Nurazariah Abidin

Creating Sustainable and Competitive Employees through the Design of Innovative Higher Education Curriculum

The employability of graduates is dependent on their possession of relevant attributes needed in their respective industries. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the gap between the important elements of Higher Education Institutions’ graduates’ attributes and their actual performance when employed by industry. The dimensions of attributes and the performance of these graduates are considered in four broad areas, namely knowledge, skills, abilities and personality. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire distributed to Human Resource Managers or supervisors of the graduates in 1000 top companies in Malaysia. The results show that the graduates’ performance failed to meet managers’ perceptions of the importance attributes that should be possessed by these graduates. Therefore, the Higher Education Institutions should take prompt action to review the current curriculum in order to meet industry demands and market needs. The design of higher education curriculum should be directed towards incorporating attributes that are expected of the graduates and relevant to the specific industry in order to produce employable graduates. This approach will allow for effective corrective actions and the improvement of the perceived problem areas found in all four dimensions.

Perceived Quality and Emotional Value that Influence Consumer's Purchase Intention towards American and Local Products

Abstract The main purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of perceived quality and emotional value that influence consumers purchase intention towards American and local products. This study aims to increase an understanding of Malaysian consumers’ purchase intention in relation to American versus local products. The contribution of this study is crucial to the growing body of international marketing to explain the purchase intention on United States products on top of others in the context of Malaysian consumers. In other words, this research provides useful information on how the local Malaysian consumers perceive foreign products. Moreover, this study is important as a reference to the government and local retailers as well as manufacturers to develop competency and to increase quality as well as to restore products attributes to be more appealing in order to face stifle competition with other retailers especially domestically producer. Also, it is hoped that this study could contribute a certain point of understanding among academicians regarding to consumers’ purchase behavior phenomenon in Malaysia. A total of 270 questionnaires were distributed to students in higher learning institutions who were chosen randomly among the total population. Sample is mixed between postgraduate and undergraduate students and does not include international students; as the study is aimed at comparing American products and local products. Data were then analyzed using descriptive, reliability and correlation analysis. The reliability result of this study shows that the instruments that have been used in for measuring various variables in this study were reliable. Meanwhile, for correlation, the result shows moderate significant relationship between perceived quality and emotional value towards purchase intention.

Personality Traits: Business versus Technical Graduates

Effective interactions depend largely on personality traits, which is a consistent and longlasting tendency in behavior. In psychology, five major trait factors (Big Five personality traits) have been generally used to assess personality of people. The study highlights the practicality of importance-performance analysis as a means to assessing the importance of personality traits dimension that should be possessed by Malaysian graduates. The importanceperformance analysis is used to evaluate the gap in personality traits possessed by Business and Technical Graduates. The study is carried out in two phases: Phase 1 which involves a focus group session and Phase 2 which focus on establishing a questionnaire appropriate to the study across a diverse range of industries. The questionnaires were distributed to managers selected from a sampling frame. Graduates’ personality attributes are analysed in terms of big five personality traits which include openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and emotional stability traits. The findings of this study suggest that Higher Education Institutions in Malaysia should target improvements on a specific personality development component pertaining to openness and extroversion personality for business management graduates, and conscientiousness personality for technical graduates as part of the curriculum development strategies of these Higher Education Institutions.

Consumer Attitude and Uniqueness towards International Products

Abstract Product quality is rapidly becoming an important competitive issue. In addition, several surveys have voiced consumers’ dissatisfaction with the existing levels of quality and service of the products they buy. In a recent study of the business units of major International companies, managers ranked “producing to high quality standards” as their chief current concern. This paper is to examine the relationship of individual characteristics (i.e., consumers need for uniqueness and attitudes toward international products.) Samples for this study were 320 consumers at Suria KLCC (Suria Kuala Lumpur City Centre) was chosen randomly and analyzed using SPSS. This study finds that Malaysian consumers’ need for uniqueness positively influences attitudes toward international products.