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The purpose of this paper is to examine the dynamics of Malaysia's new economic model (NEM) formulated to achieve Malaysia's aspiration to become a high‐income nation by 2020. Based on that analysis, the paper seeks to identify areas of research that could profitably be pursued to further the aims and implementation of the NEM. Such identification of research areas would ensure that research and development efforts are aligned to the accomplishment of national growth objectives in tune with the nation's Vision 2020 as well as spearhead development in other developing countries that wish to emulate Malaysia's model.

The paper adopts a combination of descriptive and analytical methods. Interviews with selected high‐level officials directly involved in the formulation and implementation of the NEM and secondary data and information inform this study.

Although Malaysia has done well in socio‐economic development, it is now striving hard to get out of the middle‐income trap to become a high‐income nation by 2020. The paper identifies a scholarly research agenda that will find solutions to the many challenges that Malaysia and other developing countries confront in breaking out of the middle‐income trap.

Practitioners will obtain a better appreciation of the strategies that they have to undertake to accelerate economic growth.

The issues identified in the paper and the research agenda proposed should aid policy makers, practitioners and academics in carrying out research and development efforts that could aid developing countries formulate strategies to accelerate the development process.

The paper adds to the limited knowledge on the research that has to be conducted in effectively implementing the Malaysian NEM and accelerating the growth path of the emerging economies.

This research aims to investigate the extent and pattern of information and communication technology (ICT) usage by women entrepreneurs in Malaysia, as well as the impact of personal traits on usage.

All the members of the National Association of Women Entrepreneurs in Malaysia (NAWEM) were surveyed, out of which a 62 percent usable response rate was achieved.

The results of the analysis show that slightly above 50 percent of the respondents are using seven out of the eight varieties of systems presented. Seven out of the ten job tasks listed were done using computer technology by more than 60 percent of the respondents. A total of 78 percent of the respondents use basic systems and 48 percent use advanced systems. A total of 92 percent of respondents use systems for administrative purposes, 42 percent for planning, and 52 percent for control purposes. Mean usage differs among racial groups, educational levels, industry type, computer experience, and size of organization (measured by number of employees). Personal traits such as innovativeness and risk‐taking propensity are significantly correlated with usage.

The paper discusses the marketing and other implications of the findings as well as suggesting some marketing approaches.

This paper aims to examine the role of term spreads to predict domestic output and inflation in Malaysia, a country with a relatively less-developed bond market.

The paper uses regression time-series regressions and probit models that control for past values of the dependent variable to determine the forecast performance of term spread on inflation and output in Malaysia.

The paper finds that term spread contains little information about future output and inflation at short horizons. Moreover, the usefulness of term spread to play a greater role in monetary analysis beyond conventional indicators in the case of Malaysia is limited. The degree of usefulness of term spread impediment could be attributed to the relatively fragmented, illiquid and captive bond market characteristics as compared to what is available in more matured and developed markets.

It is useful to incorporate technical and model-based approaches using yield curves beyond the usual indicator analysis from the policy point of view. Models could be used in tandem with other monetary and financial indicators to support discussions on the direction of monetary policy.

An efficient bond market could also play an important role in propagating monetary impulses via the relevant monetary transmission channels. Based on the findings, the paper suggests that there is a strong case to deepen domestic bond market. This would greatly enhance price discovery among market participants, improve risk management away from the traditional source for funds (i.e. banking system) and address supply-related issues.

This paper aims to develop of an industrial air pollution monitoring system (IAPMOS) as one of the target solutions for monitoring mechanisms in the workplace.

Quality function deployment approaches were used in this study. The process of getting data from workers was by using questionnaires. The questionnaire regarding the welding process work environment was given to two selected automotive industries located in Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia.

From the data, the system development was analysed in order to formalize the specific needs of workers and management. The preliminary data were discussed regarding the development process and reliability factors that influenced the IAPMOS. The voice of the customer was then input during the design stage of IAPMOS.

The monitoring of industrial air pollution which was done in the welding process used a direct reading method and the date was assigned as “base line” during system development. The standards International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001: 2008, ISO 14001: 2008, and the Malaysia Standard, MS 1722: 2003 were the major sources helping to improve the working environments. The working environment is important to productivity and has a direct impact on human intervention.

Poor working environments will give a negative impact and an uncondusive work environment will create a potential health hazard and less productivity.

The paper provides information to aid in improving workplace environment.

The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) initiative poses both significant opportunities and difficult challenges to the Malaysian SME communities. This study aims to investigate the preparedness of the local SMEs to compete and exploit opportunities in a post-AEC era. The aim is to contribute to existing literature and knowledge base on SMEs’ practices in the ASEAN region. The manufacturing sector has been selected for study, and the research efforts focus on procurement competencies. SME procurement practices in the two largest manufacturing sub-sectors in Malaysia – resource-based (RB) and electrical and electronics (E&E) – are explored.

Preparedness for AEC is gauged from four key performance areas summarized from literature review. Six key research activities are also identified for each performance area from the findings of previous works. Data were collected using a survey instrument and face-to-face interviews. Research methodology is primarily qualitative with quantitative data for robustness check.

The findings reveal peculiar procurement practices in Malaysian SME manufacturers that have significant implications on their preparedness to compete effectively post-AEC. The findings also highlighted the key influences that have contributed to variations in Malaysian SMEs’ attitude toward trade liberalization challenges and business process improvements in comparison with practices in foreign firms and more advanced economies.

Theoretical models have been adopted across business settings and environments by managers. This study reveals managerial practices in Malaysian SME manufacturers run counter to developed theories. The peculiarities and business attitudes of this resilient economic sector can be an important input to managerial decision-making when analyzing business activities in the region.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate several concepts of inward and outward internationalization and their impact on export performance in the context of Malaysian manufacturing exporting firms.

Mail survey was administered to gather data from the Malaysian manufacturing firms that have been identified to have business export trading to the major oil and gas producer countries in the Middle East. A total of 120 respondents were received and further analysis was tabulated.

Findings revealed that the outward internationalization is positively related to economic and non-economic measures of export performance. It indicates that an outward internationalization related to organizational capability has a major contribution to the export performance of Malaysian manufacturing and exporting firms. On the other hand, top management international orientation as an inward internationalization is negatively and significantly associated with economic measures, but not in the non-economic measures of the export performance.

The cross-sectional nature of this study may have limitations with respect to examining the direction and causality of some of the variables. The findings are limited to Malaysian manufacturing firms exporting to targeted markets. The significant of this study emanates from its expected theoretical implications to knowledge and practical implications to business and public organization. It lends support to the internationalization theory and contributes to a firm’s performance and enhances their export marketing knowledge with useful implications for international and relationship marketing.

The results support the proposition that internationalization of firms from emerging nations are dependent on learning, acquiring and applying the knowledge from other firms particularly from firms originating from advanced developed nations.

The Malaysian Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) was created as a mandatory national saving plan in 1951 and has grown consistently. Following two decades of state‐led economic development, substantially funded through EPF contributions, the Malaysian Government is now ostensibly seeking to reduce state intervention in the economy in order to encourage liberalization and thereby engender further economic growth. Tracing the parallel evolution of the EPF and the growth of the Malaysian economy, highlights both the direct role of the EPF in providing soft‐loan capital for state‐sponsored development projects and the indirect role of the fund in underpinning politically effective, but not concomitantly economically efficient, strategies for ethnically rebalancing the economy. Accordingly, in direct contradiction to recent World Bank analyses, concludes that the continuing Malaysian commitment to a publicly managed national provident fund (NPF) is based on both efficiency criteria (in relation to the EPF itself) and effectiveness criteria (in relation to state‐determined investment strategies). Although the success of Malaysian economic development policies inevitably involves a restructuring of the operations and management of the EPF itself, the continuity in the Malaysian commitment to its NPF complements and underpins similar continuities in the active role of the Malaysian state, even in an era of privatization.

The strategic management literature emphasizes the concept of business intelligence (BI) as an essential competitive tool. Yet the sustainability of the firms’ competitive advantage provided by BI capability is not well researched. To fill this gap, this study attempts to develop a model for successful BI deployment and empirically examines the association between BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage. Taking the telecommunications industry in Malaysia as a case example, the research particularly focuses on the influencing perceptions held by telecommunications decision makers and executives on factors that impact successful BI deployment. The research further investigates the relationship between successful BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage of the telecommunications organizations. Another important aim of this study is to determine the effect of moderating factors such as organization culture, business strategy, and use of BI tools on BI deployment and the sustainability of firm’s competitive advantage.

This research uses combination of resource-based theory and diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory to examine BI success and its relationship with firm’s sustainability. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and a two-phase sequential mixed method consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches are employed. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. The chapter presents a qualitative field study to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. The study includes a survey study with sample of business analysts and decision makers in telecommunications firms and is analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling.

The findings reveal that some internal resources of the organizations such as BI governance and the perceptions of BI’s characteristics influence the successful deployment of BI. Organizations that practice good BI governance with strong moral and financial support from upper management have an opportunity to realize the dream of having successful BI initiatives in place. The scope of BI governance includes providing sufficient support and commitment in BI funding and implementation, laying out proper BI infrastructure and staffing and establishing a corporate-wide policy and procedures regarding BI. The perceptions about the characteristics of BI such as its relative advantage, complexity, compatibility, and observability are also significant in ensuring BI success. The most important results of this study indicated that with BI successfully deployed, executives would use the knowledge provided for their necessary actions in sustaining the organizations’ competitive advantage in terms of economics, social, and environmental issues.

This study contributes significantly to the existing literature that will assist future BI researchers especially in achieving sustainable competitive advantage. In particular, the model will help practitioners to consider the resources that they are likely to consider when deploying BI. Finally, the applications of this study can be extended through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.

Human Resource Management Marketing Management, Consumer Behavior.

This case is suitable to be used in advanced undergraduate and MBA/MSc level.

This case illustrates the application of green human resource management (HRM) practices that are inevitable for Malaysian manufacturing firms to mitigate the imbalance between economic and environmental performance. Over the past 12 years, the environmental performance has significantly declined based on data reported by environmental performance index (EPI). This dramatic decline has caused imbalance between economic and environmental performance impacting sustainability of Malaysian manufacturing firms. Among the challenges faced by many manufacturing firms are lacking environmental control, inability to understand and apply green HRM practices, aligning green HRM strategy to firm’s strategy and environmental objectives, educating its existing employees on green HRM, measuring the outcomes of green HRM practices, and changing the existing traditional HRM practices to green HRM practices. This case sheds light on the implication of ISO14001 certification among Malaysian manufacturing firms registered with Federation of Manufacturing Malaysia (FMM) 2015 in addressing this issue.

This case illustrates the following:

• The application of green HRM practices and how it can improve sustainable performance among ISO14001-certified Malaysian manufacturing firms.

• The need for adopting ISO14001 certification as the integral part in addressing sustainability issues and in improving firm’s performance.

• The integration of both green HRM practices and ISO14001 certification helps manufacturing firms to minimize the imbalance between economic and environmental performance and to improve overall sustainable performance.

The application of green HRM practices and how it can improve sustainable performance among ISO14001-certified Malaysian manufacturing firms.

The need for adopting ISO14001 certification as the integral part in addressing sustainability issues and in improving firm’s performance.

The integration of both green HRM practices and ISO14001 certification helps manufacturing firms to minimize the imbalance between economic and environmental performance and to improve overall sustainable performance.