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The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors influencing Sabah’s indigenous food consumption, namely Kadazan-Dusun food, among tourists from China, Europe and Malaysia (non-Sabahans).

Survey forms were distributed to tourists from China, Europe and Malaysia using purposive sampling at tourist spots in Sabah, Malaysia. In total, 254 responses were collected, and the data were analyzed using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The findings demonstrate that tourists from China and Europe possess some similarities in consuming indigenous food in Sabah. They enjoy trying indigenous food even they are not familiar with the food. Additionally, our findings also show that tourists from China regard sensory appeal as an important aspect of food choice. Meanwhile, it is found that convenience and mood influence Malaysian’s choice of indigenous food.

This study provides insights regarding Sabah’s Kadazan-Dusun food consumption from foreign and domestic tourists’ perspectives. As such, it also provides direction to the local eateries and relevant tourism authorities to better promote indigenous food to foreign and domestic tourists.

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.

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.

The evidence was found on the relationship between culture and leadership style preference among Sabahans, namely Malay-Brunei, Bajau and Kadazan-Dusun.

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 implication that leader should understand the culture in order for them to be accepted by the followers.

This paper fulfils an identified need to study what leadership style preferred by the employees among Sabah ethnicity.

It is undeniable that proper planning of spatial development and local regional policies are paramount to ensure whether a country is prosperous or not. In order to ensure its prosperity, discussion on administrative arrangement, spatial development, and regional policy issues in the Malaysian context will be focused. In addition, the importance of Malaysian major development policies and the authorities responsible for its development and implementation are highlighted, followed by the roles of urban development planning. Lastly, Malaysian regional economic corridors, specifically the Northern Corridor Economic Region, are highlighted to show the emphasis given by the Malaysian Government on regional spatial development issues.

Innovation performance is an issue that has a profound effect not only on Malaysian large companies but also among small and medium enterprises (SMEs) especially Bumiputera SMEs. The purpose of this paper is to explore the theoretical review of innovation culture pertaining to innovation performance by conducting a literature review on SME studies. The previous reference on innovation performance in Malaysian SMEs is still scarce, even though it is the key benchmark to measure firm performance. It has been demonstrated by the literature that innovation culture is significantly associated with innovation performance. Nonetheless, its effect on Bumiputera SMEs is still underexplored. Thus, this study examines the importance of internal factors (specific human capital and social capital) to innovation culture in driving innovation performance.

A questionnaire-based survey was conducted to gather data from Bumiputera SMEs. A total of 140 responses were obtained and analyses were carried out using Smart-PLS software to produce interesting findings.

The findings indicate that social capital (relational capital and social network) has a significant impact on innovation culture and indirectly impacts innovation performance. The findings also reveal that specific human capital does not have significant impact on innovation culture and innovation performance. This paper shows the importance of social capital and how it directly influences Bumiputera SMEs and innovation performance. This result will be encouraging to firms in other developing countries.

Although SMEs play an important role in economic development, their contribution to innovation is small and marginal. This study makes an important contribution by providing information to the Malaysian SMEs, especially those that are of Bumiputera status on the factors that could enhance innovation performance and nurture innovation culture in their organisations. Thus, it is hoped that this study will generate interest among researchers to attain more conclusive evidence about the practice of innovation culture among Malaysian SMEs.

This paper is one of the first to address the mediating effect of innovation culture on specific human capital, social capital and innovation performance.

This study aims to assess the possibility of adapting evidence-based policies in the daily operations of tour operators in Semporna, Sabah, Malaysia. This intervention is important, as on-site investigations reveal that operators are operating their businesses with little reference to the ecotourism policy guidelines.

This study adopted a full qualitative approach. In-depth interviews were conducted on tour operators in Semporna, while text mining was used to elicit data from the Malaysian National Ecotourism Plan. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data from the primary sources.

Gaps were evident between best practices guidelines from the National Ecotourism Plan and the day-to-day practices of tour operators in Semporna, Sabah. This was due to the limitations of the National Ecotourism Plan and the limitations of the operators in identifying and adhering to best practices; the impracticality of best practices in site-specific scenarios; and the benefit of adapting evidence-based practices (ECP) in Semporna, Sabah.

The implications of this study include a plan to bring forth a non-parochial and innovative approach in rural tourism policymaking process and to advocate evidence-based intervention through the inclusion and participation of stakeholders.

This study contributes towards the requisite of evidence-based intervention for rural tourism policies to meet site-specific needs.

The concept of functional foods is not new to the Malaysian people. Functional foods as traditional medicine have made tremendous contributions over the past couple of centuries. The growth in the economy, coupled with a strong desire among the Malaysian consumers to maintain a healthy lifestyle has made functional foods an alternative medicine among the populace. Although the consumption of functional foods is increasing in Malaysia, relatively little is known about the factors which affect consumer purchase intention toward natural functional foods. The purpose of this paper is to determine Malaysian consumer intention to purchase natural functional foods.

A survey was conducted in the country where 2,004 household were interviewed using structured questionnaires. The theory of reasoned action (TRA) and health belief model were adopted and modified in this study. Descriptive statistics and structural equation modeling were used to analyze the collected data.

The results have shown that the data set was normal, valid and reliable. Attitude has a partial mediating effect on perceived barriers, perceived susceptibility and perceived benefits which influence consumer intention to purchase natural functional foods. Nevertheless attitude had no mediation effect on subjective norms for consumers to form their intention to purchase natural functional foods. In other word, subjective norms had a direct influence on consumer intention to purchase natural functional foods.

The main concern of this paper is about the factors which affect consumer purchase intention toward natural functional foods. However the results from this paper are limited in terms of determining consumer purchasing behavior for natural functional foods.

The paper expands on the TRA and health belief model to examine the factors which influence Malaysian consumer purchase intention toward natural functional foods.

The study focuses on the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and policy measures implemented by the Malaysian government to address issues during this period. The study examines the impacts on the financial security and mental health of single-parent families in Malaysia.

The study used a cross-sectional survey to obtain data about single-parent families. To support the information collected with the survey, interviews were conducted with six representatives from six single-parent associations.

The study identified that policy measures implemented by the Malaysian government have helped improve the financial security of single-parent families. However, for mental health, the support single parents received was not able to provide better quality of life, as the majority were severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, especially during lockdown, before they received any assistance from the government.

The study was conducted during the pandemic; thus, the study was not able to include a larger sample of single parents. Therefore, the findings cannot be generalized to explain nationwide issues. However, the study provides important insights into understanding the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on people, especially single-parent families.

The study confirmed that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected single parents in different ways. Financial security and mental health, the focus of this study, have provided a clear justification for how pandemics could affect people’s lives. Specifically, the situation was exacerbated after the implementation of movement control orders in Malaysia, and it has continuously affected the living conditions of single-parent families.

The study focuses on single-parent families, a group that receives less attention from the government and policies, although this group is recognized as one of the vulnerable groups. Understanding this context helps to provide a clear guide for how policies can be formulated and provides equal attention to assist this group in the future.

This study focuses on single-parent families. Few studies have examined this perspective using Malaysia as the study context. Moreover, the study analyzes the pandemic situation, and this area is still new and underexplored.

The purpose of this paper is to explore factors influencing Malaysian bank customers to choose Islamic credit cards. The bank customers generally aware of Islamic credit card facilities in Islamic banks but factors leading them to choose it are particularly unexplored. Given the importance of Islamic credit cards to Islamic banks, the study is aimed at explaining the effects of attitude, subjective norm and perceived financial cost on the Malaysian bank customers' behavioral intention to choose Islamic credit cards.

Drawing upon the theory of reasoned action (TRA), this study suggests a modified model to examine the acceptance factors of attitude, subjective norm and perceived financial cost within a context of Islamic credit cards. This paper extends partial least squares (PLS) to examine the impacts of these factors on the intention to choose Islamic credit cards. The model is tested using a survey data from 257 respondents.

The results reveal that attitude, subjective norm and perceived financial cost significantly influence the intention to choose Islamic credit card. Of these, attitude is first ranked as an influential factor in explaining one's intention to choose Islamic credit cards. All hypotheses are supported. The findings have proven the soundness of the TRA for study in the area of Islamic credit cards. Earlier works in Islamic credit cards have not ready to apply TRA in their works. The current research is thus closed the gap.

Pertaining to research limitations, this paper reveals two limitations owing to their future directions for future research on Islamic credit cards. This study indicates that its contributions are particularly confined to potential users in Eastern-Malaysia whilst those from Western-Malaysia are largely untapped. Further research is required to include users from both geographies. Owing to time and financial constraints, this study is only analyzed three factors in explaining the behavioral intention to choose Islamic credit cards. Therefore, future studies in this area should examine new potential factors contributing the receptivity.

Findings generated from this study serve as a basis for more future works in the area of Islamic credit cards. The theory developed in the current study's model could also be generalized into other contexts of Islamic banking products and services. Practically, branch managers of Islamic banking institutions are of considerable importance to extend the findings of this study to better future planning of their Islamic credit card services.

This study extends the applicability of the TRA model into a newly context of Islamic credit cards. Empirically, this study also integrates the effect of perceived financial cost on the intention to choose Islamic credit cards. This study offers insights with respect to factors affecting one's decision to choose Islamic credit cards.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of service quality, product choice and Islamic debt policy on consumer attitude within the context of Islamic mortgage sector in Malaysia. The present study also examines the effect of attitudinal-behaviour on consumer preference towards preference of Islamic mortgage selection.

The study is based on questionnaire survey. Data are collected using sample from customers of Islamic banks in Malaysia. The study collects 351 respondents. Data are analysed using partial least squares (PLS).

The results indicate that service quality, product choice and Islamic debt policy significantly influence consumer attitude, in turn, affecting the Islamic home financing preference. Consumer attitude also mediates the effects of service quality, product choice and Islamic debt policy on the Islamic home financing preference.

Several limitations warrant future research. First, this study considers only a specific user group in one public university. Second, this study does not consider attitude as a moderator. Third, this study suffers from the limited number of factors used. These limitations, however, provide directions for future research.

Our results will add value to the consumer preference topic for Islamic home financing literature. The present study provides bank managers with valuable insights into better planning of Islamic home financing services in Malaysia.

This study is a pioneering effort at exploring consumer attitude and preference from the context of Islamic mortgage sector in Malaysia. The use of PLS analysis provides another important contribution to the literature in this area.