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The purpose of this paper is to identify the gaps between the importance perceived and the competence gained by the hospitality students in terms of the employability skills.

Questionnaires were distributed to 841 hospitality students in five regions in Malaysia. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data.

The findings show that there are significant differences between importance perceived and competence attained in teamwork, leadership, basic, technical skills and ethical skills. Additionally, the finding of this study indicates that the culinary and bakery students perceive that they are not given adequate exposure to possess such skills. It is important to ensure that graduates are equipped with the twenty-first century skills such as problem solving and analytic, decision making, organization and time management, risk taking and communication.

The findings provide insights to curriculum developers and policy makers on the appropriate interventions that need to be taken to improve the employability skills of the graduates.

An original contribution is made by linking employability model to TVET sector.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the effect of management and decision‐making styles on the job satisfaction of academic staff in a Malaysian Research University.

The sample consisted of 218 respondents. The instruments used in the study were the Teacher Job Satisfaction Questionnaire and the Decision Style Inventory. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to determine the influence of decision‐making style and management style on the job satisfaction.

The findings showed that the research university had adopted an analytical decision‐making style. The hygiene factors were the predictors of job satisfaction as perceived by the academic staff at the research university in Malaysia.

This research selected a top Malaysian research university and small samples were selected from the whole population under consideration, thus, the findings can be generalized as similar to other research universities. In addition, the university management determines the decision‐making style, and the job satisfaction of the academic staff is affected by the decision‐making style of the university.

A contribution is made to the literature as the research reinforces the view that the management style and decision‐making style can predict or affect the job satisfaction of the academic staff.

Representing both “central university administration” and academics, deans are increasingly being confronted with the competing managerial and academic values. Being able to manage the competing values is pivotal to the success of a dean. However, there is dearth of research studying this. Considering the for-profit private sector may face greater challenge in dealing with the competing values, the purpose of this paper is to understand how deans in the private sector have managed this.

A case study was conducted using two exemplar faculties of a private university in Malaysia as sample. The main sources of data are one-year field work which is supplemented by eight years’ archival data.

The findings show that sustainable deans have found a common ground between the competing values. The common ground aligns the central university administration, the deans and the academics, and contributes to the sustainability of the faculties and university.

This paper contributes to addressing the ever-increasing tension between managerial and academic values experienced by the mid-level academic management especially at the for-profit private higher education institutions. The insights of this study enrich the existing knowledge in the area of mid-level academic leadership.

Argues that the debate concerning the growth of public employment has remained largely uninformed in a conceptual sense beyond the economic variables. Suggests that the time is now pertinent to identify the additional parameters affecting the situation if an enriched understanding is to evolve on the future role and management of the public sector in the developing state. Reviews the literature contributions that are significant in this respect, not only with the aim of putting the public sector developments of the last ten years in perspective but also to contribute to the current debate on the emergence of new administrative paradigms for developing States that provide a more balanced view of political, economic and social development.

The article aims to shift the basis of organisational human resource planning away from the traditional prescriptive approach to a systems based model that incorporates an emphasis on learning. A brief history of human resource planning is presented showing how it has evolved towards current needs and the specification for the new model. The new model is conceived in the context of increased environmental pressures on organisations and resultant management approaches. At the heart of the new approach is the process of transformation by which inputs to the model are processed in a way that involves all stakeholders in planning to produce viable outputs for managerial decision making.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new tool called the elderly caregiver questionnaire for COVID-19 (ECQC-24) that helps to assess caregiver attributes toward best possible care for elderly during this pandemic.

ECQC-24 was developed based on international team of experts and draw upon latest advice from reliable governing bodies such as World Health Organization and the US Centre of Disease Control. Psychometric analysis was applied to ensure the newly developed ECQC-24 is valid and reliable.

Cronbach’s alpha ranged from 0.72 to 0.87, and construct validity by exploratory factor analysis was acceptable. The results provide good estimates for the reliability and validity of ECQC-24.

More evidence is urgently needed to better inform clinicians, health and social policymakers and related stakeholders and organizations involved in caring for the elderly. ECQC-24, the manual to use and analyzing tools are freely available for download and use at https://sites.google.com/view/the-elderly-caregiver-covid19/home.

This paper aims to identify the critical success factors of the continued usage of digital library (DL) successful implementation from the perspective of users with organisation support factors as key antecedents.

Based on the extensive literature review, this study has constructed a conceptual framework based on organisational support perspectives and updated Delone and McLean’s information system success model. A pilot study was carried out on a sample of 105 respondents from military-context. A survey instrument including 22 measurement items was designed to identify the level of DL information system (IS) successful implementation practices in military context. Descriptive statistical analysis and reliability analysis were used to analyse the data with SPSS software.

The findings indicate that training and education, DL environment and communication support, continuation of usage intention, net benefits and user satisfaction are the critical success factors that play key role in ensuring the continued usage DL successful implementation in military context. The military-context DL needs to obtain critical success factors of DL practices implementation to sustain its continued usage, particularly for the active users of its members.

This study only considered the military personnel who have visited the five main military libraries. For practical implications, the development of instruments in this study may be valuable tools to evaluate DL in other DL settings in Malaysian context other than academic settings.

This study makes a new contribution to DL IS successful implementation practices in military context. This study also provides important information for decision-makers involved in DL IS successful implementation practices and provides useful reference for future researchers in this research area.

This study aims to explain the effect of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) dimensions on firms’ export performance. The study has considered three dimensions of EO: innovativeness, proactiveness and risk-taking. Export performance has been measured through multifaceted determinants: financial, strategic and satisfaction levels of exporting firms.

To explain the association between such determinants, qualitative face-to-face, in-depth interviews were conducted with the respondents from the apparel manufacturing companies of Bangladesh. The study has also applied a content analysis technique to explore and triangulate the descriptions of EO dimensions on performance.

The research results reveal that EO has a meaningful explanation of export performance from the lived experience of the respondents. The study has also found frequent explanations and indicators about the association of innovativeness and proactiveness on export performance, but the risk-taking dimension has revealed no effects.

The research has different implications on theoretical, managerial and policy-making aspects of EO and export performance. Nevertheless, the findings are based on the opinions of a small sample of entrepreneurs and high-level managers. Thus, it is important to test the generalizability of these findings in future research using a larger sample.

This study indicated product, process and market creation innovativeness. Risks related to product innovation, new market entry and politics are considered for risk-taking measures, while proactive innovation, technology and new market searching are used for measuring proactiveness. Additionally, multifaceted performance determinants have been applied to evaluate export performance. Hence, this study is a unique qualitative analysis with important theoretical, practical and methodological implications.

This paper aims to present a conceptual model on the efficiency and governance of zakat institutions that are responsible in collecting, managing and distributing zakat in Malaysia. Zakat is an Islamic religious “tax” charged on the rich and well‐to‐do members of the community for distribution to the poor and the needy as well as other beneficiaries based on certain established criteria according to the Qur'an. The main aim of zakat is to protect the socio‐economic welfare of the poor and the needy.

The paper reviews and synthesises the relevant literature on efficiency, governance and zakat. The paper then developed and proposed a conceptual model to study the efficiency and governance of zakat institutions.

The paper identifies the appropriate methods to evaluate efficiency and governance of zakat institutions. Such evaluations are crucial for the Islamic financial system to function effectively in order to achieve the noble objectives of socio‐economic justice through proper distribution of wealth.

This paper presents a conceptual model of efficiency and governance of zakat institutions which would be useful for further empirical research in this area. The findings are not only relevant and applicable to Malaysia but also to other Muslim countries.

This paper aims to fill the noticeably fragmented zakat literature repertoire by empirically exploring stakeholders’ views toward zakat management performance issues based on a selected zakat institution (ZI) operating on a corporatized platform with corporate administrative style.

A quantitative approach using a questionnaire survey distributed to Muslims in the State which ZI is operating was adopted. A total of 448 usable responses are used in the analysis covering descriptive and mean difference.

The results indicate that managerial reform configuration in terms of corporatization has been viewed positively by stakeholders, translated into a comforting agreement score toward ZI’s improved management performance (collection, disbursement and reporting). Such perceptions are, however, observably sensitive to demographic factors of gender and employment type. The survey also document evidence that the corporatization exercise itself had improved respondents’ confidence toward ZI being the zakat administrator in the State.

The research contributes to the public policy debate with respect to corporatized ZI’s management performance from the stakeholders’ perspective. The results are arguably informative at various levels, forming a basis for reality check and policy inputs for various stakeholders, including (but not limited to) the ZI itself, zakat payers and asnafs, particularly in designing relevant and necessary administrative strategies and relevant policy formulation in addressing the performance and accountability issues in ZIs.