Year 2014 , Volume 3, Issue 3, Part 1
Year 2014 , Volume 3, Issue 3, Part 1
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Participation in Acquiring Knowledge towards Sustainable Development at Malaysian Local Government SULZAKIMIN MOHAMED, SEOW TA WEE and GOH KAI CHEN Pages: 1325-1333
Sustainable development has become an important aspect in the local governments planning development for the last 20 years. There are many ways sustainability elements can be incorporated in the design, construction, operation and deconstruction of buildings. Hence, the knowledge towards sustainable development should be first acquired and understood. Importantly sustainability represents the link between society and built environment professionals. In this study, the focus is aimed at the role of the Local Governments and how they play their roles towards sustainable development. Therefore, this study involved distributing questionnaire to 55 Local Governments. The result shows that Local Governments staffs need better understanding and awareness in Sustainable Development in terms of acquiring knowledge towards sustainable development. This study is to contribute to the enrichment of knowledge transfer practices on the role of Local Governments in Sustainable Development. Therefore, this research shows that sustainable development is low in percentage of being practiced. Key Words: Sustainable Development, Local Government, Staffs Practices.
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Organisational Ambidexterity and NPD Performance A Conceptual Framework MOHAMAD FAIZAL AHMAD ZAIDI and SITI NOREZAM OTHMAN Pages: 1334-1344
New product development (NPD) consists of exploitative activity for incremental product development and explorative activity for radical product development. However, since the functions of exploitative and explorative NPDs are of opposite directions, they compete for scarce resources that make them in trade-off nature. This trade-off nature can negatively affects NPD performance. As a solution to this problem, a concept of organisational ambidexterity has emerged. This concept refers to a firms ability to simultaneously pursuit exploitative and explorative NPDs that able to achieve the benefits of both worlds. However, as this concept is relatively new, its relationship with NPD performance is still underexplored. In details, structural ambidexterity and contextual ambidexterity that are two types of organisational ambidexterity need to be compared and contrasted to NPD financial and nonfinancial performance since they pursuit exploitative and explorative NPDs in different ways. As such, this study contributes to NPD and organisational ambidexterity literatures through a conceptual framework that shows the relationships between structural ambidexterity, contextual ambidexterity, and NPD financial and nonfinancial performance. A potential setting for empirical study based on this conceptual framework is also addressed. Key Words: Contextual Ambidexterity, Exploitative NPD, Explorative NPD, NPD financial performance, NPD nonfinancial performance, Structural Ambidexterity.
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Effects of Training Methods on Human Resource Productivity in Mellat Bank ALI MAKHSOUSI, JAMSHID SALEHI SADAGHIANI and MAGHSOUD AMIRI Pages: 1345-1354
Today, a workforce of tens of millions is working in Islamic Republic of Iran in different sectors of public, industry and trade to fulfill their duties and responsibilities. Obviously, it cannot be claimed that all these people innately hold the knowledge, skills and type of behaviors required to do their occupational responsibilities. Thus, they need training to improve the quality and quantity of their jobs. Today, human resource training is highly effective on productivity improvement. Therefore, this research intends to study the effects of different human resource training methods on the improvement of productivity in Bank Mellat, across Tehran province. It is a descriptive and correlational research and the data were collected through a researcher-made survey from 184 employees of Bank Mellat. Data were analyzed by confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling using Lisrel software. Results show that all the dimensions of training affect the productivity of employees. Key Words: Training, Information Provision, Simulation, On Job Training, Productivity.
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The Impact of Managers Self-awareness, Positivity and Psychological Ownership on Organizational Citizenship Behavior MAJID ZAMAHANI and FAEZEH REZAEI Pages: 1355-1368
One of the most important assets of any organization that may have an effective role to play in achieving a sustainable competitive advantage is organizations human resources. The usage of new styles of leadership, investment in the field of positive organizational behavior, and developing a sense of ownership are the ways to manage human resources in effective and efficient manner. The consequences of behavior can also point out indirect effects on organizational citizenship behavior and organizational outcomes such as trust, performance and empowerment. This research was conducted in Mobinnet Telecommunication Company among 50 senior and middle level managers. The results showed that there is a direct positive relationship between self-awareness and organizational citizenship behavior at 99 percent confidence level. Furthermore, the results indicated that higher level of leaders positivity and psychological ownership increase the level of organizational citizenship behavior. Key Words: Authentic Leadersh
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The Relationship of Agency and Performance in Family Business: Small and Medium Enterprise in Yogyakarta DWIPRAPTONO AGUS HARJITO and ARIF SINGAPURWOKO Pages: 1369-1378
The purpose of this research is to determine the effect and the relationship between controlling mechanism variables and family business performance. This research uses 20 small and medium size family businesses in Yogyakarta as the sample. The controlling mechanism variables used as the independent variables are insider ownership, debt policy, and dividend policy. The other independent variable that is not included as the controlling mechanism is business size, operating profit, and business risk. The dependent variable used in this research is the business performance which is proxy by Tobins Q. The multiple regressions used to test the effect of independent variable toward the dependent variables simultaneously and individually. The result of this research can explain the insider ownership, debt policy, and dividend policy which significantly affect business performance in simultaneously and individually. This research also found that business performance has positive relationship with those three variables. Key Words: Good Corporate Governance, Agency Conflict, Tobin?s Q, Family Business.
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The Influence of Innovation Attributes on New Technologies Adoption by Paddy Farmers SOBIA MANNAN and SHAHRINA MD NORDIN Pages: 1379-1384
Agriculture plays a vital role in Malaysian economy. Agricultural innovation is considered as an important and necessary component in the development of agricultural activities. Technology adoption would only take place if innovation is driven by farmers need. This conceptual paper discusses the influence of innovation attributes on new technology adoption by paddy farmers. The main purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship among the relevant variables in order to enhance the conceptual framework by critically reviewing and examining the literature within paddy farming context. In strengthening the conceptual framework, it is found in the literature that innovation attributes and new technologies adoption are inter-related and play an important role in increasing paddy production and paddy quality especially in granary areas. In future study, these variables will be empirically investigated and discussed. Key Words: Innovation, Adoption, Agriculture, Technologies.
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Intercultural Negotiations: Issues and Challenges in the Oil and Gas Industry from Malaysian Perspective SHAHRINA MD NORDIN, SUBASHINI VASSEKARAN and GURKIRPAL SINGH GROVER Pages: 1385-1393
There have been numerous studies on the strategies of intercultural negotiations within the western contexts and cultures, however there has been limited number of studies that examine intercultural negotiations from the Malaysian perspectives specifically in the context of oil and gas industry. This paper reports an investigation into negotiating styles adopted by Malaysian personnel in the oil and gas industry when dealing with foreign counterparts. This aim of the study is achieved through a qualitative approach by interviewing three highly experienced negotiators in the industry on their negotiation experience throughout their multinational negotiation assignments. The interview outcome provides implications for practical recommendations which identify different stands taken by the negotiators in different situations. Key Words: Intercultural Negotiations, Challenges in Oil and Gas Industry, Malaysia.
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Evaluation of Management of Department of Endodontics, Faculty of Dentistry, Tehran University of Medical Sciences FERESHTEH FARZIANPOUR, MOHAMMAD ZARABIAN and MOHAMMAD REZA SHARIFIAN Pages: 1394-1400
In this study Endodontics group benefiting from opinion poll of university lecturers, student and graduates have evaluated their system of educational and their aim was to remodel and adjust educational system with the societys needs and promotion of the quality of such educations. The employed method was cross sectional and descriptive and analytical on the basis of 10 procedural steps and within 8 sections dealing with evaluated factors. Such as Scientific board members, management and organizational capability, students, manpower and logistic affairs, educational environments, research work centers, health and therapeutic sections, educational equipment, research equipment, laboratory and diagnosis centers, educational courses and programs, teaching and learning process as well as satisfaction expressed by students. The results of the research showed that general average of 8 investigating sections were %71.6 as a desirable research work. It is, therefore, concluded that function of the educational management is directly in line with evaluation process. Educational evaluation is the best indicator showing how much we should go to achieve certain aims, analyzes quality of the activity if such a system and by which we achieve logical and routine results. Key Words: Internal Evaluation, Department of Endodontics, Faculty of Dentistry; Tehran University of Medical Sciences.
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Knowledge Management in A Changing Society JOEMAR BRAGA ALVES Pages: 1401-1407
This article had as reference to knowledge management in a society in constant transformation. It was necessary to understand that we live in a world that turns every second and that knowledge management becomes essential and strategic for the advancement and transformation of any society. An example of this was that the Brazil lived years over judge of International Monetary Fund (IMF) suffering from rampant inflation and its evolution and learning in this area, or better, your economic knowledge made him a country strong enough to withstand changes and global economic crises and even be able to find your way to the stabilization of its currency. Another phenomenon well and scathing too, we can cite as an example, was the advancement of knowledge in the field of information technology where the first personal and office computers, in this scenario, brilliant minds present themselves, such as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Several are the transformations that have occurred in society caused by permanent acting and evolution of knowledge and its management is needed mostly in this new era, i.e. the era of communication, information and knowledge. Key Words: Management, Knowledge, Strategy, Transformation and Society.
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Threshold Model of Gold and Oil Price Volatility in Southeast Asia Two Stock Markets: Empirical Study of Thailand and Malaysian Countries WANN-JYI HORNG and MING-CHI HUANG Pages: 1408-1415
The empirical results show that the dynamic conditional correlation (DCC) and the bivariate AIGARCH (1, 1) model is appropriate in evaluating the relationship of the Thailands and the Malaysians stock markets with two factors of gold price and oil price markets. The empirical result also indicates that the Thailands and the Malaysians stock markets is a positive relation. The average estimation value of correlation coefficient equals to 0.4732, which implies that the two stock markets is synchronized influence. Besides, the empirical result also shows that the Thailands and the Malaysians stock markets have an asymmetrical effect. The return volatility of the Thailand and the Malaysian stock markets receives the influence of the positive and negative values of the gold price and the oil price volatility rates. Key Words: Gold Price, Oil Price, Stock Market, Asymmetric Effect, AIGARCH Model.
