Rusnah Muhamad

Looking for evidence of the relationship between corporate social responsibility and corporate financial performance in an emerging market

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate financial performance (CFP) of Malaysian public listed companies (PLCs) as an emerging market setting.Design/methodology/approach – A longitudinal data analysis with a large‐sample testing was carried out from 200 Malaysian PLCs by using panel data analysis during a seven‐years period. The statistical power with fixed effect and random effect model was utilized.Findings – Results of earlier estimations indicate that there are positive and significant related of the CSR on CFP. Two of the CSR dimensions, namely employee relations and community involvement, were found to be positively related to financial performance. This proves that CSR practices can be considered as effort to enhance the financial performance of PLCs in Malaysia. The results also reveal that there is limited evidence of the relationship between CSR and CFP in the longterm.Practical implications – These findings s...

Segmentation and brand positioning for Islamic financial services

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the different segments of consumers in the Islamic financial services industry (IFSI) and their relationship with product/brand positioning for Islamic financial services (IFS).Design/methodology/approach – In‐depth interviews were conducted with individuals in managerial positions among the key market players in the IFSI to explore the segmentation of consumers and their buying motives.Findings – Four segments of IFS consumers emerged, namely, Religious conviction group; Religious conviction and economic rationality group; Ethical observant group; and Economic rationality group. These segmentation groups were appropriately categorized through a psychographic (value)‐based approach.Research limitations/implications – The empirical findings of this study pave the way for embarking on promising and relevant future research, which is needed to substantiate and enrich the academic understanding and managerial practice of linking market segmentation and brand p...

Religiosity and work stress coping behavior of Muslim employees

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between religiosity and the feeling of work stress, as represented by Muslim attitudes towards the religiosity scale.Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 212 employees from the United Arab Emirates participated in the study. Frequencies, regression, ANOVA, and ratios were applied in the paper.Findings – The major results revealed that self‐evaluation of faith level is not related significantly to any dependent variable. The majority of the respondents reported a low level of faith. Muslim females were identified to experience more work stress than males. Additional studies concerned with other religions can provide more comprehensive findings related to the relationship between religion and work stress.Originality/value – Multinational corporation and other business organizations can derive great benefit from the results of this paper with regard to business in Islamic countries.

Decomposing the trade-environment nexus for Malaysia: what do the technique, scale, composition, and comparative advantage effect indicate?

This paper investigates the impact of trade openness on CO2 emissions using time series data over the period of 1970QI-2011QIV for Malaysia. We disintegrate the trade effect into scale, technique, composition, and comparative advantage effects to check the environmental consequence of trade at four different transition points. To achieve the purpose, we have employed augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) and Phillips-Perron (PP) unit root tests in order to examine the stationary properties of the variables. Later, the long-run association among the variables is examined by applying autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to cointegration. Our results confirm the presence of cointegration. Further, we find that scale effect has positive and technique effect has negative impact on CO2 emissions after threshold income level and form inverted U-shaped relationship—hence validates the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis. Energy consumption adds in CO2 emissions. Trade openness and composite effect improve environmental quality by lowering CO2 emissions. The comparative advantage effect increases CO2 emissions and impairs environmental quality. The results provide the innovative approach to see the impact of trade openness in four sub-dimensions of trade liberalization. Hence, this study attributes more comprehensive policy tool for trade economists to better design environmentally sustainable trade rules and agreements.

Geographic Information System (GIS) modeling approach to determine the fastest delivery routes

This study involves the adoption of the Geographic Information System (GIS) modeling approach to determine the quickest routes for fresh vegetable delivery. During transport, fresh vegetables mainly deteriorate on account of temperature and delivery time. Nonetheless, little attention has been directed to transportation issues in most areas within Kuala Lumpur. In addition, perishable food normally has a short shelf life, thus timely delivery significantly affects delivery costs. Therefore, selecting efficient routes would consequently reduce the total transportation costs. The regression model is applied in this study to determine the parameters that affect route selection with respect to the fastest delivery of fresh vegetables. For the purpose of this research, ArcGIS software with network analyst extension is adopted to solve the problem of complex networks. The final output of this research is a map of quickest routes with the best delivery times based on all variables. The variables tested from regression analysis are the most effective parameters to make the flow of road networks slower. The objective is to improve the delivery services by achieving the least drive time. The main findings of this research are that Land use such as residential area and population as variables are the effective parameters on drive time.

Analysis of Earnings Management Practices and Sustainability Reporting for Corporations that Offer Islamic Products & Services☆

Abstract Earnings management is generally viewed as unethical behaviour as it involves the use of managerial discretion of accounting numbers, which may result in the distortion of financial information provided to stakeholders. However, the engagement in socially responsible initiatives by companies demonstrates their concern for the societal well-being which goes beyond profit making. The aim of this study is to examine the earnings management practices and sustainability reporting among corporate sectors that offer Islamic products. An Islamic perspective is used to underpin the theoretical arguments for this study. This study uses longitudinal panel data analysis to examine the sustainability reporting of 16 public-listed companies in Malaysia that offer Islamic financial products for a three year period from 2011 to 2013. Content analyses on corporate annual and stand-alone reports used Global Reporting Initiatives (G3) guidelines to measure the quality of the sustainability disclosure, while the earnings management related data was obtained using the Modified Jones Model. The results of the study provide evidence that the sustainability reporting practices among companies in Malaysia that offer Islamic products are generally good over the three-year period and that financial performance improved the quality of sustainability reporting. The insignificant results between earnings management and the quality of sustainability reporting suggest that sustainability reporting is not being manipulated to cover their earnings management practices.

Application of geographic information system (GIS) in routing for delivery of fresh vegetables

In recent years, issues for distribution of fresh vegetables become important concern for markets where their income is strongly depends on demand for more fresher production. The focus of this study is more on delivery of fresh vegetables in selecting the best routes particularly for urban area such as Kuala Lumpur city which is facing with the traffic problem. This research will conduct a company as a case study which is producing all kinds of fresh vegetables. This company is interesting in reducing their total distribution cost based on total travelled distance and total length of drive time. For this research needs to apply the GIS (Geographic Information System) technique. This technique is the respond for requirements of this research by using the network analyzing.

CSR organisational taxonomy and job characteristics on performance: SME case studies

This study examines the relationship between the CSR of organizational structure and job characteristics that influence employee job performance in the Malaysian context. Hence, it is important to study and analyze these two factors within the CSR taxonomy describing how these factors significantly influence employee job performance and to make recommendations how performance can be promoted among employees. This paper is based on a quantitative research approach where responses were gathered from the working population within Malaysia SMEs. The results from this study will help to point out the influence of these factors on the employee job performance and provide guidance to an organization for which these aspects should be emphasized in order to increase employees’ job performance to align performance with organizational goals. The analysis includes two dimensions of CSR taxonomy of organizational structure namely, centralization and formalization, as well as a set of five dimensions of job characteristics, such as task identity, task significance, skill variety, autonomy and feedback. The results of these findings show that job characteristics such as task significance, autonomy, feedback, and skill variety, positively influence job performance with autonomy having highest predictive power on job performance. The results of these findings reveal that the organizational structure does not contribute to the prediction of job performance even though a significant positive correlation exists between the structure and job performance in the Pearson correlation coefficient test. Therefore, this study will enrich the existing knowledge in the area of human resource management by focusing on job performance management.

Organizational environment factors associated with corporate social responsibility: effects on communication and guanxi relationship between supervisors and subordinates in SMEs

Effective communication within an organization as part of CSR benchmarking factor that helps align employee expectations facilitates problem solving, builds cooperative relationships and channels employee efforts to achieve common goals. This paper seeks to determine how CSR benchmarking factors of the organizational environment (such as management style, organizational structure and workplace culture) affect the effectiveness of intra-organizational communication and to examine the moderating effect of supervisor – subordinate guanxi. Data for the study was collected using self-administered questionnaires from working respondents in Kuala Lumpur in Selangor State, Malaysia. This study found that a more participative management style, less formalized organizational structure of SMEs and a healthier workplace culture are positively related to intra-organizational communication effectiveness. It was also discovered that the supervisor – subordinate relationship known as guanxi, has a positive moderating effect on all three relationships between management style, organizational structure and workplace culture with intra-organizational communication effectiveness. This study concludes that an organization’s management attitude towards employee participation, formalization of structure and healthiness of culture play important roles in encouraging effective communication and close supervisor – subordinate guanxi and further promotes communication, in addition to the mentioned environmental conditions.

Explicating consumer segmentation and brand positioning in the Islamic financial services industry

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss how the current research on the Islamic financial services industry attempts to classify its consumers and provide a fresh and critical insight into the retail Islamic banking market segmentation to harness and enhance understanding, as well as provide a guideline for a better segmentation to bank marketers. Design/methodology/approach – This study is conceptual in nature. Based on Qur’anic verses and previous literature, the authors aim to propose an applicable model of market segmentation for the retail Islamic banking market in Malaysia. Consumer segmentation in the conventional financial service industry is analysed, and prior studies on the selection criteria of Islamic banks are evaluated. Findings – In moving forward, taking cue from the classification of people in classical doctrinal and historical literature and the initial exploratory study conducted from the managerial perspective, the authors propose five cluster groups of consumers for the ret...