Hock Eam Lim

Estimating the effect of entrepreneur education on graduates’ intention to be entrepreneurs

Purpose – Previous studies on the effect of entrepreneur education are not comprehensive. Thus, estimating the effect of entrepreneur education is imperative. According to the Malaysian Ministry of Education (MoE), only 1.7 percent (as of 2013) of university graduates are self-employed, that is managing one’s own business or known as graduate entrepreneurs. Consequently, a huge gap exists between what is targeted by the government (5.5 percent by 2015) and the reality (a small number of graduate entrepreneurs). The purpose of this paper is to analyze the factors influencing a graduate’s choice to be entrepreneur, particularly the effects of different entrepreneur education, either formal or informal. Design/methodology/approach – A total of 2,300 graduates from Universiti Utara Malaysia participated in this study. Findings – The findings showed that the majority of the respondents are consistent in terms of their intent to become entrepreneurs. Research limitations/implications – Due to time and resource ...

ESTIMATING A PREDICTION MODEL FOR THE EARLY IDENTIFICATION OF LOW EMPLOYABILITY GRADUATES IN MALAYSIA

This paper describes the development of a prediction model for the early identification of low employability graduates in Malaysia. A total of five proportional hazard models are estimated and using the criteria of percentage correctly and wrongly predicted, a prediction model is selected based on the percentage correctly predicted. The percentile of the predicted hazard rate is used as the employability index (EI). In the context of Malaysia, it is recommended that the 5th percentile graduates be considered as low employability graduates. With this early identification tool, specific intervention programs can be tailored for the right target groups.

ESTIMATING THE EMPLOYMENT PERFORMANCE INDICATOR: THE CASE OF UNIVERSITI UTARA MALAYSIA GRADUATES

This paper proposes an alternate method of estimating the employment performance indicator using the Cox Proportional Hazard model with competing risk framework. Simple aggregation and the logit model have also been used in the estimating for comparison purpose. Using the data of Universiti Utara Malaysia graduates, the study finds that the Bachelor of Accounting degree has the highest employment performance indicator. There are significant differences found in the employment performance ranking as constructed by the proportional hazard model, logit model and simple aggregation.

Difference or not to difference an integrated time series? An empirical investigation

Abstract This paper uses the gross domestic product growth rates of Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and China in an empirical examination to determine whether an integrated time series should be differenced before it is used for forecasting. The results reveal that Mallows model combination (M.M.A.) of original and differenced series is a better choice than just differencing the series only if the perturbation instability measure is more than 1.25 for autoregressive (A.R.) model, and 1.105 for moving average (M.A.) model and autoregressive fractional integrated moving average (A.R.F.I.M.A.) model. Furthermore, it is found that M.M.A. performs better in forecasting with better model stability for the case of M.A. and A.R.F.I.M.A. than A.R. However, M.M.A. is very sensitive in financial crisis.

THE VALUE OF CHINESE SUPERSTITIONS IN MALAYSIA: EVIDENCE FROM CAR PLATE AUCTIONING

The purpose of this paper is to examine Malaysian motorists’ willingness to pay for Chinese lucky plate numbers. Regression analyses reveal that the Chinese bidders are more likely to win and pay significantly more for the Chinese lucky numbers than their non-Chinese counterparts. Consistent with resale motive considerations, the non-Chinese bidders impose the same discount for unlucky numbers as their Chinese counterparts but do not pay a premium for the lucky numbers. We also document the influence of peer effects on the winning bid price. Specifically, Chinese bidders tend to pay more for the same plate numbers won by their peers in the previous auction, whereas both Chinese and non-Chinese bidders are less averse to the unlucky numbers if there are precedents of such ownership among their peers. Overall, our findings suggest that policymakers and marketers need to be sensitive to the subtle differences in the cultural cues of consumers in a multiracial society such as Malaysia.