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A large number of East Asian economies have benefited from the diaspora employed in the large North American and European clusters. The diaspora acquired valuable skills, developed contacts and financial wealth. Much has been written about the professional and personal obstacles of brain circulation but scant work has been done to highlight the structural factors influencing brain circulation as well as diaspora strategies in the Malaysian context. This article aims to review the brain circulation theory and pertinent literature on Malaysian clusters and to highlight the structural factors inhibiting diaspora and flow of talent to Malaysia.

This is a discussion paper on the issues surrounding diaspora strategies.

On the basis of the review of successful diaspora of China, India, Korea and Taiwan, cluster organizations should take independent initiatives to contact the diaspora networks abroad in order to leverage their skills, contacts and finances through alumni and virtual networks.

Successful diaspora programs in China, Taiwan and India do not guarantee that imitation of those programs will result in success elsewhere.

The article reviews the pertinent literature and highlights the structural factors inhibiting diaspora and flow of talent to Malaysia.

The Malaysian Government through the interventionist stance created an enabling environment for SMEs. Deliberate efforts for economic development started in the form of Industrial Estates and Export Processing Zones since early 1990s. This paper is a brief account of government efforts and its result for cluster development, in the light of recent literature. It is found that despite consistent efforts, the Malaysian answer to Silicon Valley – Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) – could not become an industrial cluster in a strict manner of the term used in the industrial cluster literature. This review highlights an array of bottlenecks that impede the competitiveness of MSC. The critical observation is that the SME firms in this “constructed cluster” are not enjoying the benefits of co-location externalities rather consider government’s financial support as an important factor affecting their co-location decision. In the absence of the significant qualitative research in the Malaysian cluster milieu, the purpose of this paper is the unique attempt to compile the previous results of significant work on the MSC and proposes future directions of research on policy-led clusters.

This paper synthesized and arranged most recent literature on economic development efforts made by Malaysian Government. Furthermore, it highlights the issues faced by policy-led cluster of MSC.

There is scant research on policy-led clusters like MSC where government plays an instrumental role from conception of this ICT cluster to development of programs and initiatives for the sustainability of it. However, the review of recent studies indicates that MSC faces some limitations to perform as cluster. There is a strong evidence that firms are not enjoying the benefits of clustering rather are attracted toward the financial incentives offered by the government in return of the firms co-location decision.

The theoretical contribution of the review is that it signals the scarcity of both breadth and depth of literature on policy-driven cluster. Although, few notable attempts indicated how cluster initiatives influence the clusters, yet various dimensions need to be explored in order to reach the conclusive findings. The current review provides a strong foundation for further empirical research. For example, the other possible avenues could be, cluster evaluation practices in policy-led clusters; enablers and barriers to innovation in policy-led clusters; development of comprehensive indicators for principled engagement, shared motivation and joint actions in collaborative initiative development and the relational dimension of networks like technological distance between the focal firms and local SMEs.

The review highlights that government agencies and the firms in the policy-led clusters perceive the cluster initiatives differently. For government an initiative may be a success but for firms it may be just eyewash. This perceptual difference can disrupt the government efforts for this cluster. Firms are dependent on Multimedia Development Corporation. They consider themselves as a guest in the cluster and expect that government will provide everything. Mere presence/attendance of firms in the programs may not indicate the effectiveness of the initiative.

The prime objective of the review was to highlight an array of bottlenecks that impede the competitiveness of MSC to become an ICT cluster. Since there is a dearth of significant qualitative research in the Malaysian cluster milieu particularly with respect to cluster initiatives taken in MSC, this review therefore is a unique attempt that compiles the previous results of significant work on a policy-driven MSC (ICT cluster) and proposes future direction of research on policy-led clusters.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the remodeling of risk management, risk-averse mechanism and the importance of Basel-III framework to cope with the current financial challenges in the regime of post global financial crises of 2008-2011 by evidences in the banking sectors of emerging economies of Bahrain, the UAE and Pakistan.

To ensure deep understanding in this cross-cultural study, two fold data collection techniques are used; one through distribution of questionnaires to relevant staff members and second through personal interviews of selected risk officials. Respondents are selected on the basis of minimum five years banking experience and relevant professional education of finance or risk management. Multistage sampling technique is used for data collection. To ensure the consistency from respondents, personal interviews were conducted with an interval of six months after receipt of questionnaires. Various statistical and econometric techniques were used to test the study hypotheses and to satisfy the study objectives.

Based on statistical analysis and personal surveys, research findings concluded that banking sectors of study-countries have deep concern with potential risk challenges and they are in continuous process to improve risk measurement framework in accordance with the latest regulatory obligations. All three types of banks have clear understanding of RM practices and strong relationship is observed between predictors and endogenous variables. Respondent banks of study-countries have deep attentiveness to manage all key risks and they recommend to transform existing regulatory framework including Basel-III reforms to develop a more comprehensive “one-size-fits-all” regulatory framework to cover loopholes of existing financial system.

This study is limited to the findings of remodeling of risk management to cope with the new financial challenges for the banking sector. Empirical investigation is conducted in emerging economies of the sub-continent and gulf and evidences are obtained from the UAE, Bahrain and Pakistan. Following this research model, future research can be extended to enlarge the sample size, by including other regional countries or a comparison between eastern and western countries to make it more useful to understand the risk management strategies, minimize banking default risks and to make this significant economic sector more strengthen.

Respondent countries of this study are fast growing and emerging economies of the sub-continent and gulf. Results of this cross-cultural study are likely to be beneficial for credit analysts, bankers and academic researchers. Findings are also beneficial for local and international business investors while they are taking prudent investment decisions in respective capital markets.

This is the first comparative study to empirically investigate the RM practices and risk-averse mechanism in banking sectors of Bahrain, the UAE and Pakistan. In perspective of study-countries, a critical analysis on risk-averse mechanism and Basel-III regulatory implications is demonstrated in this study.