Syed Azizi Syed Khalid Wafa

Sustainable consumption: the effects of knowledge, cultural values, environmental advertising, and demographics

As a result of human lifestyles and unsustainable consumption patterns, the environment continues to deteriorate and thus inhibit sustainable development. In order to curb this situation and promote a sustainable economy, one of the solution is to reduce conventional products consumption and shift to green products. Over the past 20 years, marketing managers keenly seek to understand the green market; however, inadequate information on how to promote consumers’ green behavioral intentions is slowing the growth of green markets and becomes a barrier for firms when developing segments and communicating strategies for effective promotion of green products in countries like Malaysia where the trend is fairly new. Therefore, this study attempts to examine the impact of environmental knowledge, cultural values, and environmental advertising and determine the moderating effect of income level, education level, and gender on consumers’ green purchase intentions. A survey was administered, and a total of 405 valid questionnaires were obtained. Structural equation modeling technique was used to evaluate the causal model by using SmartPLS 2.0 software. The finding results suggest that cultural values and environmental advertising are the main influences in building green purchase intentions, while environmental knowledge is not significantly related. The results also indicate that education level and gender have a significant positive moderation effect while income did not. This suggests that green purchase intentions’ motivational factors are greater among highly educated individuals, with females in particular. The discussions and implications of these findings are further elaborated.

Successful IT Outsourcing Engagement: Lessons from Malaysia

The literature on IT outsourcing is well‐developed with clear explanations of what may determine success. The context of IT outsourcing studies has primarily focused upon North American and European companies, seeking low‐cost economies from links with developing nations to gain competitive advantage. These studies may not be generalisable to companies based in developing economies, who may be trying to replicate successful outsourcing approaches. If the focus of outsourcing is primarily one of cost cutting, IT policy makers and managers in Malaysia cannot assume that successful outsourcing determinants are of any significance to them. This article therefore addresses the question of how generalisable the determinants of successful IT outsourcing are to a Malaysian context. The study is based upon a sample survey of companies in the Penang region of Malaysia. It presents and tests hypotheses on the nature of outsourcing relationships. In conclusion, Malaysian managers can take some comfort in that the lessons of outsourcing can be generalised to their context. Of particular note is the value of selective outsourcing in comparison to full outsourcing and the impacts of communication and management commitment.

The relationship between culture and leadership style preference among Malay-Brunei, Bajau and Kadazan-Dusun community in Sabah, Malaysia

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between culture and leadership style preference among Sabahans, namely Malay-Brunei, Bajau and Kadazan-Dusun. Design/methodology/approach – The sample of this research was selected based on purposive convenient sampling whereby all respondents are located in Kota Kinabalu. A questionnaire was administered for data collection with a sample of 219 employees from both the public and the private sectors. The data were analyzed using linear regression. Findings – The evidence was found on the relationship between culture and leadership style preference among Sabahans, namely Malay-Brunei, Bajau and Kadazan-Dusun. Research limitations/implications – Understanding on what is preferred by employees and what is practiced by the leaders will lead to better and improved performance among the employees. Better understanding on the influence of culture will help a leader to be more effective and successful in their role. Therefore, it provide implicati...

Measuring Organizational Information Systems Success: New Technologies and Practices

Many studies suggest that high information systems effectiveness is associated with high organizational performance. While research measuring the success of information systems has proliferated, models, measurements, definitions, and perspectives it employs vary greatly, leading to little consensus on how to measure IS success.Measuring Organizational Information Systems Success: New Technologies and Practices explores new approaches which may better identify, explain, and improve IS assessment. Professionals and researchers working in information systems success, performance, and measurement will discover emerging theories on information systems success, the latest empirical research findings, and new technologies and practices that encourage successful IS implementation in organizations.

Validating the Organizational Context Measure for Collective Learning: A Managerial Action Persepctive

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to validate an instrument for the Ghoshal and Bartlett model and operationalize its four attributes into a multidimensionality instrument questionnaire. This study operationalizes the four attributes, namely, discipline, support, trust and stretch, into a multidimensionality instrument questionnaire and tests this instruments validation using data from 317 Malaysian Multimedia Super Corridor-status companies. Design/methodology/approach – This paper follows the procedures of building a scale measure. This was carried out in three main stages. The first stage is the generation of scale items. The purpose of this stage is to identify and analyze items based on intensive literature review. The second stage is the assessment of face validity to ensure the correspondence between the individual items and the constructs intended to measure. The final stage is the statistical validation, which includes the assessment of validity and reliability of the introduced instrument. Findings – The paper introduces 23 multidimensional questionnaire items, which contribute to organizational context dimensions. The statistical analysis that followed the conceptual development shows that the presented instrument has good psychometric properties. The validity and reliability of the scale were presented and discussed. Research limitations/implications – This paper suggests that these organizational context dimensions can be investigated with a high degree of confidence, especially when applied to organizations with different climate. To improve the robustness of the model, additional testing in different contexts and cultures may be necessary. Future research may also test the validity of the instrument using larger sample data. Practical implications – The measure offers researchers a comprehensive and flexible approach to the assessment of organizational context and collective learning from a managerial action perspective. This measure may be useful for a broad range of research interests, enabling researchers to investigate some theoretical propositions related to managerial action, such as the relationship between organizational climate and organizational performance. The measure also helps to establish the relationship between organizational context and collective learning in the organization. Originality/value – This study helps to fill the gap in the development of the organizational climate through both conceptual and empirical work. There is therefore a need for a measured, testable instrument to facilitate the empirical evaluation by the modern organization. This measure also contributes toward a better understanding of the managerial role. This managerial role has an imperative role in crafting the behavior of the organization’s members, developing collective learning through distributed initiatives and mutual cooperation

A Comparative Study on the Level of Strategic Thinking among Ethnic Entrepreneurs in Sabah

The success of entrepreneurs depends strongly on the ability of entrepreneurs to strategize their business against other competitors. This research compares the strategic thinking capabilities between the Bajaus, Bugis and Dusuns in Sabah, Malaysia. Pisapia’s measure for strategic thinking was used in this study to measure the strategic thinking levels among the Bajaus, Dusun, and Bugis entrepreneurs in Malaysia. A total of 92 Bajau, 41 Dusun and 64 Bugis entrepreneurs’ usable data managed to be collected by this study through convenience sampling. An interesting finding for this study is that the systematic thinking means of all the three groups of entrepreneurs are all on the low side with means of slightly above 2. One significant difference was found on reflective thinking between the Bajaus and the Dusuns with the Bajaus having the significantly lower scores. The results found in this study regarding strategic thinking can help the government plan training programs in entrepreneurship in Malaysia which can help bumiputera entrepreneurs especially those in Sabah close the gap with their Chinese counterparts and in the end increase the competitive advantage of all entrepreneurs in Malaysia.

The assessment of information systems success from the organizational context perspective

The question of why particular information system encountered unanticipated resistance and never met expectation is often justified by the statement that this information systems did not fit the organizational culture. This paper introduces and validates a four-stage socio-technical model coined as System Behavioral Success Model (SBS), which explains how the behavioral context of an IT organization led by their IT executives would lead to the success of the IS function. This was conducted by exploring the four dimensions: stretch, trust, support and discipline, as the shapers of the behavioral context of the organization, and relates them to the IS success as represented by system performance, information effectiveness and service performance. Data were collected from 316 MSC status companies. The results show good support for the model. Except trust, behavioral context dimensions are proved to be a major factor for the success of information systems in the organization, especially when the organization acts ambidextrously within the information systems context.

Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Ease of Use of E-Commerce Adoption among Entrepreneurs in Sabah

This research based its conceptual framework on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) which includes Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Ease of Use as the variables of the study. The external variable or independent variables chosen for this research were Demographic Profile and Entrepreneurial Characteristics. Age, Ethnicity and Education Level were chosen as the dimensions to be analyzed in Demographic Profile while Need for Achievement, Risk-taking Ability and Locus of Control were the chosen dimensions for Entrepreneurial Characteristics. A total of 290 questionnaires have been distributed via email to all the possible respondents whom are established business owners regardless brick-and-mortal, brick-and-click, or click only business in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. However, only 170 useable responses were received and used for analysis. From the results obtained, demographic profile was not found to be significant while entrepreneurial characteristics were found to be related to Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Ease of Use of e-commerce.