Under the Economic Transformation Program (ETP), three sub-sectors of National Key Economic Areas (NKEAs) have been identified, i.e. petroleum, oil palm and the electrical and electronics sub-sectors. The importance of NKEAs sub-sector to sustain the performance of the Malaysian economy inspired this study to examine the relationship between high skilled labour and its productivity level. Specifically, this paper focuses on the impact of highly skilled labour on productivity levels in sub-sectors of the NKEAs. Highly skilled labour consists of labour from the managerial and professional category, and, semi-skilled labour is the technical and supervisory category. This study utilizes data from Industrial Manufacturing Survey published by the Department of Statistics Malaysia, covering the period from 1985 to 2010. The results show that highly-skilled labour contributes significantly to the productivity of the overall NKEAs, and each sub-sector of the NKEA, except palm oil. Under the NKE.....

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No consensus of franchisee as entrepreneur is offered in the entrepreneurship and franchising literature. Nevertheless, many studies and debates in franchising studies have perceived the franchisee as entrepreneur rather than employee, buyer or fellow-worker. This paper employs an alternative view that suggest whether a franchisee is seen as an entrepreneur is governed by the way the theorist views his/her role. Further, franchisees may not be the _entrepreneur_ in the fullest sense of the word but they are absolutely an entrepreneur. Therefore, this paper proposes that the franchisee should be viewed as entrepreneur, within the theories of entrepreneur_s characteristics. Keywords Franchise, franchising, franchisee, franchisee entrepreneur..

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The study investigated the external factors specifically on the social impacts towards leadership in Higher education in Malaysia. The paper aims to highlight the social impacts in the areas namely, indirect communication, preserving face, status gap, self-interest, and Malaysian culture towards the leadership in higher institutions. The study employed a qualitative paradigm where a total of thirty two respondents were interviewed. The findings show that social impacts contribute significantly towards the construction of leadership and leadership effectiveness at Higher Education in Malaysia. Thus, this implies that leadership is being constructed by the surrounding environment, that a simple formula for leadership does not exist. Keywords Leadership, higher education, social impact, culture, communication..

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This paper attempts to study returns to education by taking into account of the quality of jobs match held by workers in the manufacturing sector of Malaysia. This type of study is quite rare not only in the country but also across developing nations. Using the second Malaysia Productivity Investment Climate Survey (PICS-2), nearly 20% and 30% of workers employed in jobs for which they are overeducated and undereducated, respectively. Further findings indicate that Over-education is more acute amongst highly-educated workers whilst under-education is more evident for lowly educated workers. By gender, women have a higher proportion of overeducated workers compared to men. Consequently, over-education leads to a lower productivity in terms of earnings. The augmented Mincer earnings equation, i.e. the ORU model clearly show that although returns to surplus education was positive (So), the return was lower than the returns to required education (Sr), approximately 6% against 10%. This mea.....

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This paper examines the paradigm of school_s financial audit model. The sample consists of 100 school auditors in Malaysia. Field work covered states in the Northern of the Peninsular Malaysia. A structured 49 closed ended items questionnaires were used to collect the data. This study uses quantitative method such as correlation, chisquare and multiple regression analysis to test the variables. The finding confirms that the schools financial audit model consists of general standard, audit work standard, and reporting standard. This model can be used by various parties including private entities, state education department and other government agencies. Keywords Financial audit, school audit, financial management..

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The intention of this paper is to determine the most efficient risk model which can be implemented in diverse business sectors of an economy. The methodology involved using Value-at-Risk (VaR) technique with the integration of GARCH-based representation on three selected non-financial sectors in Malaysia. Using time-series data from 1993 until 2010, the efficiency test namely the Mean Relative Scaled Bias (MRSB) is then conducted. The evidence showed that the VaR forecast integrated with t-distribution GARCH has better capabilities to track movements in true risk exposures thus suggesting it as the most efficient model within specific assumptions and constraints. Keywords Value-at-risk, efficiency test, mean relative scaled biased (two more keywords)..

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Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is a direct investment into business or production in one country through an entity in alternative country, either via purchasing a business in the target country or via developing operations of a current business in that country. Despite the vast research by Malaysians and other foreign researchers about FDI in Malaysia, there are still other indicators that affect Malaysia as an attractive destination for FDI flows and consideration for any investment opportunity. This research is based on primary data, which was collected through questionnaires with a sample of 34 foreign companies invested in Malaysia. The SPSS software is used to analyze the data. The findings show that 85 percent of investors agree to invest in Malaysia again, most of them prefer to invest in the tourism industry due to many reasons such as country attractiveness, economic growth, technology availability, religious freedom, and access to capital. Investors consider Malaysia as a go.....

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Customer Relationship Management (CRM) plays an exceptional role in enhancing today_s business. Organisations with large number of customer base find CRM as vital solution to gain competitive advantage. Current climate of business suggests that advancement in Internet technology has accelerated CRM solution and support. The emergence of electronic CRM (eCRM) system arguably has improved organizational performance. Nevertheless, CRM capabilities can be further enhanced by examining the possibility of integrating knowledge management. Hence, the proposition of this paper is that the success of eCRM performance can be improved by interweaving knowledge management concept. The aim of this study is to fit in the selected KM and eCRM models within four dimensions based on Resource-based View Theory (RBV): technology, knowledge, customer and business. The study identified that CRM Development Stages Model and Balance Scorecard Perspective of eCRM Model provides better fit to the four resource.....

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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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