Ahmad Naqiyuddin Bakar

Medical waste management in Malaysia: Policies, strategies and issues

One cannot deny the important roles play by medical science and its activities on human life and fitness. However, these activities can generate some wastes that pose severe effects on human health and environment at large, especially if there is no proper management policy and strategy in place. Although some may argue that waste is generally unavoidable byproduct of most human activities but the provision of expanded healthcare facilities today have added substantial quantities of medical waste into waste stream with severe environmental and human health consequences. This paper examines the level of medical waste management in Malaysia. It also addresses the impacts of these medical wastes and the strategic measures taken by Malaysian government. Finally, it identifies some potential issues associated with policy measures and put forward some policy recommendations for precautionary measures in the future.

E-Participation Among Members of Parliament in Malaysia: Evaluation of Social Factors

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights and empirical evidence on Internet usage among the members of parliament (MPs) in Malaysia. In tandem with the globalization, information and communication technology (ICT) usage has become ubiquitous. As such, politicians and MPs should fully utilize the Internet-based tools to reach out to their constituent members. The Parliament of Malaysia, in responding to this phenomenon, has provided the infrastructure for more e-engagement and e-participation. In addition, social factors such as norm and interpersonal message are also important to influence the individual behavior, participation, and ICT engagement. Therefore, the objective of the study is to examine the relationship between social factors (subjective norm and word of mouth) and the MP engagement. Through cross-sectional design, the sample size was 222 MPs from the House of Representatives in Malaysia, and data collections were done through interviews, surveys, and the evaluation of the MP personal web site.

Members of Parliament (MPs) and Internet Communication in Malaysia: An Empirical Study of Perceived Individual Factors and Continuance of Use

An exponential growth of information and communication technologies (ICTs) facilitated by a global convergence of computer networks and system revolution has resulted into an extensive use of Internet technologies. To be sure, the Government, through the Malaysian Parliament, has been aggressive in its initiative in providing the necessary environment to empower the MPs in ICT through various ICT platforms and technologies. This study discusses the impact of Internet technologies on MPs in Malaysia through official or nonofficial (personalize) means of communications. The findings showed that the Internet technologies are well accepted by the MPs and the continuance of use of ICT is positively correlated.

Socioeconomic and Political Implications for Ethnic and National Sentiments: The Impact on Nation-Building Policy Efforts

The issue of ethnic attachment is always in conflict with national sentiment, which can affect nation-building efforts in any multiracial country of the world. This paper examines the issues in Malaysian context. The findings of the study show significant relationships between social (H1) and economic factors (H2) and national sentiment with beta coefficient β = 0.111 and 0.138, respectively. However, the relationship between political factor (H3) and national sentiment is extremely weak with β = 0.008. A bootstrapping procedure of 1,000 resampling method was followed. The results supported the hypotheses H1 and H2 with t-values of 1.63 and 1.88, p 0.05. As such the main significant contributing effects to national sentiment in this study are both social and economic factors, where R2 is 5.4 %. Secondly, the three factors were also significantly related to ethnic sentiment with beta coefficients of β = 0.275, 0.196, and 0.148. Thus, using the bootstrapping procedure of 1,000 resampling again, the hypotheses (H4, H5, and H6) were supported with t-values of 3.39, 2.264, and 1.821, p < 0.001, respectively. In this context, the hypotheses support the theory that socioeconomic and political factors have significant effects on ethnic sentiment of people with R2 of 30.1 %. Finally, the results indicate that both national (H7) and ethnic sentiments (H8) have significant relations with nation-building policy efforts, where beta coefficients are β = 0.141 and 0.53 and t-values of 3.49 and 8.79, p < 0.0001, respectively.

Technology Acceptance Models (TAMS) and their Relations to ICT Adoption

The TPB might not be totally fit into technology acceptance in organizations unless certain elements are introduced. In the light of this, additional variables, such as perceived expressiveness, perceived enjoyment, perceived ease of use, and perceived usefulness have been introduced to TPB as determinants of attitude to optimise its prediction of intention-actual use behaviour towards technology to develop TAM. In other words, TAM model posits that if a user perceives that a given technology is useful, the person will hold a positive use-performance and strong intention based on his or her belief about it. Findings show that users are likely to accept application of technology when they perceive it easier for them to use, thereby inducing a positive attitude to their minds. However, some scholars have called for extension of TAM to meet the needs of different research settings, which has been discussed in other chapters of this book.

Models of Political Representation for ICT Adoption in a Networked Society

The Internet, a global network of digital technologies, is arguably the largest and most democratic system that human beings have ever created. It is often proposed that ICT revolution, particularly the Internet, could be well utilised by the parliamentarians to improve the responsiveness and efficiency of transactions between government and elected politicians, elected politicians and their constituents, public services and the citizen. Models of political representation in a networked society and the technological and the constitutional are addressed in this chapter. The former sees the transformative opportunities of the Internet, whereas the latter model sees the Internet as a support to existing relationships between parliamentarians and their constituents. To illustrate this, the chapter examines the role of parliament within contemporary democratic governance and political online communication. Different models of political representation and parliament as a symbol of political representation in the networked society is addressed.

Investigation of ICT Usage in Malaysian Public Sector using Extension of TAM: Case of Higher Learning Institution

In terms of student population, Universiti Teknologi MARA is one of the largest universities in Malaysia. It has adopted i-class system through which teaching and learning are facilitated as alternative method of delivering knowledge to students. However, the rate at which the targeted students are using the system is very poor. As such, the chapter revisits technology acceptance from the perspective of a problem-based study and uses the information gathered to extend the original TAM model. The significant contribution of the chapter is the focus on the external variables to perceived usefulness and perceived ease of using i-class. Since the majority of targeted students learning through this mode are adults, perceived computer self-efficacy, perceived convenience, and subjective norm are considered for extension. The results obtained show significant relationships between the causal links among the new constructs.

The Theory of Planned Behaviour and its Relation to ICT Adoption

Due to practical limitation found in the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) such as an inability to cater to non-volitional behaviour towards performing certain actions, the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) was developed in 1985. The main purpose of TPB was to improve the predictive power of TRA to be more applicable to any kinds of behavioural attitude and intention to involve in all type behavioural acts. Findings reflect the needs to carry out some elicitation study on antecedents of attitude, subjective norms, and even perceived behavioural control of the model. This chapter addresses the external influence such as self-efficacy and facilitating condition used as the determinants of perceive behavioural control. As such, attempts were made to pragmatically utilise the theory in research settings by many scholars as well as in this present book.

Towards an Entrepreneurial Model of University: Issues and Challenges in Managing Intellectual Property (IP) and Its Commercialization (C)

There are a number of procedures required by researchers to undergo before the outcome of their research products known as intellectual properties (IP) can get to the market for economic values. In this volume, researchers examine the interrelationships among these procedures, policy issues and communication flow with commercialization experienced by researchers in selected Malaysian higher institutions of learning that engaged in IP and commercialization. Methodologically, the study has been approached from quantitative perspective using questionnaire. The results from the study have shown that a positive significant relationship exists between the IP-Commercialization procedures and internal critical success factors (CSFI) towards successful commercialization of the IP products at the centres with beta values of 0.564, p<0.001. A similar significant positive relationship exists between the causal link of IP and commercialization procedures and external critical success factors (CSFE) with beta coefficient values of 0.429, p<0.001. In addition, both CSFI and CSFE have significant impact on communication flow related to IP and commercialization of research products with a beta value of 0.264 and 0.317, p<0.001 respectively. Furthermore, the path coefficients between policy issues in IP and commercialization of products has shown a significant impact on communication flow and actual commercialization of the intellectual products experienced by respondents with high beta value of 0.256 and 0.343, p<0.001 respectively. The same similar positive causal link can be inferred between communication flow and the commercialization of the intellectual products experienced by respondents with a beta value of 0.229, p<0.001. In addition, hypotheses H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, H6 and H7 in the study are supported with an alpha-value less than 0.001 respectively. It is hoped that due attention would be paid to all the recommendation put forward in this study for better enhancement of IP and commercialization of research products at universities.