UNIMAS Journal (Universiti Malaysia Sarawak)
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The Impact of Microfinance Services on Socio-Economic Welfare of Urban Vulnerable Households in Malaysia
Get PDFThe main objective of this study is to examine the effect of microfinance services on the socio-economic welfare of urban households in Malaysia. We distribute questionnaires to 400 respondents across three different urban areas in Malaysia in order to collect the relevant data for this study. Quota sampling is employed in the process of collecting the data. Incorporating income as a mediating variable into the model, the results show that most of the services provided by the microfinance institutions including microcredit, micro insurance and training have significant effect on socio-economic welfare. Income is also observed to have a significant impact on socio-economic welfare. With the exception of training, the microfinance services also have significant impact on income. The results further show that most of the microfinance services have indirect effect on welfare through income. The recommendations of this study are detailed in the body of the paper
Hot Money and Stock Market in China: Empirical Evidence from ARDL and NARDL Approaches
Get PDFThis study discusses the relationship between hot money and stock market in China by employing the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) and Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) methods. The data used in this study is quarterly data over the period 2000: Q1 to 2017: Q4. The results show that oil price, economic growth and hot money possess a long-run relationship towards stock market in China, whereas, no effect is found from inflation. The oil price and economic growth are both positively related to stock market while there is a negative relationship from hot money. Furthermore, the study supports the existence of an asymmetric effect between hot money and stock market. The findings imply that policymakers should form better monitoring systems to control the inflow of hot money, thus, strengthening investors’ confidence and avoiding unwanted bubbles in China’s stock market
Asymmetric Pass-Through Effects of Oil Price on Economic Growth in Malaysia
Get PDFThis empirical analysis intends to examine the asymmetric response of economic growth when the oil price changes in Malaysia by applying threshold autoregressive (TAR) and momentum threshold autoregressive (MTAR) cointegration and asymmetric adjustment models. The results revealed that the oil price has an asymmetric impact on Malaysian economic growth. We found that when oil price increases this accelerates economic growth; however, the speeds of adjustment back to the steady position were insignificant. When the oil price dropped, oil price significantly and negatively affects economic growth for a period of time and then returns back to its normal position. The results revealed that Malaysian economic growth constantly benefits when the oil price increases and is temporarily negatively affected when oil prices drop. The results have important policy implications. This suggests that it is essential to the policy makers to consider different policy responses for hikes and drops in oil prices. The result implies that negative oil price shock would lower economic growth, however it is temporary. Therefore, policy makers might response by implementing expansionary monetary policy to stimulate economic growth. The explanation is intuitive. For example, an increase in the money supply would normally pull down the interest rate which would further encourage consumption and investment, stimulate economic growth, which would increase oil demand and push up its price
Intellectual Capital and Disclosure Practices of Miscellaneous Industries: Evidence from Cable Companies in Indonesia
Get PDFThe important role of intellectual capital for value creation has led many companies to disclose their intellectual capital information in annual reports. This study aims to provide, via content analysis, an overview of the disclosure and presentation of intellectual capital information in the annual reports of cable companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in 2015. This study found that structural capital is the most common category of intellectual capital disclosed in the annual reports. In addition, most intellectual capital disclosures are discursive, with positive and past-oriented information. However, there is no systematic framework for disclosing intellectual capital information in annual reports. Disclosures made do not have a special pattern and are still random. This finding may contribute to an understanding of how companies communicate intellectual capital information for their own benefit, as well as the benefit of stakeholders, customers and employees
Accounting Conservatism and Board Characteristics: Portuguese Evidence
Get PDFFor a sample of 26 non-financial listed Portuguese firms-year from 2002 to 2016, this study extends previous research by empirically examining how board structure affects the magnitude of accounting conservatism for companies listed in Portugal. Mainly, we focus on the main characteristics of the board structure that are highlighted by the Portuguese Securities Market Supervisory Authority’s recommendations: board size, board composition, board’s monitoring committees and number of board meeting. This study predicts and finds a non-linear relationship between board size and conservatism. Specifically, we find that as board size increases up to 8 members, the sample firms employ more conservatism, consistent with the idea that smaller boards can be more effective than larger boards in monitoring managerial behaviour. When board size reaches beyond 8 members, a negative relationship between board size and conservatism accounting occurs. We also find that both boards comprised of more non-executive members and high board meetings frequency lead firms to report more conservatively
The Impact of Auditors’ Industry Knowledge and Experience on Premature Sign-Offs: Evidence from Jordan
Get PDFThis study aims to investigate the impact of auditors’ industry knowledge (AIK) and auditor experience (EXP) on premature sign-offs (PMSOs) among external auditors. PMSOs is one of dysfunctional behaviours in auditing that eventually affects the audit quality. Audit quality is defined as all audit procedures are satisfactorily performed and stakeholders are not negatively affected with the results of poor audit quality. While the topic of audit quality has received great attention from previous studies decades ago, studies on how AIK and auditor experience affects PMSOs are limited. Therefore, this study examined the effects of AIK and auditor experience on PMSOs. Survey data was gathered from 144 auditors in the Jordanian audit firms. AMOS-SEM was used to analyse the data for testing the hypotheses. Results revealed that AIK and auditor experience negatively affected PMSOs. Based on these findings, this study suggests that to a certain extent PMSOs practices are prevalent in Jordanian audit firms, AIK, and auditor experience are a measure that can be used to reduce the PMSOs practices. Thus, this study provides empirical evidence of the impact factor determining the effect of auditor knowledge in the industry and auditor experience on the dysfunctional behaviour-PSMOs and impact on audit quality. The limitations of this study and recommendations for future research are also provided
The Study on Human Resource Practices and AMO Model and Its Impact on Employee Commitment among Gen Y SMEs Employees in Selangor, Malaysia
Get PDFResearchers and practitioners have been very enthusiastic and spend the most determinations to study all possible means in order to grab the most advantage from their human resources (HR) especially the Gen Y employees. These employees are pertinent to the part of organisation’s strategic business plan and contribute to the organisation’s performance as well as sustainable competitive advantage. Hence, employee commitment remains a key challenge especially in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship of compensation, training, employee involvement as well as the ability, motivation and opportunity (AMO) model towards employee commitment. The study also seeks to provide the theory-based empirical evidence that the role of AMO model as a mediator in achieving the commitment of employees and used Social Exchange Theory (SET) in order to explain the theoretical rationale of the study model. A total of 168 Gen Y employees representing SMEs service sectors in Selangor, Malaysia participated in this study. Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) was utilised in order to explain the relationship among HR practices towards employee commitment as well as AMO model as a mediator. A key finding that emerged from the analysis showed that only training has direct relationship toward the employee commitment and AMO model plays an important role in gaining employee commitment as it mediates the relationship of employee involvement. However, compensation has no effect in any relationship. Particularly, this study has helped to place the human resource practices, AMO model and employee commitment in the SET by giving a new perspective theoretically that the correct approach of gaining commitment of employees by providing the appropriate practices that employee will reciprocate in return. Also, it showed that Gen Y employees are seeking more involvement than compensation in order to commit themselves. SMEs should involve employees in their daily activities or any decision-making and offers other recognition programs, as money and remuneration are no longer a motivational urge for employees to become committed. Moreover, the findings could therefore serve as a turning point for SMEs to start concentrating and provide more job-related training so that employees can upgrade their skills particularly in this Industrial 4.0 era, where everything changes greatly in the way they deal with others
Correlations Between Fish Assemblage Structure and Environmental Variables of Taruwa Pond in Nawalparasi District, Province No. 4, Nepal
Get PDFThe correlations between fisheries diversity and environmental variables of Nepal’s Pond are poorly understood. This study aims to investigate temporal variation of fish assemblage at Taruwa Pond in Nawalparasi district, Province no. 4, Nepal from October 2018 to April 2019. For the fish agglomeration, cast net of 4 kg in weight and 3.80 m in length and 22.5 m breadth with 12 mm mesh size was used. In total, 579 individuals representing 16 fish species, 10 families, and 12 genera were recorded. According to similarity percentage analysis, the most contributory species were Puntius ticto (27.92%) followed by Danio devario (12.06%), Puntius terio (9.76%), Badis badis (7.31%), Lepidocephalichthys guntea (5.57%) and Puntius sophore (5.57%). Analysis of similarity suggested that fish community structure was significantly different in temporal variation (R = 0.321, p<0.01). Based on the cluster analysis, fish assemblages were isolated into two distinct groups at Bray-curtis similarity. The Canonical Correspondence Analysis distinctly indicated that the water parameters of dissolved oxygen, carbon-dioxide, depth, and water temperature play an important role in influencing the fish assemblage structure of Taruwa Pond
Chemosystematic Evaluation of Some Nigerian Gossypium hirsutum L. Using Qualitative and Quantitative Phytochemical Analysis
Get PDFThere is little information on the use of phytochemicals for the systematic study of variation and resolving relatedness in Nigerian Gossypium hirsutum species. Thus, there is a need to carry out detailed phytochemical studies of the plant leaves, which could be helpful in ascertaining their diversity and relatedness. The qualitative and quantitative phytochemical screening was conducted on 18 accessions of G. hirsutum using the established laboratory protocols. The findings of this study indicated the presence of tannin, alkaloids, proline, flavonoids, and saponin in all of the accessions that were grouped into two at 17% genetic distance, indicating 83% relatedness. However, phytosterol, terpenoids and glycosides were absent in three of the accessions, which were grouped at 48%. The phytochemical compositions were tannin (1.30-1.09 mg/100 g), flavonoid (1.60-1.16 mg/100 g, terpenoid (0.42-0.35 mg/100 g), alkaloid (1.47-1.11 mg/100 g), saponin (4.86-1.59 mg/100 g), glycoside (1.02-0.88 mg/100 g), proline (1.57-1.0 mg/100 g) and phytosterol (0.36-0.2 mg/100 g). The aim of this research was to determine the diversity and relatedness of G. hirsutum genotypes collected from different locations of Nigeria. In general, this study emphasises the use of plant chemicals for classification purposes
Implications of Covid-19 Pandemic on Household Food Security: Experience from Sarawak, Malaysia
Get PDFThis paper discusses how household food security is affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, using examples from Sarawak, Malaysia. Food security in Sarawak was affected by the implementation of the Movement Control Order (MCO) that was introduced to curb the spread of the Covid-19 disease. The MCO, and the subsequent phases that followed, imposed a varying degree of restrictions on movements in the country. This measure had serious repercussions on food security as it affects the distribution of food as well as how people access food. This raises questions of how secure households are in terms of food security, how do they ensure food security for their households and what are their greatest challenge in ensuring food security. This paper seeks to address those questions by examining the experiences and perceptions on food security during the pandemic based on the responses of 235 respondents. Findings indicated that most households are food secure i.e. having similar access to food as prior to MCO and have not skipped any meals. In order to achieve this, households had to resort to various measures including switching their food sources, shopping online, and going without their preferred food. Significantly, the finding shows that food security means more than just having enough food but should also incorporate elements of variety, types and quantity of food. It also shows that the greatest challenge in achieving and maintaining household food security lies in the way household cope with the changes brought, both directly and indirectly, by the pandemic