Search results

The purpose of this paper is to design a system deployment model that integrates case-based agent technique to develop an eco-responsibility decision support tool for greening educational institutions toward environmental responsibility.

Data were collected through questionnaires distributed among a statistical population that comprised practitioners across educational institutions in Malaysia that implement green practices. The questionnaire measured the feasibility of the developed tool based on factors derived from the literature. Accordingly, descriptive, exploratory and factor analysis approach using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) was used to test the feasibility of the developed tool.

Results from descriptive analysis confirm the tool is feasible based on mean values that range from 4.1619 to 3.6508 on a five-point scale, indicating that the tool is effective in sustaining educational institutions going green. Besides, results from exploratory analysis verify the reliability of the tool based on the acceptable Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient score higher than 0.7 and Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin value being above 0.5. Finally, results from factor analysis reveal that the developed tool is usable, efficient, helpful, flexible and credible and supports educational institutions in going green at 88.44 per cent of the total variance, suggesting that the respondents are satisfied with the tool.

The sample population in this study comprises only practitioners from educational institutions in Malaysia. Theoretically, this research provides feasibility factors and associated items that can be used in evaluating developed information systems.

Practically, this study develops an eco-responsibility decision support tool to facilitate green strategies and provides information on how practitioners in educational institutions can improve green growth.

This study presents how case-oriented agents aid educational institutions in going green for environmental responsibility. Socially, this research provides the strategies for green practice improvement in educational institutions toward environmental responsibility.

The eco-responsibility decision support tool provides a Web-based platform for promoting ecological protection by supporting the measuring of practitioners’ current green practices for environmental responsibility. Thus, research findings from this study are expected to help decision-makers generate useful insights into environment-friendly strategies to be implemented in educational institutions. Lastly, the statistical tests adopted in this paper can be used to gauge the feasibility of information system application in future.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a collaborative agent-based web architecture and an agent-based green IS assessment tool to aid information technology (IT) practitioners in data centers assess their current green information systems (IS) practice toward attaining sustainability.

The methodology comprises that the collaborative agent-based web architecture, agents’ algorithm and the green IS assessment tool, which is validated by employing focus group questionnaire targeting IT practitioners in seven Malaysian-based enterprises that have an in-house data centers. With 105 valid samples at hand, descriptive analysis and exploratory factor analysis was utilized to determine the applicability of the implemented agent-based green IS assessment tool.

Findings reveal that the agent-based green IS assessment tool possesses the capability to evaluate benchmark and rate enterprise data centers current green IS practice. Additional findings indicate that the agent-based green IS assessment tool provide suggestions on how green IS practice can be improved in enterprise data centers.

This study only collected data from 105 IT practitioners in enterprise data centers based in Malaysia; as such results from this research cannot be generalized to other countries. Moreover, the developed collaborative agents for green IS practice assessment can only be fully deployed after domain experts has added green IS practice assessment questions and alternative answers.

This study presents an autonomous agent-based green IS assessment tool that supports the assessment of enterprise toward inclusion of sustainability considerations to enhance enterprise environmental performance.

This study provides empirical evidence for data centers efficacy leading toward a greener society for environmental conservation for future generations to come.

This study creates awareness by presenting the green IS practice to be implemented by IT practitioners in data centers. In addition, the agent-based green IS assessment tool provides a web-based platform for promoting environmental sustainability by supporting data centers toward evaluating, benchmarking and rating their current green IS practices.

The purpose of this study is to identify the key Green information technology (IT) components needed to be considered by government-based institutions and to develop a Green policy framework based on the identified Green IT components to facilitate government-based institutions achieve sustainability.

The Green policy framework and associated propositions are developed to facilitate government-based institutions achieve sustainability. In addition, a case study approach was adopted to verify the proposed framework based on data collected from open-ended interviews and sustainability report documents from two government-based institutions in Malaysia. Furthermore, the collected data were analyzed based on content analysis using descriptive and narrative method to present the findings of Green IT components adopted in the selected case studies.

Findings show that sustainability considerations are increasingly being deliberated in institutions. Moreover, finding from the analyzed data also indicates that there is an increased interest towards implementation of Green IT initiatives for developing, operating and usage by practitioners and staff within government-based institutions.

Findings from this study suggest that the Green policy framework components have implications to support only government-based institutions address environmental, social and economic-related issues.

The developed Green IT components serve as robust indicators or constructs to measure management of Green IT initiatives currently being implemented and thereby provide a framework for sustainability committee members to benchmark their current Green IT practice.

This study provides an agenda to guide government-based institutions achieve sustainability goals. Accordingly, government-based institutions can adopt the framework’s components to evaluate their progress, hence improving their target of attaining sustainability. Besides, this research provides an approach for assessing current practices adopted in government-based institutions against the Green IT components.

The originality of this study is attributed to the fact that this study presents Green IT policy framework to be considered by government-based institutions in achieving sustainability. The framework provides an agenda to simultaneously consider all three dimensions of sustainability the people, planet and profit (social, environment and economic). Moreover, this is one of the first studies to explore Green IT practices in government-based institutions.

The purpose of this study is to examine the agency problem of expropriation using dividends in politically connected firms and the relevance of institutional investors in limiting this problem. The growing presence of this group of shareholders offers a unique opportunity to test their importance in the context of dividends payments and expropriation.

This study uses the Tobit regression to test the association between political connection, institutional investors and dividend payouts. The results are also robust to the three-stage-least squares regressions method.

The study is based on a random sample of 2,458 Malaysian firms-year observations for the period of 2004-2009. The results reveal that politically connected firms have an inclination to pay lower dividends, while institutional ownership is associated with higher dividend payouts. Furthermore, the findings reveal that higher levels of institutional ownership moderates the negative relationship between politically connected firms and dividends.

The findings have an important implication to regulators as it suggests that the institutional investors can influence the dividend payouts in politically connected firms through active monitoring, thus alleviating agency problems. This also provides a positive feedback on the regulators’ governance initiatives that quest to strengthen the roles of institutional investors.

This study is the first to examine the effectiveness of the monitoring role of institutional investors in the context of expropriation by politically connected firms from the perspective of dividend payouts.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether political connections further impair auditor independence by investigating the relationship between non-audit fees and audit fees and as to whether political connections moderate such relationship.

This study employs panel regression analysis. The panel data set consists of 379 firm-year observations for three years from year 2001 to 2003.

Based on 379 firm-year observations for the period of 2001-2003, grounded on two proxies of political connections namely politically connected firms and the proportion of Bumiputras directors, the authors find a positive and significant relationship between non-audit fees and audit fees, and the relationship becomes weaker, only for Bumiputra-dominated firms connected firms.

This study contributes to the extant literature by examining the role of political connections in the context of auditor independence. In addition, this study is conducted in Malaysia, which provides a unique institutional environment with the existence of political connections that is built on ethnic grounds.

This study aims to provide a comprehensive review of the existing literature on corporate governance (CG) aspects of the Malaysian market. It offers insights into the phases of Malaysian CG, identifies crucial gaps in the literature and outlines an agenda for impending research.

Following a systematic literature review approach, a final sample of 125 studies from Scopus and Web of Science databases was used in this study. These studies were selected based on quality assessment criteria. Then, the sample literature was evaluated in terms of journals, methodology, theories, modelling, research outcomes and CG characteristics.

The results show that there is a growing interest among researchers to further explore CG aspects in Malaysia due to the continuous development of the Malaysian CG codes. Likewise, the review reveals that the majority of prior studies are quantitative and were carried out using archived data from non-financial firms. Also, the existing literature has primarily focused on the outcomes of CG, especially firm performance.

Overall, the results show that there is ample room for future research. The present paper identifies a number of methodological problems and concerns, and discusses the implications of these problems, while also providing recommendations for future research. The main caveat is that the authors use scholarly papers published in academic journals only, but this approach offers them with opportunities for considerable further developments.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study contributes to the literature by being the first of its kind to concentrate on the Malaysian context. It provides a comprehensive knowledge assessment of the Malaysian CG research and offers advice regarding improvements in research, policy and practice by identifying possible knowledge gaps. Consequently, this study provides a cohesive story of the past and a road map for future research on Malaysian CG.