C. A. Malarvizhi

Measuring the effect of Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia’s microcredit programme on economic vulnerability among hardcore poor households

This study attempted to assess the impact of Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia’s (AIM) microcredit programme on the level of economic vulnerability among hard core poor household clients in Peninsular Malaysia. To attain the objective, this research utilized economic vulnerability index. This study employed a cross-sectional design and stratified random sampling methods. Findings showed that participation in AIM’s microcredit programme decreases the level of economic vulnerability. The study suggests that AIM should, therefore, emphasize on designing flexible and diversified financial products and delivery methods together with skill development training to improve the socio-economic condition of the hard core poor households in Malaysia.

Examining the Critical Factors Affecting the Repayment of Microcredit Provided by Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia

This study employs a cross sectional design with stratified random sampling method to examine how common household factors affect repayment performance of Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia (AIM)’s hardcore poor microcredit program clients in Peninsular Malaysia. This study designed and tested a structural equation model to investigate how uses of loan, household income, number of gainfully employed members, number of sources of income and total savings affect repayment performance. Findings of this study show a significant model fit and negative linear relationship between repayment problem with uses of loan in income generating activities, household income, number of gainfully employed members, and number of sources of income. AIM should therefore focus on designing and providing appropriate training and development programs to enable the hardcore poor households’ ability to use credit in income generating activities, grasp employment generating opportunities as well as find and invest in new income generating activities.

Impact of Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia’s Microcredit Schemes on Microenterprise Assets in Malaysia

This study employs a cross sectional design with stratified random sampling method to examine the effect of Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia’s (AIM) microcredit program on hardcore poor households’ microenterprise assets in Peninsular Malaysia. So far no known study has been conducted to measure the effect of AIMs microcredit programs on microenterprise assets owned by hardcore poor households. It is evident that AIM’s microcredit program increased microenterprise assets owned by hardcore poor households who received credit from AIM. This program should, therefore, focus on providing adequate training, flexible and diversified loan programs, and increasing outreach. The policy may also be reviewed and re-organized to reduce the dropout rate.

Trade Liberalization Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction in Nigeria

This paper examines the causal relationships between trade liberalization growth of the Nigerian economy and poverty. This study applied time series data for Nigeria. We employed the recently introduced Pesaran et al (2001) ARDL approach. Evidence from the study suggest that trade liberalization does not cause poverty reduction, implying that the benefit of trade liberalization does not trickle down to the poor in Nigeria. This suggests that countries with high propensity to import and poor commodity prices need not to strictly follow the one size fit all trade liberalization policies rather each country need to focus on trade policies peculiar to its own environment, which can deliver growth and translate growth into a meaningful poverty reduction.

Empirical Investigation on Repayment Performance of Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia’s Hardcore Poor Clients

This study employs a cross sectional design with stratified random sampling method to examine the factors that are associated with repayment problem encountered by clients of Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia (AIM)’s microcredit program. Findings of this study show that fungibility issue, number of gainfully employed members and number of sources of income and household’s main economic activities are associated with repayment problems. AIM therefore has to focus on advising the clients to use the credit in income generating activities. Policies should also be reviewed and re-organized to increase employment rate and income generating opportunities among client’s household members by providing appropriate training, diversifying the loan program and offering loans for-non income generating activities.

Examining the Effect of Microcredit on Employment in Peninsular Malaysia

This study employs a cross sectional design with stratified random sampling method to examine how participation in Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia’s (AIM) microcredit program affects employment rate of hardcore poor clients household and community in Peninsular Malaysia. So far no known study has been conducted to measure the effect of AIM’s microcredit program on employment. Findings of this study show that participation in AIM’s microcredit program increases employment generating opportunities at household and community level. The policy may be reviewed and re-organized to increase the employment rate and income generating opportunities by providing appropriate training and diversified and flexible loan offers.

Impact of Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia’s Microcredit Schemes on Hardcore Poor Households Quality of Life

The main objective of this study is to measure the impact of Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia’s (AIM) microcredit schemes on hardcore poor household’s quality of life in Peninsular Malaysia. This study employed a cross-sectional design with stratified random sampling method to examine whether participation in AIM’s microcredit programs improves the hardcore poor households quality of life. A quality of life index using sixteen selected indicators was developed. The findings confirmed that older respondents live in better and bigger houses, use permanent housing materials, use environmentally safe cooking fuel, enjoy healthy toilet facilities, own refrigerators, washing machines and televisions more than the new respondents. The mean quality of life score between old and new respondents also differs significantly. Therefore, AIM should review and re-organize their credit programs and policies in order to increase the outreach and improve client’s ability to receive higher amount of loan.

Investigating the Effect of Microcredit on Microenterprise Income in Peninsular Malaysia

The primary purpose of this study is to examine the effect of Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia (AIM)’s microcredit program on hardcore poor households’ microenterprise income in Peninsular Malaysia. A cross sectional design with stratified random sampling method was employed to obtain the above mentioned objective. Existing literature survey suggests that there is a gap in the literature on the topic of measuring the effect of AIMs microcredit programs on hardcore poor households’ microenterprise income in Peninsular Malaysia. The results of this study reveal that AIM’s microcredit program increases the microenterprise income of their clients in Peninsular Malaysia. Therefore, this study concludes that a diversified program should be undertaken with special focus on providing adequate training, flexible and diversified loan programs, and increasing outreach. In addition, there is a need to review and re-organize the existing policies to reduce the dropout rate.

Customer switching resistance towards internet banking in Malaysia

Internet banking, although proven to be a successful innovation, has still not been adopted by the laggards, and hence, has not met all the expectations of banks. This study, therefore, is aimed at investigating the effects of e-system quality ease of use, responsiveness, and web content and e-trust privacy, perceived risk, reputation, and security on customer switching resistance SR towards internet banking in Malaysia. There are many reasons why customers do not use internet banking in Malaysia. This study employed a cross sectional design and data was collected from 158 respondents from Cyberjaya, Malaysia. The findings indicate that perceived ease of use of current service provider, privacy policies, perceived risk, and security services are the key determinants of customers reluctance to switch to the current internet banking services. These findings provide a more profound understanding of consumer resistance to internet banking, in addition to offering guidance to service providers.

SOCIAL CAPITAL AND ENTREPRENEURIAL COMPETENCIES: A STUDY AMONG WOMEN MICRO- ENTREPRENEURS IN MALAYSIA

ABSTRACT:The participation of women entrepreneurs are rapidly increasing over last few decades and studies highlighted women entrepreneurship is one of the key contributors for economic development through speeds up development process, reduces poverty unemployment and inequalities, and improves the overall well-being of children. Development initiatives allover the world, therefore, focused on improving the socio-economic condition of low-income households through providing access to working capital and/or other resources to improve entrepreneurial performance. Development initiatives, however, commonly ignore the potential impact of social capital. Social capital is the most under-rated influential factor, which may have a strong influence on entrepreneurial competencies and enterprise performance. This study therefore aimed to examine the effect of social capital on entrepreneurial competencies among the women micro-entrepreneurs in Peninsular Malaysia. This study employs a cross-sectional approach and quantitative data are collected through structured interviews from registered women micro-entrepreneurs in Peninsular Malaysia. The sampling frame was based on the business directory of SME Corporation Malaysia’s registered members of National Association of Women Entrepreneurs. Based on the list of registered women entrepreneurs under the SME Corporation Malaysia, there are a total of 126,910 registered SMEs in Malaysia, owned by women entrepreneurs; among them, 111,571 are registered microenterprises. This research adopted the stratified random sampling method in order to identify 500 women entrepreneurs from the four regions. Among the selected 500 micro-entrepreneurs, a total of 421 micro-entrepreneurs were selected based on their recent status (active, own, and manage) and size. Among them, only 4 women micro-entrepreneurs refused the request for an interview; therefore, complete data were collected from 417 women micro-entrepreneurs. Findings of this study noted the r2 values in the hierarchical entrepreneurial competency model noted that the degree of explained variance of this hierarchical construct is reflected in its components. The r2 values in the hierarchical social capital model noted that the degree of explained variances of the hierarchical construct is reflected in its components. The path coefficient between social capital and entrepreneurial competencies is 0.495, indicates a positive effect of social capital on entrepreneurial competencies at the chosen 5% level of significance. Women entrepreneurs should be focusing on how to identify and reach key business players and spend time to network with other business by joining formal and informal networks. Development policies and programs in Malaysia should therefore focus on building social capital among micro-entrepreneurs to foster the national development process and reduces poverty, unemployment rate and inequalities.