic conditions and popularity of the company. Thus, stock price is an essential determinant of a country_s economic growth. The purpose of conducting this study is to examine the relationship between stock prices and selected variables namely exchange rate, inflation rate, interest rate, money supply, balance of trade, disposable income and gross domestic products. Quarterly data are used in this study ranges from 1999 to 2011. The statistical method used in this study is the multiple linear regression which is used in determining the relationship between dependent variable and independent variables. The findings of this study show that there are positive relationship between stock prices of the Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI) with the balance of trade and interest rate. This study emphasizes on the effects of selected var.....

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This paper aims to examine the link between environmental reporting practices and firm performance of Malaysia Public Listed Companies for the year 2009.By using content analysis, this study reveals that 68.1% of 299 companies provide environmental information in their annual reports with an average of 7.82 sentences and 18.3% of the companies have separate environmental section in their annual reports. Insignificant relationship is found between environmental reporting and return on assets but significant relationship between environmental reporting with return on equity is reported. Additionally, company size, leverage and industry sensitivity companies found to have significant relation with firm performance. Keywords Environmental reporting, return on asset, return on equity, financial performance..

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A notable feature of the empirical studies on economic uncertainty index is that almost all published papers rely on the approximate form of economic uncertainty index, a method substantially used the variability measures, which is moving sample standarddeviation type. It can, therefore, not be ruled out for the refusal of economic uncertainty index precision is simply the outcome of a misspecification of a commonly used model and an elaborate data snooping process. In order to overcome these limitations, the paper considers the theoretical and practical that must be contented to construct the best economic uncertainty index, while considering Islamic rate as monetary policy instrument. Using the proposed grid search optimization procedure, the best economic uncertainty index anticipates that: (i) it can characterize the certainty of macroeconomic conditions in conformity with the expectation and (ii) it can serve as a guiding policy tool for improving certainty in macroeconomic condit.....

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Malaysia has a vision of becoming an international centre for education. It has formulated policies and programmes to achieve this noble vision. Several agencies have been established to operationalize these government educational programmes. In addition to these agencies, there are institutions that have also played remarkable roles towards education in Malaysia, notably the Baitulmal. The present study examines the role of Baitulmal towards educating poor Muslim students in Sarawak. Specifically, the study investigates the relationship between total expenditure growth rate of Baitulmal as dependent variable and five independent variables, which include the growth rates of total zakat collection, total expenditure on university student, total expenditure on secondary and primary student, total expenditure growth rate on university student and total expenditure growth rate on secondary and primary students. An Augmented- Dickey Fuller (ADF) unit root test, Johansen and Juselius cointeg.....

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This study focuses on the factors that influence Felda students_ academic achievement. The factors studied were the motivation, competitive spirit of students, education level of parents or guardians, facilities, parental involvement and expectations. A total of 230 Form 4 students from three schools in the district of Jempol, Negeri Sembilan have been selected as respondents. This study used questionnaires to collect data and data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The findings showed that the level of motivation, competitive spirit of Felda students, educational facilities, and parental involvement were average but the level of parental involvement was high. The results also showed a significant relationship between students_ motivation, education level of parents or guardians, educational facilities, and parental expectations with students_ academic achievement. There were no significant relationship between the spirit of competition and parental involvement with Felda stud.....

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This study investigates the influence of lecturers_ economic literacy on their organizational performance either directly or indirectly via commitment, teamwork, knowledge/skills and attitude. The basic theoretical framework consists of lecturers_ economic literacy as independent variable and lecturers_ organizational performance as dependent variable while knowledge/skills, teamwork, attitude and commitment as intervening variables. Five main hypotheses and fifteen specific hypotheses were posited and tested. The study was based on a survey design and the time horizon was cross sectional with minimal researcher_s interference. The survey was carried out in 4 educational departments selected randomly from 7 clustered polytechnics out of 21 polytechnics in Malaysia. The final number of participants for this study was 28 departments. The sample size comprise of 200 respondents of the total population. The research hypotheses represented a conceptual model of performance. The model hypoth.....

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In this paper the status of takaful and insurance in shari_ah and their operational mode were examined. To arrive at these findings and the discussions in this paper, reference was made to papers presented at various Islamic finance conferences, views and fatwas made by Islamic scholars and to some extent the sayings of Allah (S.W.T) and Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w) as carried in the Qur_an and Hadith, respectively. The basic concept of both takaful and insurance are viewed by many scholars as the same, in that the main objectives of both is that of providing protection against loss of properties and livelihood explained in Islam as `ikhtiar_. It is unanimously agreed that the differences between the two forms of insurance is the mode of operating them. While takaful is based on Shari_ah compliant principles for example paying premiums on the basis of tabarru and devoid of interest, it was identified that conventional insurance contains 3 Shari_ah non-compliant elements namely; gharar (unc.....

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