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Social entrepreneurship has the potential to address societal challenges, and high-education students are expected to be future social leaders. However, engagement in social entrepreneurship remains low in many countries. This study aims to investigate the mediating role of motivational mechanisms (i.e. self-efficacy, social support and social worth) in the relationship between prosocial personality and social entrepreneurial intentions (SEIs).

Based on the theory of planned behaviour, the authors conducted a survey of 292 valid respondents from 35 major public and private universities. The collected data were analysed using the structural equation modelling technique. The reliability of the measurements and the model’s predictive capabilities are substantial and assured.

The findings suggest that prosocial personality alone does not directly predict social entrepreneurial behaviour. However, motivational forces are dominant mediators in the relationship between prosocial personality and SEIs. Specifically, self-efficacy, social support and social worth significantly mediate this relationship.

The findings of this study provide insights into why prior studies on this topic has produced contradictory results.

The authors recommend that universities and policymakers provide adequate cognitive learning experiences, capacity-building programmes, funding support and recognition to enhance graduates’ inner strength and foster SEIs.

The empirical results resolve the contradictions found in many prior studies and highlight the importance of supportive mechanisms when promoting SEI in emerging regions.

This study aims to examine the influences of causation strategy, entrepreneurial orientation and social orientation on the social enterprise’s (SE) financial performance and social achievement.

The partial least square structural equational modelling technique was used to analyse survey data collected from Malaysian and Singaporean SEs (n = 96).

The findings have important guidance for policymakers, social entrepreneurs and researchers interested in promoting the growth and impact of SEs in emerging regions.

This study offers several practical implications for social entrepreneurs who want to achieve both financial and social success.

There is no widely accepted performance framework for SE. Most research in SE is descriptive and conceptual in nature. Larger data sets from the nascent ecology of SE are even scarcer. This study developed and examined a performance framework specifically designed to meet the needs of SEs operating in the emerging region.

This study aims to illuminate the limited understanding of viable social business among corporate actors in developing countries. It addresses pressing environmental and societal problems, emphasizing the need for corporate participation in sustainable solutions. Additionally, the study explores the transformational business notion linking company achievement with social progress, an increasingly studied concept in management.

Based on a transdisciplinary case study (i.e. a university-industry collaboration [UIC]), this study proposed a structural framework and guiding principles to integrate the academic and practitioners’ different but complementary resources and expertise.

The outcomes could provide insights for social entrepreneurs to perform highly optimal decisions on their organisational strategies, in which the financial-then-social pathway could be an effective social business success mechanism.

Besides, the case study also generates each five learning lessons and challenges coping strategies that provide practical guidance on operationalising an effective UIC. The empirical findings contribute to social entrepreneurship and sustainability science literature.

Not all innovative ideas or approaches commonly implemented by larger companies apply to smaller firms in all regions. Innovation that does not imply company achievements might exhaust their limited resources and cause the market to be uncompetitive. This paper aims to answer two research questions: (1) Do innovation strategies, such as process, marketing and social innovation, affect the performance of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)? (2) Does company size moderate the relationship between social and marketing innovations with SMEs' performance?

This paper proposed three innovation strategies (i.e. social, marketing and process innovations) influencing Malaysian SMEs' performance. There were 123 valid respondents from SMEs, and the data were analysed using a structural equation modelling partial least square (SEM-PLS) technique.

The research findings advocate that process innovation directly impacts SMEs' performance, not marketing innovation. Interestingly, the influence of social innovation on organisation performance is only significant when the company size becomes more prominent. Companies can provide consistent and continuous social enhancement that arouses public trust and reputation with more resources and capabilities. Also, smaller companies might concentrate their scarce resources on process innovation with instant beneficial potential instead of a sophisticated marketing strategy.

There is limited empirical research examining how different innovation strategies, especially social innovation, affect SMEs' performance in developing countries. Furthermore, the second-generation analysis (PLS-SEM) technique provides more systematic and comprehensive results.

This chapter relies on comparative case analysis to examine how and why particular social entrepreneurs in a higher Asian middle income economy broke new grounds in private higher education. The study provides arguments as to why these private higher education entrepreneurs, when viewed inclusively, are social entrepreneurs. Findings from the study suggest that social entrepreneurs distinctively used prior insights from their working experiences to harness the financial power of local capital to fund the scaling up of their social ventures while simultaneously engaging with the country’s economic and social challenges.

The term “Mental health literacy” is defined as knowledge and beliefs about mental disorders which aid their recognition, management or prevention. The importance of health literacy for physical health is widely studied; however, the area of mental health literacy in Pakistan has been comparatively neglected. The purpose of this paper is to address the knowledge about mental health in people living in Pakistan.

Relevant literature relating to mental health literacy was identified through various database searches. The databases searched included: PubMed, Cochrane database of Systemic Reviews, PsycINFO using the terms mental health, mental health literacy, mental health education, Pakistan.

Literature suggests that there is dearth of knowledge about mental illnesses and their treatment among public. This review also highlights the importance of mental health literacy among professionals working in the field of health care. In Pakistan, due to low literacy rate, a high percentage of poverty and dearth of trained professionals warrants an emendation in approaches established for attaining the goal of public health and psychiatric care.

Findings have implications for practitioners in the field of mental health care as well as designing targeted interventions for enhancing mental health literacy and help-seeking behavior in the future.

A limited understanding and lack of improvement in mental health literacy may interfere with society’s acceptance of evidence-based mental health care which may hamper the delivery of adequate mental health services to the needy.

Malaysia transitions from a pandemic to an endemic state, beginning on April 1, 2022. The dietary intake and physical activity of university students were altered during the COVID-19 pandemic confinement period, but there is limited information on this topic in the post-COVID-19 period. This cross-sectional study aims to understand gender differences in dietary intake and physical activity among university students and investigate the factors influencing their body mass index (BMI) in the post-COVID-19 period.

The questionnaire used in this study comprised three main segments: sociodemographic information, a semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire and the International Physical Activity Questionnaire.

Results indicated that males exhibited significantly higher (p < 0.05) mean intakes of total dietary energy and macronutrients compared to females. Compared to the Malaysian Recommended Nutrient Intakes 2017, 76.4% of males and 68.8% of females had a sufficient daily energy intake. The majority of males (52.7%) and females (46.4%) were moderately physically active. Regression analysis revealed that male university students with lower fiber intake (ß = −0.309, p = 0.002) were significantly associated with higher BMI reading after confounding adjustment. However, a similar trend was not observed in female university students.

Understanding the gender differences in dietary intake and physical activity can provide insights into the development of effective gender-specific health promotion strategies and the formulation of policies aimed at promoting healthier lifestyles among university students in the post-COVID-19 pandemic era.

This study provides insights into the gender differences in the dietary and physical activity habits of university students, as well as the factors influencing their BMI in the post-COVID-19 pandemic era.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an insight into xylophagia, its treatment, intervention options, etiological causes and possible relationship with other diseases.

A systematic search was performed across four scientific databases (i.e. Ovid Medline, Embase via Ovid, PubMed and ProQuest). All of the qualitative studies reporting on xylophagia from the inception of databases until August 2019 have been included. The quality of included studies was assessed through a ten-item checklist given by Kmet et al. (2004).

A total of 18 studies were included, and five primary themes emerged after analysis: precipitation/onset of xylophagia, co-morbid psychiatric or medical illnesses, assessment and investigation modes to confirm diagnosis, outcomes of xylophagia and treatment options comprising medical care, psychological care, counseling and duration of recovery. There were 16 females and 9 males in included studies. The mean ages and standard deviations of males and females were 29.25(12.17) years and 32.81(11.92), respectively. The mean duration and standard deviation of paper pica were 4.80(4.27) years.

Despite the limitation that this meta-synthesis is based upon findings from case studies, results show that standardized medication regimens for treating xylophagia are still not available or are unknown. There is a dire need for further research in order to better understand the disorder. The healthcare professionals need to use reciprocal, mutually constituent influence of biological and sociocultural factors in order to screen, diagnose and manage complex psychological problems like xylophagia.

The findings advance our understanding of the positive effects of patients and family members undergoing counseling or cognitive behavior therapy in reducing stress and enhancing coping skills thus, avoiding self-damaging behaviors.

This study aims to examine how demographic and psychological predictors of free and paid vaccine acceptance operate within an infectious environment. The psychological predictors were derived from the protection motivation theory (PMT), including the appraised effectiveness of vaccine in containing the pandemic and the fear of COVID-19.

A representative data set that consists of responses from 2,850 Malaysians was used in this study. Multi-level modelling was used to analyse the data.

Results indicated that the acceptance of free and paid vaccination did not differ by region. This suggests that the effects of the included psychological predictors on vaccine acceptance are independent from the environment. Malaysians are more likely to endorse both free and paid vaccination when it is perceived as effective in controlling the pandemic. When the vaccine is deemed as an effective preventive of COVID-19, Malaysians tend to seek free vaccination. Although fear of COVID-19 did significantly predict the endorsement of vaccination, it is a weaker predictor than the perceived effectiveness of vaccine.

This research used a large representative data set and the PMT framework in addressing vaccine acceptance in Malaysia.

Although intimate partner violence (IPV) and “honor”-based violence (HBV) are major concerns throughout the world, little research has investigated the acceptance of these forms of abuse outside of the West. The purpose of this paper is to therefore respond to this gap in the literature by exploring attitudes toward HBV in a fictional depiction of IPV across four Asian samples: India, Iran, Malaysia and Pakistan.

Participants (n=579) read a hypothetical scenario in which a husband, despite his own marital infidelity, verbally abuses and physically assaults his wife after discovering that she has been unfaithful. Participants then completed a questionnaire that assessed perceptions of damage to the husband’s honor, approval of intimate partner HBV against the wife, and perceptions of both the victim-wife and the perpetrator-husband.

The findings revealed that more males than females, across all four nations, were endorsing of honor-adhering attitudes in response to the perceived threat to the husband’s reputation resulting from the wife’s infidelity. Additionally, of the four samples, Pakistani participants were the most approving and Malaysians least endorsing of honor-adhering attitudes.

The results are discussed in relation to studies of honor-adherence in Asian populations. This study provides an original glimpse into the perceptions of intimate partner HBV in these not-often sampled nationalities.