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The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of financialisation on the changing structure of housing supply in Malaysia. The share of newly launched sub-MYR250,000 houses has been decreasing continuously in the past decade. This implies that housing developers are launching more expensive houses. The greater focus on higher cost housing could be attributed to inflation. But while input cost is rising, the housing sector has also become increasingly financialised. This claim can be supported by the rising share of mortgage and real estate loans in gross domestic product. Financialisation is a process in which the financial sector becomes more dominant relative to the real sector. The extent to which this process is responsible for the changing structure of housing supply in Malaysia is investigated.

A survey of the literature suggested that the decreasing the proportion of newly launched sub-MYR250,000 housing could be result of rising input cost, greater degree of financialisation and changing market concentration. Thus, long-run cointegrating equations were formulated and estimated. These equations linked housing share with financialisation, market structure and input cost. The quantitative and qualitative impact of financialisation on the structure of housing supply is of interest.

The analyses of secondary data suggested that financialisation and input cost did indeed contribute to the decrease in proportion of newly launched sub-MYR250,000 housing. However, the impact of market concentration on housing share was ambiguous. This conclusion survived several robustness checks.

The financialisation of the housing sector implies that developers are increasingly building for profits instead of accommodating the social objective of providing shelter. This result is unsettling because access to adequate housing is a human right. The transformation of housing from the concept of a shelter to a tradable, money-making asset could be a major contributor to the declining housing affordability in the country. Thus, efforts to improve affordability must take account of the effects of financialisation.

An empirical framework for assessing the changes in the structure of housing supply was developed. Existing studies tended to focus only on the volume of housing supply. It is a comprehensive study on changes in the structure of housing supply. Second, while existing studies on the financialisation of housing are mostly qualitative in methodology, this paper offers a quantitative assessment of the financialisation in the housing sector.

While scholars have researched the impact of specific total quality management (TQM) aspects on innovation performance (INP), empirical evidence on how the former, as a composite construct, influences the latter is rare. To add, empirical evidence on the mechanism through which TQM passes to affect innovative behaviour (INB) and, then, INP is limited. Essentially, scholars have requested that future research look at the boundary conditions that support the adoption of TQM activities in businesses. Although the banking sector has experienced a number of transformations, there is still a need to raise the standard of service provided to bank customers. This research sheds more light on this subject.

This research tests the hypotheses in Ahinful et al.’s (2023) conceptual model using responses from 260 top- and middle-level bank managers by applying Smart PLS. Organisational support and team member exchange were used as potential control variables for the mediator, while slack resources and bank size were applied to the target endogenous latent construct. Mediation and moderation effects were estimated using the variance accounted for (VAF) and product indicator approaches, respectively. Sig. level was set at 5%.

This study found that TQM and INP had a positive and significant connection (ß = 0.303, p = 0.000), and INB partially mediated this connection (VAF = 40.92%). However, government regulation (GOV; ß = 0.055, p = 0.365), market dynamism (MKD; ß = 0.063, p = 0.434), competitive intensity (CMP; ß = 0.069, p = 0.297) and technological turbulence (TUR; ß = 0.011, p = 0.865) all failed to moderate the TQM–INB connection, although the expected positive directions of these moderation relationships were established.

This research provides empirical evidence on the TQM–INP connection, how this connection may be mediated and how the TQM–INB connection may be activated. It also sheds light on novel ways in which service quality in the banking sector may be improved. Upcoming research may explore other control variables in their research. Since the moderating relationships were unsupported, this avenue is open for further research, particularly in other banking settings across the globe.

Practical lessons for bank consultants, regulators, customers, employees and managers are deliberated.

This research is novel. It is the first to test the hypotheses in Ahinful et al.’s (2023) conceptual model. This study advances the theoretical frameworks and existing knowledge within the TQM, innovation and performance management fields.

Drawing on the social presence theory, this study aims to explore how supplier–customer social media interactions influence supplier observers’ trust in the customers and what mechanisms contribute to variation in trust experience.

A total of 36 semi-structured interviews were conducted with Chinese suppliers using WeChat for business-to-business interactions. Data were analyzed in three steps: open coding, axial coding and selective coding.

Findings reveal that varied trust is based not only on the categories of social presence of interaction – whether social presence is embedded in informative interactions – but also on the perceived selectivity in social presence. Observer suppliers who experience selectivity during social and affective interactions create a perception of hidden information and an unhealthy relationship atmosphere, and report a sense of emotional vulnerability, thus eroding cognitive and affective trust.

The findings contribute new understandings to social presence theory by exploring the social presence of interactions in a supplier–supplier–customer triad and offer valuable insights into business-to-business social media literature by adopting a suppliers’ viewpoint to unpack the mechanisms of how social presence of interaction positively and negatively influences suppliers’ trust and behavioral responses.

This paper aims to identify and evaluate resolutions to key learning and teaching challenges in very large courses that involve practical mathematics, such as foundational finance.

A design-based research approach is used across three semesters to iteratively identify practical problems within the course and then develop and evaluate resolutions to these problems. Data are collected from both students and teachers and analysed using a mixed-method approach.

The results indicate that key learning and teaching challenges in large foundational finance courses can be mitigated through appropriate consistency of learning materials; check-your-understanding interactive online content targeting foundational concepts in the early weeks; connection points between students and the coordinator to increase teacher presence; a sustained focus on supporting student achievement within assessments; and signposting relevance of content for the broader program and professional settings. Multiple design iterations using a co-design approach were beneficial to incrementally improve the course and consider multiple perspectives within the design process.

This paper develops a set of design principles to provide guidance to other practitioners who seek to improve their own courses.

The use of design-based research and mixed-method approaches that consider both student and teacher perspectives to examine the design of very large, foundational finance courses is novel.

In this case study, we offer an analysis of feedback from a student experience survey completed by Black undergraduate students who received proactive, targeted coaching and mentoring support during 2021–2022. All the students were studying at a large higher education institution in the United Kingdom which offers a broad range of degree courses by distance learning.

This paper reports on the intervention delivered and analyses the student experience of being offered, and receiving, proactive coaching and mentoring. It is based on the responses of 102 students who engaged with the experience survey after having self-selected to receive the intervention. What follows is an analysis of their experiences using a qualitative in vivo approach based on word frequency in students’ free-text comments.

The findings presented are that, in this intervention, students who self-select to receive coaching and mentoring support experience tangible (self-reported) behaviour changes with potentially longer term benefits for their studies. These include improved self-confidence and self-efficacy, increased proactive help-seeking behaviour, greater recognition of strengths and achievement and personal growth and self-awareness.

In presenting this case study, we aim to contribute to the growing corpus of practitioner case studies and research papers that show the benefits of coaching and mentoring in higher education and – more specifically – why coaching and mentoring can be a worthwhile targeted intervention for students from underrepresented backgrounds. This lends support to the growing consensus that students with positive, proactive help-seeking behaviours perform better than students not able to access support (Byrne et al., 2014). We conclude the case study with some practical implications for providers looking to provide targeted support to students.