Abdul Rahim Hj Ridzuan, Mohd Shahidan Shaari, Al Amirul Eimer and Abdul Rahman Jaaffar
This chapter discusses Malaysia's foreign economic policy and trade performance. Since independence, Malaysia has been active in regulating its foreign economic policy. The policy…
Abstract
This chapter discusses Malaysia's foreign economic policy and trade performance. Since independence, Malaysia has been active in regulating its foreign economic policy. The policy is aimed at making the country a nation that welcomes friendly and fair policy through diplomacy and simultaneously maintaining its honorable sovereignty and local interests. In 2018, the Malaysian government outlined its foreign policy framework that emphasises four (4) major components, namely, (1) the direction of foreign policy, (2) empowering the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – MOFA (Wisma Putra), (3) enhancing interagency collaboration and lastly, (4) increasing public and civil society participation. Through the framework, Malaysia has been strengthening its international relations, particularly among Islamic nations and the European Union countries. In terms of trade, Malaysia has been increasing its trade and this can be seen in its trade surplus performance. For more than 20 consecutive years, Malaysia has experienced trade surpluses. However, the recent COVID-19 outbreak has dampened the country's economic growth. Despite the detrimental impacts of the outbreak, Malaysia remained positive about strengthening the economy in the future. In terms of trade partners, Malaysia has built close relations with China, Singapore, the United States, Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand, India, Taiwan, Vietnam, and South Korea. In terms of export products, Malaysia mainly exports electrical and electronic products, petroleum products, chemicals and chemical products, LNG, manufactures of metal, machinery, equipment and parts, optical and scientific equipment, palm oil, crude petroleum, and rubber products. Even though trade has caused several issues such as overdependence on import product, Malaysia has maintained a positive outlook on trade. Trade helps fulfill the domestic demand in which local producers are not able to satisfy. Other than that, Malaysia also consistently produced goods that are demanded by other countries. In conclusion, Malaysia will always forge ahead to improve its international economic relations and to gain benefits from the international economy and world trade.
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Lily Julienti Abu Bakar and Abdul Rahman Jaaffar
This chapter deliberates Malaysia's involvement in innovation sector transformation and describes concepts of technological parks, clusters, and innovation networks. A vast of…
Abstract
This chapter deliberates Malaysia's involvement in innovation sector transformation and describes concepts of technological parks, clusters, and innovation networks. A vast of academic writings have been found interest toward the issues. Thus, this chapter also defines the important terms and highlights some literatures in Malaysian context as innovation clusters and networks have given rise to a vast stream of works in recent years. Innovation has been recognized as an important factor for the success of Malaysia with the support of new technologies and new product development. Malaysia Technology Parks helps to accelerate product innovation within the private sector in collaboration with higher institution education and research agencies from government agencies, government link companies, or nonprofit organizations. In Malaysia, innovations take place in industrial clusters whereby from this clustering, the industry will benefit the cost reduction, access to talent, easy access to information, and opportunities for more collaboration and networks. Innovations could be seen to relate to business networks from interaction between business partners or through changes to interaction patterns among various business partners. Finally, this chapter highlights the expectation in innovative sectors, the strategy and type of industry boomers in Malaysia, and technological transformation as a platform for innovative industry.
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Noor Fareen Abdul Rahim, Essia Ries Ahmed, Mohammad Nizam Sarkawi, Abdul Rahman Jaaffar and Jauriyah Shamsuddin
The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between operational risk management and customer complaints. It also determines whether product complexity moderates the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between operational risk management and customer complaints. It also determines whether product complexity moderates the relationship between the operational risk management and customer complaints.
Design/methodology/approach
This study utilizes a quantitative method: quantitative data were collected using a questionnaire. The population of this study is 1,845 local conventional bank branches based in Malaysia.
Findings
The findings revealed that components of operational risk management, namely practice of hazard identification and formulation of implementation of risk control, have negative and significant relationships with customer complaints. Empirical evidence confirmed the moderating effects of product complexity on the relationship between operational risk management and customer complaints.
Originality/value
From the perspective of developing countries, the main contribution of this study is the elucidation of the effect of operational risk management on customer complaints in commercial banks in Malaysia. This study confirmed the usability of the resource-based view theory in the banking industry, as well as operational risk management as a bank resource.
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Noor Fareen Abdul Rahim, Abdul Rahman Jaaffar, Mohammad Nizam Sarkawi and Jauriyah binti Shamsuddin
The change in Malaysian financial environment can be attributed to digitalization as banks are racing to digital maturity by 2020. Historically in Malaysia, the use of credit card…
Abstract
The change in Malaysian financial environment can be attributed to digitalization as banks are racing to digital maturity by 2020. Historically in Malaysia, the use of credit card was a Fintech development in the 1950s to help Malaysians minimize the burden in carrying cash all the time. The aim of financial technology in the 1990s was to encourage bank customers to use the online banking system instead of only automated teller machine. Fintech services are swiftly interrupting banks' services globally. Similarly, Malaysia's banking sector is experiencing the interruption since as more Fintech organizations are innovating new Fintech service to improve convenience for clienteles. Numerous regulatory agencies in Malaysia and the Malaysian government have set up several initiatives to encourage and provide a vigorous growth in the Malaysian Fintech and digital asset regulatory environment. Expectation Confirmation Model, Technology Acceptance Model, and Cognitive Model are viewed as the most popular frameworks that discuss the continuous intention to use information system. The combination of these three models has led to the creation of Technology Continuance Theory (TCT). TCT postulates that five prominent constructs or antecedents are depicted as key indicators in explaining the users' intentions for continuous use: (1) confirmation, (2) perceived usefulness, (3) perceived ease of use, (4) satisfaction, and (5) attitude. Furthermore, TCT adds to the argument on the consumers' continuance adoptions by assimilating satisfaction and attitude into a single construct.
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Ghazanfar Ali, Abdul Rahman Jaaffar and Juha Ali
Malaysian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are facing human capital development issues due to unskilled employees. The institutes of Malaysian education are providing…
Abstract
Malaysian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are facing human capital development issues due to unskilled employees. The institutes of Malaysian education are providing ineffective science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education which are generating unskilled graduates as a future workforce. The low capability of Malaysian graduates affect the performance of Malaysian SMEs. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to examine the effect of STEM education in solving the human capital development issues for the enhancement of Malaysian SMEs performance. The current literature explores the ineffective system of STEM education for Malaysian graduates which result in human capital development issues in Malaysian SMEs. The curriculum of Malaysian education institutions plays a pivotal role in making the university graduates skillful since a teacher should teach the syllabus according to the need of the national curriculum and the student must learn practical knowledge for the sake of the professional employee in future. Hence, this study identified the significance of properly provided STEM education to deal with the human capital development issues faced by Malaysian SMEs. Effective STEM education is important in generating the human capital as it makes the university graduates skilled and capable which enable them to successfully meet the industry needs in future. Likewise, through the development of human capital, the performance of Malaysian SMEs could be improved.
Abdul Rahman Jaaffar, Shamsul Huda Abd Rani and Norria Zakaria
Malaysian public and private universities have faced unprecedented challenges due to multiple government policies in the short and medium term – coupled with economic uncertainty…
Abstract
Malaysian public and private universities have faced unprecedented challenges due to multiple government policies in the short and medium term – coupled with economic uncertainty, budget cuts, and the entrepreneurial university (EU) agenda. This pressure is aimed to both public and private universities in accordance with the third mission of the Malaysian Education Development Plan 2015–2025 and ranking agencies by effectively engaging with the community and business, generating income in the process of tackling fundraising. The purpose of this study is to fill that gap by exploring the perspectives of those who are part of the Entrepreneurship Architecture implementation, as intermediaries of knowledge exchange and the impact of interaction by embedding Artificial Intelligence (AI) in achieving the mission of Entrepreneurship University by the government. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to develop a new model for internal parties in public universities as a guide for policy development and strategies to achieve the EU agenda. The Entrepreneurship Architecture Model will be used to identify the existing determinants, the AI infrastructure, and how the demographic factors, e.g., staff and related universities, support the model.
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Kamal Ab Hamid, Shahrizal Badlishah and Abdul Rahman Jaaffar
The abolishment of Goods and Services Tax (GST) has had the effect of reversing an initial success in broadening the country's tax base. In contrast, the abolishment of GST has…
Abstract
The abolishment of Goods and Services Tax (GST) has had the effect of reversing an initial success in broadening the country's tax base. In contrast, the abolishment of GST has had the effect of reversing an initial success in broadening the country's tax base. Moreover, the government has a better capability of managing debt than the private sector due to its central bank with fiat money. However, Malaysia's total reserves have not increased significantly in recent times, despite the trade surplus, given the movement in the financial accounts. In such circumstances, it is incumbent on the government to expand its balance sheet to pick up the slack of the private sector. Hence, the reform agenda has restored Malaysia's image globally. More importantly, a reminder from the great recession of 2008 is that the private sector, when faced with great uncertainty, cannot continuously provide employment. However, before policymakers ponder to the views of rating agencies, they need to consider the points above and debate among themselves about what is truly in Malaysia's best interest. As the matter of fact, manufactured goods accounted for some 86% of Malaysia's total exports. We see no conflict of “crowding out” if the government and government-related companies take on radical risk that the private sector is unwilling or incapable of taking on. In fact, manufactured goods accounted for some 86% of Malaysia's total exports. It is important that policymakers understand that the government's deficit is the private sector's savings. The direct cross-shareholdings of government linked corporations (GLCs) and its resultant crowding-out of private investors have received heightened policy priority by the government where major reshuffled on the reporting lines of various GLCs by ministries contributes cross-shareholdings of GLCs and its resultant crowding-out of private investors.
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Normalisa Md Isa, Arunnaa Sivapathy and Nur Nadia Adjrina Kamarruddin
Since the 1970s, the sustainable development was developed from science and environmental crusade. Since then, there were many programs done in the field but not named as…
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Since the 1970s, the sustainable development was developed from science and environmental crusade. Since then, there were many programs done in the field but not named as “Sustainable Development.” The environments have affected because of the process of the development which was noticed by the world community. Malaysia has made a commitment to the 2030 Agenda in September 2015 for the future of mother earth. Despite the increasing attention toward sustainable development and circular economy across the world, understanding of the potential sustainability synergy among developing countries remains sluggish. This chapter therefore briefly discusses the development of circular economy within developed and developing countries. The chapter then narrowed the discussion toward Malaysian practices of the circular economy. Malaysia also recorded among the countries that faced waste management issues in Asia. The detailed discussion includes Malaysian acceptance and initiatives in reaching a circular economy within the past years, present, and future. The discussion surrounds the circular economy practiced by Malaysian industrial players as well as government's initiatives in encouraging and educating Malaysian toward embracing the idea of circular economy and sustainable consumption. As most countries embrace green technologies, Malaysia has taken proactive steps toward adopting green technology. Among the four main policy priorities are energy, environment, economy, and social, the key to green technology in driving the country's economy while promoting sustainable development. In fact, the major economic drivers of the Malaysian economy involve industrial activities such as palm oil, mining, and manufacturing, which are now beginning to take steps toward the development of green technology development. The application of green technology can provide a balance between economic development and environmental preservation as well as solutions to climate change issues. The initiative aims to make Malaysia one of the best countries in the world with sustainable economic growth, innovation, and prosperous citizens by 2050.
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Azrain Nasyrah Mustapa and Armanurah Mohamad
In Malaysia, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the significant contributor to economic growth. However, since the coronavirus outbreak, Malaysian SME business…
Abstract
In Malaysia, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the significant contributor to economic growth. However, since the coronavirus outbreak, Malaysian SME business activity has been severely slowed. Therefore, during this COVID-19 pandemic crisis, government business supports and assistances are indispensable because if SMEs go down, the country will be affected. This chapter will focus on supports and assistances provided by Malaysian government on SMEs impacted from the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. The chapter will be introduced with the background of SMEs in Malaysia, follow by scenarios of COVID-19, the Movement Control Order imposed by Malaysian government, and the impact of COVID-19 on SMEs. Next the chapter will discuss the government supports and assistances and follow by government monitoring on supports and assistances given. Lastly, the chapter ends with suggestions for SME recovery of COVID-19 pandemic crisis.