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The objectives of this present study are twofold. First, it aims to investigate the performance objectives of PPP implementation in Malaysia. Second, it aims to examine the differences in the perceptions of two PPP key players – the public and private sectors – pertaining to the performance objectives.

A questionnaire survey was used to elicit the perceptions of the public and private sectors concerning the performance objectives of PPP projects in Malaysia; 237 usable responses were obtained and analysed using SPSS to rank the importance of the performance objectives and to examine the differences in the perceptions between the government and private sectors.

The results reveal that the five most important performance objectives for PPP implementation in Malaysia based on overall respondents’ perceptions are “High-quality public service”, “Provide convenient service for society”, “Within or under budget”, “On-time or earlier” and “Satisfy the need for more public facilities”. As for differences in the perceptions of the two key players, only one objective was perceived as statistically more important by the public sector respondents than by their private sector counterparts.

The contribution of this paper is that it not only provides empirical evidence for the performance objectives for PPP implementation in Malaysia, but also offers evidence concerning the differences in the perceptions of the public and private sectors pertaining to the performance objectives.

This paper explores the institutionalisation of a financial sustainability agenda in Malaysian public universities.

The study uses semi-structured interviews and document analysis. New Institutional Sociology and the institutional logics perspective are utilised to frame the study and explain findings.

The findings reveal that universities manage the conflicting academic and financial logics to co-exist to ensure legitimacy and survival. By compartmentalising the functions of key divisions and through loose coupling, universities are able to support dual logics.

The paper provides university management and policy makers with insights into how leading universities in Malaysia cope with a financial sustainability agenda.

The present study documents how universities cope with and respond to government reforms and budgetary cuts in the context of a developing country, Malaysia. Most prior research in the area focuses on individual or organisational responses. This paper examines organisational-level responses but goes deeper to understand how universities, through three key divisions; bursaries, corporate strategy divisions and faculties manage to enable the multiple logics to co-exist through compartmentalisation and loose coupling.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to identify the important performance indicators used in assessing public private partnership (PPP) performance in terms of the two aspects of PPP which are “financing and markets” and “innovation and learnings”; and second, to investigate the differences in the perception between public and private sectors on the importance of performance indicators in terms of the two aspects of PPP.

Using a questionnaire survey, 237 completed questionnaires were received representing 51.52 per cent response rate. In examining the importance of performance indicators, the descriptive statistical tests of mean, standard deviation and mean score ranking were used. The independent t-tests were conducted to investigate the differences in the perceptions between the two respondents’ groups on the importance of performance indicators.

In relation to the two areas of indicators used in assessing PPP performance, the findings show that the top three important performance indicators for financing and markets are: “Operational cost”, “Construction cost” and “Construction period”. While the top three important performance indicators for innovation and learning are: “Technology innovation”, “Employee training” and “Financial innovation”. In terms of the differences in the perceptions between the public and private sector groups, the test results indicate that there is only one significant statistical difference for each aspect of performance indicators.

This study offers empirical evidence on key financial performance indicators for PPP projects as perceived by two key parties in a PPP contract that are public and private sectors.

This paper has two objectives. The first objective is to examine the important performance indicators of the lifecycle process of public private partnership (PPP) projects. The second objective is to investigate the difference in the perception of the importance of the performance indicators between the public and private sectors.

To achieve the research objectives, the study used a questionnaire survey. The questionnaire was distributed via postal mail to officers of government departments and private sector companies who may have been involved in PPP projects. A total of 237 completed questionnaires were received, representing a 51.52% response rate. To examine the importance of performance indicators, the descriptive statistical tests of mean, standard deviation and mean score ranking were used. Independent t-tests were conducted to investigate the differences in the perceptions of the importance of performance indicators between the two respondent groups.

The findings show that all the 16 performance indicators are perceived as important and very important. The top five important performance indicators for a PPP project lifecycle process are “Time management”, “Contractual management”, “Cost management”, “Safety management” and “Effective risk management system”, while “stress or conflicts management” is the least important. In terms of the differences in the perception of the public and private sector groups, the results indicate that four indicators (“environment protection”, “cost management”, “effective risk management system” and “good work environment”), show a significant statistical difference between the perception of the public and the private sector respondents.

This study offers empirical evidence on key performance indicators for a PPP project that are crucial throughout its lifecycle as perceived by two key parties in a PPP contract, i.e. the public and the private sectors.

While the Noble Quran dictates the prohibition of interest, conventional banks promote Islamic banking by opening Islamic banking windows. Against this backdrop, this study aims to investigate the perceived gaps between managers and clients in Islamic marketing and banking, focusing on conventional banks’ Islamic banking windows.

Guided by a qualitative approach, semi-structured personal interviews and observations served as the data collection methods, involving 25 banks and 50 respondents in 3 different districts, namely, Shirajganj, Rajshahi and Chapainawabganj of Bangladesh from January to October 2023. The data were analysed using ATLAS.ti 2023 to explore codes and quotations derived from 14 interview questions. Further, ATLAS.ti 2023 facilitated synthesizing content, concepts, code occurrence, network analysis and thematic analysis.

Islamic and non-Islamic banks use Quranic verses, hadiths (prophetic traditions), images of mosques, the Kaaba and Arabic texts as Islamic marketing tools. These spiritual, divine and prescriptive tools are associated with Islamic banking. However, conventional banks receive criticism for having separate Islamic banking windows to serve religiously conscious clients, which generates tension among clients and bank managers.

The findings can theoretically assist academics in examining conventional banks’ Islamic marketing and banking practices, opening Islamic banking windows. Importantly, Shariah boards can play policy roles in safeguarding the function of Islamic marketing and banking. Managers can use the findings to anticipate client perceptions and enhance Islamic marketing and banking strategies. Likewise, the social implications include the explicit stance of Shariah to mitigate the mixture of halal and haram banking.

This pioneering study explores the perspectives of Islamic banking windows by non-Islamic banks. The combination of Islamic marketing and banking is a noteworthy novelty in this study and deserves recognition for its unique contribution to halal marketing and finance.

This paper aims to explore the best practices in marketing strategies for the Malaysian business event industry.

A qualitative methodology was adopted to collect primary data from semi-structured interviews. The informants included ten experts from the Malaysian business event industry. The data collected were then grouped using the ATLAS.ti (v.8) software for thematic analysis. A trustworthiness assessment was applied to increase the credibility and ensure the rigour of the qualitative findings.

The qualitative results revealed the following final themes: event marketing, the marketing plan, the 7 Ps of the marketing mix, strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis and traditional and digital marketing. Interestingly, three inductive themes were also emerged as follows: relationship marketing, unique selling points (USPs) and key opinion leaders.

This study looked at Malaysian business events and focused only on findings from the industry expert's perspective. In the future, further investigation may concentrate on other business event industry players such as destination marketing companies, airline operators, travel intermediaries, clients, suppliers, universities and the government.

The findings offer a holistic approach to increase Malaysia's competitiveness among other primary business event host destinations in the Asian-Pacific, improve its worldwide and Asian-Pacific rankings and better position the country as a preferred business event destination during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

This is the first such study to date, which has never been explored in qualitative academic research. This study has substantial implications for various business event industry stakeholders in Malaysia.

This study explores the enablers of students “entrepreneurial intentions by identifying the factors that raise students” interest in embracing an entrepreneurial career.

Entrepreneurship education is increasingly attracting attention as a means of fostering entrepreneurial activity and creating a culture of innovation. Developing students' entrepreneurial intentions is critical to promote entrepreneurship. This research is built on a mixed method approach of partial least squares structural equation modelling and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis.

The factors that influence students ‘entrepreneurial intentions are identified: business incubation programmes, non-reimbursable grants for entrepreneurial students, networking events to promote entrepreneurship, mentoring services, innovation labs for business idea validation and entrepreneurship courses. This knowledge can help develop effective entrepreneurship education programmes. The study also provides actionable insights for educational institutions and policymakers. It underscores the need for innovative educational platforms such as entrepreneurial bootcamps. It also highlights the value of advanced learning environments such as decision theatres to foster a culture of entrepreneurship and innovation.

The study contributes to the body of knowledge on entrepreneurship education. It highlights the need for a multidisciplinary approach to understand the factors that shape students’ entrepreneurial intentions.

This paper aims to formulate a conceptual framework that will facilitate the actualization of maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah in product design and consumption within Islamic financial institutions (IFIs).

This paper relies on the classical and contemporary literature on maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah and Islamic finance and adopts a qualitative content analysis method and an inductive approach to outline the constituent elements that formulate the framework.

This study determines six vital constituents of maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah, namely, parameters of maqāṣid, particular objectives, appropriate means, micro provisions, level of need and legal maxims to develop a conceptual framework of actualizing maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah in Islamic finance. The framework covers the following three stages: identification of maqāṣid, operationalization of maqāṣid in product design and consumption based on maqāṣid.

This paper proposes a conceptual framework without investigating the practice of any particular industry or products. Further research would focus on formulating a practical framework based on a focus group discussion with industry experts, elaborating the parameters of maqāṣid, scrutinizing the maqāṣid available in the literature by the parameters of maqāṣid and assessing the IFIs’ products and services using the proposed framework.

This paper provides insights into the importance of maqāṣid elements and the effects of overlooking them on IFIs and customers’ product consumption. Furthermore, a major implication of the proposed framework is to learn how to use the maqāṣid approach as the baseline for designing new financial products.

The novelty of this paper lies in its pioneering attempt of harmonizing all essential maqāṣid elements and using them as constituents to formulate a comprehensive framework that actualizes maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah in the Islamic finance industry.

This study aims to assess the possibility of adapting evidence-based policies in the daily operations of tour operators in Semporna, Sabah, Malaysia. This intervention is important, as on-site investigations reveal that operators are operating their businesses with little reference to the ecotourism policy guidelines.

This study adopted a full qualitative approach. In-depth interviews were conducted on tour operators in Semporna, while text mining was used to elicit data from the Malaysian National Ecotourism Plan. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data from the primary sources.

Gaps were evident between best practices guidelines from the National Ecotourism Plan and the day-to-day practices of tour operators in Semporna, Sabah. This was due to the limitations of the National Ecotourism Plan and the limitations of the operators in identifying and adhering to best practices; the impracticality of best practices in site-specific scenarios; and the benefit of adapting evidence-based practices (ECP) in Semporna, Sabah.

The implications of this study include a plan to bring forth a non-parochial and innovative approach in rural tourism policymaking process and to advocate evidence-based intervention through the inclusion and participation of stakeholders.

This study contributes towards the requisite of evidence-based intervention for rural tourism policies to meet site-specific needs.