Saodah Wok

Predictors to employees with disabilities' organisational behaviour and involvement in employment

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the work challenges of employees with disabilities and predict the organisational behaviours of employees and their involvement in employment. Design/methodology/approach – A self-developed questionnaire was used to gather relevant information from employers, employees with disabilities and their co-workers. The questionnaires were distributed and administered by a number of trained enumerators. Findings – Both employers and co-workers perceived that their organisations have provided conducive organisation climate, comfortable work environment and reasonable adjustment for their employees with disabilities. Employees with disabilities are found loyal and committed. They are satisfied with the job. Organisational loyalty and commitment are predicted by the organisations’ ability to restructure their job design to suit to the needs of employees with disabilities. Research limitations/implications – Initially, this study planned to use purposive sampling; how...

Communicating and sharing working relationships with older employees

Purpose – This paper seeks to examine the perception of young employees on working relationships satisfaction with communicative teamwork, mutual learning, participative decision making, and communicating feedback of the older employees in higher learning institutions in Malaysia.Design/methodology/approach – A specially‐constructed questionnaire was developed for data collection. A total of 575 employees in five Malaysian universities in the Klang Valley participated in the study.Finding – Young employees have positive teamwork relationships with the older employees. They learned a lot from the older employees as the older employees are helpful in sharing their experiences in decision making. At the same time, the young employees receive positive feedback from the older employees. However, the older employees hardly compliment the young employees for their achievements.Research limitations/implications – The current findings provide implications for future organisational and intergenerational research si...

Organisational behaviour associated with emotional contagion among direct selling members

Purpose – This paper aims to examine organisational behaviour as a result of emotional contagion experienced by selected members in direct selling companies. Specifically, it seeks to investigate how members in a group are affected by the happiness of their high achievers, what factors influence the emotional contagion to occur, and what are the effects of emotional contagion on individual, group and organisation work outcomes.Design/methodology/approach – The variables studied were emotional contagion, personal characteristics, group outcomes and organisational outcomes. Emotional contagion was measured by self‐report of impulsive acts; while personal characteristics were measured in terms of social desirability, extraversion, locus of control, live accomplishment, materialistic world, susceptibility to interpersonal influence, and self‐esteem. Organisational outcome variables were measured in terms of organisational commitment and organisational culture. Other variables studied were group behaviour, tea...

Affective State Classification Using Bayesian Classifier

This paper elaborates the basic structure of a machine learning system in classifying affective state. There are several techniques in classifying the states depending on the type of input-output dataset. A proper selection of techniques is crucial in determining the success rate of the system prediction. The paper proposes a machine learning technique in classifying affective states of human subjects by using Bayesian Network (BN). A structured experimental setup is designed to induce the affective states of the subjects by using a set of audiovisual stimulants. The affective states under study are happy, sad, and nervous. Preliminary results demonstrate the ability of the BN to predict human affective state with 86% accuracy.

Emotion Embodiment in Robot-Assisted Rehabilitation System Using Hybrid Automata

The embodiment of emotions in the paper is structured under hybrid automata framework. In particular, the paper focuses on the description of the automata model designed for robot-assisted rehabilitation system in term of its initialization value, modes, condition for each mode, guard conditions, and transition between modes. A structured experimental setup was designed to evaluate the performance of the hybrid automata proposed. The result demonstrates the efficacy of hybrid automata approach in the rehabilitation application where emotion of the subject is taken into consideration in deploying suitable rehabilitation tasks.

Communication Power as a Mediator on Networking and Career Success: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach

Information is power. Developing a network of contacts inside and outside of organization provides immense and valuable information which can be beneficial in many ways. Indeed, internal and external contacts can provide opportunities to advance in one’s career. Networking behaviors build and maintain informal contacts to enhance career success (Forret & Dougherty, 2004; Luthans, Rosenkrantz & Hennessey, 1985; Michael & Yukl, 1993). Networking is positively related to both objective and subjective measures of Abstract

The acceptance of TV Islamic reality shows by the Malay community

Reality television has become increasingly popular since the past few years among viewers and television producers alike due to their own individual reasons. This study tries to understand the acceptance of the reality television, specifically, the genre of Islamic reality television shows among the Malay community. This is a quantitative study, which uses the survey method with questionnaire as the research instrument. The research targets at Malays from the age of 13 years old and above, nationwide. The study will include the level of TV viewing habits among the Malay community, the knowledge about Islamic reality show, the perception and attitude towards these programs, the reasons for watching and the satisfaction gained from watching, as well as involvement and change on the heavy viewers. Currently, a pilot study has been conducted and the full-fledged study is expected to be carried out at the end of March 2012. Communication students from different levels of programme were initially used as the starting point for the data collection. They, in turn, were asked to find other Malays, within or outside the university, from both urban and rural areas. A total 500 questionnaires are being distributed. The reliability of the questionnaire has been tested and amendments have been done for the full-fledged questionnaire. The study incorporated the uses and gratifications theory (Blumler and Katz, 1974) to understand the motives and satisfaction derived from watching Islamic reality TV. The study also tries to test the cultivation theory (Gerbner, 1986) for the heavy viewers of the Islamic reality show on their perception, attitude and behavior. The data will be analyzed using SPSS WIN 16 for descriptive statistics and inferential statistics to answer the objectives of the study and to test its hypotheses. Preliminary findings suggest that the majority of respondents have viewed an Islamic reality show; with Imam Muda as the most popular TV Islamic reality show. They believe that the program genre is good and educational in nature. The main reason for watching it is the Islamic nature and the positive learning experience gained. The respondents also stated that watching TV Islamic reality show improved their Islamic knowledge and practices. Based on the findings, it is suggested that relevant authorities take appropriate strategies to ensure that TV Islamic reality show remains relevant, fun and up-to-date with current issues for the viewers to gain new knowledge and to reinforce that their existing knowledge and practices.

Knowledge and accessibility of Muslim women to the law on post-divorce financial support

The main objective of the study was to determine the Muslim women’s knowledge and accessibility to the law on post-divorce financial support particularly that which relates to ʿiddah maintenance, mutʿah, arrears of maintenance, and child maintenance. The data was collected using self-administered questionnaire. The sample was 201 divorced women recruited from the recorded cases for the period 2003-2005 in the Shariah Subordinate Courts of Hulu Langat and Gombak Timur, Selangor. The findings indicate that almost all respondents (99%) have high level of knowledge on the legal rights to post-divorce financial support. However, more than two-thirds of the respondents (70%) had low level of accessibility to the law when claiming for post-divorce financial support. The study suggests that although divorced women might have better access to legal information through reading and socialization, the problems regarding the attitude of the court’s officers and lawyers, the complexity of the court procedures, the uncooperative attitudes and the non-compliance of the ex-husbands to the court-ordered financial support did impede their accessibility to the law.