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It is a general belief that using the right strategy for supplier selection and management will ensure the right suppliers who will adequately support the manufacturer to be flexible enough to meet customers' needs are engaged. Yet, there is little empirical evidence to support this view, especially in Malaysia. This paper attempts to fill this need by examining the impact of supplier selection and management strategies on manufacturing flexibility (such as product flexibility, launch flexibility, and volume flexibility).

The population for this study consists of manufacturing firms in the semi‐conductor industry in Malaysia listed in the Penang Development Corporation's directory. Questionnaire was used and each of the 120 companies listed in the sampling frame was sent a copy, out of which 100 copies were collected back. However, only 92 copies were usable. Data were analysed using the multiple regression model.

It was found that the selection of supplier based on technology is important for the manufacturer whose focus is on product and launch flexibility. However, quality becomes strategically important when the manufacturer is focusing on volume flexibility. Inventory management and technology roadmap are very important supplier management strategies with robust influence on all three forms of manufacturing flexibilities, namely product flexibility, launch flexibility, and volume flexibility. In sum, the manufacturer needs to understand clearly which flexibility of its operation is required, and then adopt a working supplier selection and management strategy.

This research is new and beneficial to manufacturers and suppliers in the semi‐conductor sector.

The current research investigates the impact of persona‐system characteristics, technical backing, and computing skill on information systems (IS) usage by Malaysian small and medium firms (SMF) using the TAM. The study hypothesizes that persona‐system characteristics (such as perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use) and usage of systems will be greater when there is greater computing skill and strong technical backing. A total of 177 firms responded to the survey and the results show that there is a positive relationship between computing skill and technical backing on one hand and IS usage directly, and indirectly via perceived usefulness and ease of use on the other. Usage is influenced directly by usefulness and indirectly (via usefulness) by ease of use. These findings are particularly crucial to system designers and vendors targeting SMF, as well as, to information systems management in SMF. Important theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Previous studies on scanning behavior have focused mainly on decisions relating to the choice of corporate strategies, leaving strategic investment decisions largely understudied. This paper aims to bridge the gap not just by examining strategic investment decisions but also by investigating the role of information processing capacity in enhancing the relationship between the extent of scanning behavior and the quality of the investment decision.

Cross‐sectional data are collected through a survey and analyzed by means of factor analysis and hierarchical regression analysis.

Quality of decision is positively and significantly related to the extent of economic and competition information and the formality of method used to scan competition information. However, the extent of scanning for technology is contingent upon information processing capacity in order to affect the quality of the investment decision. Similarly, the method of scanning for economy, technology and competition information would depend on the information processing capacity to bring about a quality decision.

Use of convenience sampling may restrict the generalizability of the findings.

As more economy and competition data are scanned, this would improve the quality of decision making, but for technology scanning the data have to be processed further before they can bring about changes in decision quality. For technology‐related matters, firms should be investing in the information processing capacity to produce quality decisions.

This study uses the decision as its unit of analysis to avoid having to average out the effects of making good and bad decisions often associated with a decision maker.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the key leadership characteristics (in the form of social power) needed in a knowledge‐based firm that can influence knowledge workers (KWs) to participate actively in creating, sharing, and using knowledge.

Data measuring top leaders social power and knowledge management (KM) practices is gathered from 402 KWs representing 180 Multimedia Super Corridor status firms in Malaysia.

The analysis indicates that expert power has a positive influence on the extent of knowledge acquisition and dissemination practices. Legitimate power is found to impede knowledge acquisition practices. Furthermore, reliance on referent power no longer works in a knowledge‐based context. Finally, the paper found the impact of coercive, legitimate, and reward power to be contingent on the organizational size.

Besides leaders potential to influence, there may be other factors that could influence the extent of KM practices in organization. Further, this paper explores the power of top management, which could not be generalized to leaders from middle or lower level management. Future research should address these limitations.

The paper implies that knowledge leaders need to enhance certain bases of power that have the potential to improve the extent of KM practices in organizations.

This paper provides useful insights about the significance of leaders' power bases with emphasis on new approaches needed in knowledge‐based organizations.

Two main objectives and they are: to determine whether the internal audit department of the companies listed in the Bursa Malaysia complies with the Standards for the Professional Practice of Internal Auditors IIA (2000); and, to determine whether compliance to SPPIA will affect the quality of the internal control system of the company.

Two sets of questionnaires were used in the study. Internal auditing practices was measured by the items listed in the SPPIA and the internal control was measured by means of the statement on internal control: guidance for directors of public listed companies. The population used in this study was all the companies listed in the Bursa Malaysia in 2001. This study used both descriptive and inferential analyses.

It was found that management of internal audit department, professional proficiency, objectivity and review significantly influence the monitoring aspect of the internal control system. Scope of work and performance of audit work significantly influences the information and communication aspect of the internal control system while performance of audit work, professional proficiency and objectivity significantly influence the control environment aspect of the internal control system. The study also shows that management of internal audit department, performance of audit work, audit program and audit reporting significantly influences the risk assessment aspect of the internal control system. Lastly, performance of audit work and audit reporting significantly influences the control activities aspect of the internal control system.

The research has contributed to the agency theory with respect to the bonding costs that management has to pay to the internal auditors for the best interest of the principals of the companies. Another important implication pertains to the extent of the internal auditing practices among internal auditors in Malaysian public listed companies. Research has also shown that the compliance with internal auditing practices partially influence certain aspects of the quality of the internal control system.

This is the first empirical study that has linked the compliance of the internal auditing function to the SPPIA and its effect on the internal control system.

This paper proposes a framework for evaluating the impact of e‐commerce on the roles of distributors in the semiconductor industry for four different types of products, namely differentiated products, architectural products, technological products, and complex products. Questionnaire and the purposive sampling method were used to collect data from respondents in the distribution industry. The results of the study show that the salience of the roles is increasing. In addition, there is strong likelihood of e‐commerce replacing the traditional distributors, more so for less standardized products such as complex, technological, and architectural products.

The purpose of this study is to identify learning barriers in information communication technology (ICT) adoption among working women in Malaysia. Regardless of gender, it would be advantageous for all individuals in today's society to acquire basic ICT skills. Despite significant growth in ICT professionals during the last two decades, there remains a gender imbalance, particularly in developing countries such as Malaysia.

The study uses a self‐developed questionnaire to measure the learning barriers and ICT adoption. The survey instrument was developed from the constructs used in the individual innovativeness theory and theory of perceived attributes. The questionnaires were administered face‐to‐face to a total of 315 working women, who participated as respondents in this study.

The findings revealed that the working women in Malaysia possess only average level of ICT skills. They seldom use the internet and e‐mail at their workplace or at home, they do not face serious learning barriers with respect to ICT, and they have complexity as their innovation characteristics. However, they are innovators in the adopters' categories. The combined variance in the characteristics of learning barriers, ICT skills, and ICT usage amounted to 70 per cent in innovation characteristics.

This study reduces the knowledge gap regarding the identification of learning barriers, ICT skills, and ICT usage as predictors of ICT adoption among working women in Malaysia. These factors have been overlooked by some previous researchers. This study also calls attention to the fact that employers and training agencies that are responsible to provide ICT training to women employees must understand and employ the proper learning approaches and methods that ought to be used in adult training and education. Malaysian women are able to adopt an innovation with a high degree of uncertainty at the time of adoption, and it is believed that with correct and suitable training schemes Malaysian working women can acquire appropriate ICT skills and become competent in using ICT at the workplace. With managerial skills and ICT‐based competencies, the working women would have a lot more knowledge seeking skills, increased access to up‐to‐date information, be effective in decision making, and establish networking and linkages. With this they will stand a better chance for promotion and advancement.

The sample of this study is unique. This study was conducted in a multi‐ethnic, multi‐cultural and multi‐lingual society. Malaysia presents an interesting case study on working women because it is a society undergoing rapid changes from its strong traditional religious and cultural norms to modern values about women.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a hierarchical model to rank the challenges faced by the private Malaysian higher education institutions (HEIs) in the provision of quality education and subsequently their corresponding critical success factors (CSFs) to address those challenges.

A sequential mix method was adopted in this study. Semi-structured interviews with 29 participants were initially conducted to identify the challenges and CSFs. This was followed by a questionnaire survey involving 158 respondents to prioritise the identified findings. Thematic analysis was conducted in the qualitative stage, uncovering the challenges and their corresponding CSFs. Data for both stages were accumulated from internal and external stakeholders of Malaysian private HEIs. Finally, the four stages of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) were applied to rank the challenges and CSFs.

The qualitative stage identified eight challenges, i.e. “academics”, “facilities”, “students”, “programmes and curriculum”, “competition”, “accreditation”, “finance” and “research” together with their corresponding CSFs. The AHP enables the ranking of these challenges. “Finance” has been found to be the most crucial challenge and “high competency in managing the institution’s finance” as the most important CSF to address this challenge.

As the study restricted its focus on Malaysian private HEIs, the results may not be generalised for public HEIs and foreign private HEIs operating in Malaysia.

The hierarchical model developed in this study is deemed important for implementation to resolve the prioritised challenges. It spells out the specific areas in which the resources of Malaysian private HEIs need to be prudently disbursed and properly managed.

The main purpose of this research was to investigate whether there is a relationship between religiosity and ethical behavior of salespeople.

To investigate this association, structural equation modeling (SEM) was used; also, both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were undertaken to examine a scale measuring salespeople's ethical behaviors. The context in which the study was conducted was in Iranian retail specialty stores.

The results revealed for the first time the impact of religiosity on ethical behavior of the seller, a key entity in the buyer-seller dyad, that had been virtually ignored in extant empirical work.

The study focused solely on retail salespeople in Iran. Future research should examine the religiosity-ethical behavior nexus using other kinds of sales personnel and those practicing other kinds of religion than the Shia Muslim faith investigated here. The investigation examined the association between religiosity and ethical behavior. Future work could include additional measures of religion (e.g. religious orientation) as well other individual, cultural, and organizational factors that may have an influence on salespeople's ethical conduct.

Sales managers should try to convince salespeople to behave ethically. Also, sales managers should not establish unachievable sales objectives for salespeople and try to employ more religious individuals as salespeople. Multinational corporations (MNCs) should treat Shia Muslim salespersons with the utmost of respect, relying on their word. Similarly, MNCs should incorporate ethical guidelines into their training classes in order to be able to communicate conveniently with local salespeople and persuade them to act more ethically.

The authors believe that this research can arouse managers in retail stores to set specific plans for evaluating their ethical behaviors. This research also has managerial and research implications for designing and formulating operations strategy in providing ethical standards for sales force.

This research aims to investigate the factors that can influence Bumiputera contractors’ acceptance of the Contractor’s All Risks (CAR) takāful (Islamic insurance) product using the theory of reasoned action (TRA).

Using the method of quantitative surveys, 414 questionnaires were collected from targeted Bumiputera contractors in Malaysia (grade G1 to grade G7), except in Sabah and Sarawak, that are registered with the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) and are also members of Persatuan Kontraktor Melayu Malaysia (PKMM). The data was analysed using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique.

The findings from the PLS-SEM analysis show that attitude, subjective norm, religiosity and awareness have a positive relationship with Bumiputera contractors’ acceptance of the CAR takāful product. Religiosity appeared to be the most significant factor influencing Bumiputera contractors’ acceptance of the CAR takāful product.

The respondents in this study only comprised Bumiputera contractors in Peninsular Malaysia, excluding those from Sabah and Sarawak. Therefore, it is not possible to generalise the findings to a broader population.

Takāful operators and their sales and marketing departments need to act proactively in promoting the benefits of investing in CAR takāful that follows Sharīʾah (Islamic law) rules and principles. They should create mechanisms to market CAR takāful better, thus accelerating its acceptance rate among contractors.

The paper uses the proposed extended TRA model, which includes the variables of religiosity and awareness in the TRA model. These variables were successfully integrated in the model, and the findings show that they have significantly contributed to the acceptance of the CAR takāful product among Bumiputera contractors.