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This paper aims to explore the human resource (HR) challenges faced by hotel managers in Langkawi due to the implementation of the minimum wage order (MWO).

This study collected qualitative data from 18 managers and two owners from 19 hotels of various sizes and levels of service, including budget and boutique resorts on Langkawi Island, Malaysia. A semi-structured interview was used to ask the question “What are the challenges faced by hotel managers due to the implementation of an MWO?”

The challenges faced by the managers are: low employee productivity levels, many employees with a salary below the minimum wage rate, difficulty paying staff because of low revenue and conflicting laws and guidelines relating to the issues related to the service charge.

This study provides an initial qualitative exploration of an important current legal development bearing on hotel managers in Malaysia. It provides some initial findings from Langkawi, but the findings may not represent the attitudes of hotel managers in other parts of Malaysia.

This study contributes to HR management literature by providing an insight into challenges faced by hotel managers in a developing country. To the managers, the MWO guideline is a serious challenge, as some of their employees are not productive enough to be paid at the minimum wage rate. To address the increasing labour cost, some have turned to the employment of foreign workers, whereas others have increased their casual employee numbers. These insights may serve to guide policy-makers and hotel managers in other developing countries that are planning to introduce an MWO.

For the MWO to be effective, it is crucial for the government to develop effective guidelines for its implementation and for hotel employees amongst the Langkawi community to increase their level of productivity.

The Malaysian MWO policy was introduced in 2012. The policy affects employees’ remuneration and provides a challenge in implementation for the Malaysian hotel industry, especially in Langkawi. Although many studies on MWO implementation have focused on unemployment, this study provides the managers’ perspective on the challenges faced due to the implementation of this policy and identifies reasons why the unemployment rate for local workers may increase after the implementation of an MWO.

In response to the housing needs of its people, Malaysia has allowed private housing developer companies to build houses on a sell-then-build basis. Despite having legislation designed to protect the interests of purchasers, insolvent housing developers have left behind many uncompleted housing projects with their land charged to financial institutions. Consequently, the affected purchasers will lose their houses when those financial institutions foreclose on the land in the housing projects. In addition, those purchasers remain legally obligated to repay loans taken to finance their house purchase. The housing development laws lack provisions to rehabilitate abandoned housing projects. The purpose of this paper is to explore the viability of rescue mechanisms in the Companies Act 2016, being corporate voluntary arrangement (CVA), judicial management (JM) and schemes of arrangement (SOA), to aid in the rehabilitation of abandoned housing projects in Peninsular Malaysia.

Doctrinal research is adopted in this paper.

This research highlights the flexibility of the SOA as a tool to rehabilitate abandoned housing projects. This research also reveals the potential of CVA and in particular, JM with its “public interest” feature, as useful rehabilitation mechanisms once the proposed reforms are adopted.

The authors are hopeful that the suggested reforms will enhance the value of all three rescue mechanisms as rehabilitation tools for abandoned housing projects so as to alleviate the plight of house purchasers.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of using information and communication technology (ICT) on retail property in Malaysia. It also examines what listed property companies perceive in terms of the implications of using ICT in the retail property sector in Malaysia.

Data were collected from sample surveys completed by 79 property companies listed on the Bursa Malaysia (formerly known as the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange). An ICT retail impact matrix was then developed to assess the significance of ICT on retail property in Malaysia.

The findings of the study revealed that ICT would have only a minor impact on retail property in Malaysia and that there would still be a need for the traditional means of conducting a retail property business. It also found that the listed property companies were ready to implement ICT applications and that the demand for retail property would still increase in Malaysia in the future.

Only 66 percent of listed property companies in Malaysia (the respondents) participated in the study.

This paper seeks to look at the impact ICT has on retail property in Malaysia. For this purpose, an ICT retail impact matrix was developed to assess this impact. As such, this study will be used as a benchmark for future ICT studies relating to retail property and the real estate sector in Malaysia.

This study aims to design a set of sustainability indicators that is pertinent to cooperatives longevity. The primary goal of the cooperatives is towards meeting the economic progress of members while satisfying their socio-cultural interests and protecting the environment. As a sustainable and participatory form of business, cooperatives offer an alternative business model to social enterprises.

Using an extraction process analysis, this study examined and analyzed guidelines, indices, and framework on sustainability used by the public companies. The selected materials were analyzed using Atlas.ti software, whereby common indicators were divided into themes. The indicators were further scrutinized to suit the cooperatives identity and local regulations.

The results are presented as indicators for cooperatives sustainability that could serve as strategies and performance measurement. Promotion and expansion of cooperatives could be an important instrument for more than one billion people around the world involved in cooperatives either as members/customers, employees/participants, or both.

This work extends and complements the on-going efforts in uplifting the cooperatives sector as the third engine of economic growth in Malaysia. It contributes towards enriching the knowledge of the relationship between sustainable development and sustainability and its influence towards the cooperative sector. It may also provide the building blocks for future studies that could explore the usefulness of these indicators to other business setting having a similar objective like the cooperatives.

The purpose of the study is to identify factors influencing the continuance of use of non-halal certified cosmetics among Muslim university students in Malaysia.

The research framework was developed based on the stimulus–organism–response model. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed using a purposive sampling method among Muslim students in three universities in Malaysia. A total of 501 usable data were collected and analysed using Smart partial least squares.

The analysis revealed that celebrity endorsement positively influences attitude and brand image. Meanwhile, brand image has a positive effect on attitude and continuance of use of non-halal certified cosmetics. Additionally, attitude has a positive effect on the continuance of use behaviour. Regarding predictive power enhancement, brand image and attitude were found to have a mediation effect and sequential mediation effect on the relationship between celebrity endorsement and the continuance of use behaviour. Attitude weakens the relationship between attitude and the continuance of use of non-halal cosmetics among Muslim university students in Malaysia.

Findings will primarily benefit halal and non-halal cosmetic manufacturers providing stakeholders with fundamental predicting information related to customers’ continuance of use thus resulting in better marketing strategies.

This study is focused on predicting consumer behaviour towards halal products, as well as young Muslim consumers’ perspective towards non-halal cosmetics. Celebrity endorsement is introduced as a stimulus in the context of Muslim university students to predict their continuance of use behaviour of non-halal certified cosmetics. The investigation includes the moderating effect of religiosity for the relationship between attitude and continuance behaviour. Findings reveal the mediating effects of brand image and attitude as a mediator and sequential mediator for the relationship between celebrity endorsement and continuance of use behaviour. Contributions enrich the literature related to non-halal certified contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to numerically study the boundary layer problem for the case of two-dimensional flow of dusty fluid over a shrinking surface in the presence of the fluid suction at the surface.

The governing equations of the problem are reduced to the system of ordinary differential equations using the similarity transformation and then solved using the bvp4c method in the Matlab software.

The effects of the drag coefficient parameter L, the fluid–particle interaction parameter δ, the suction parameter s and the particle loading parameter ω on the flow of the permeable shrinking sheet are investigated. It is found that the aforementioned parameters have different effects in the shrinking sheet flow. This study has also succeeded in discovering the second solution, and through the stability analysis, it is suggested that the solution is unstable and not physically realizable in practice.

The current findings add to a growing body of literature on the boundary layer problem in the dusty fluid. The dusty fluid is significant in various practical applications such as in the transporting suspended powdered materials through pipes, propulsion and combustion in rockets, the flow of blood in arteries, wastewater treatment and as corrosive particles in engine oil flow.

Even though the dusty fluid problem has been extensively studied in the flow of the stretching sheet, limited findings can be found over a shrinking flow. In fact, this is the first study to discover the second solution in the dusty fluid problem.

High rate of accidents continue to plague the construction industry. The advancements in safety technologies can ameliorate construction health and safety (H&S). This paper aims to explore the use of emerging technologies as an effective solution for improving safety in construction projects.

Following a detailed literature review, a questionnaire survey was developed encompassing ten technologies for safety management and ten safety enablers using technologies in construction. A total of 133 responses were gathered from Malaysian construction practitioners. The collected quantitative data were subjected to descriptive and inferential statistical analyses to determine the meaningful relationships between the variables.

Findings revealed that the most effective emerging technologies for safety management are: building information modelling (BIM), wearable safety technologies and robotics and automation (R&A). The leading safety enablers are related to improve hazard identification, reinforce safety planning, enhance safety inspection, enhance safety monitoring and supervision and raise safety awareness.

Safety is immensely essential in transforming the construction industry into a robustly developed industry with high safety and quality standards. The adoption of safety technologies in construction projects can drive the industry towards the path of Construction 4.0.

The construction industry has historically been slow to adopt new technology. This study contributes to advancing the body of knowledge in the area of incorporating emerging technologies to further construction safety science and management in the context of the developing world. By taking cognisance of the pertinent emerging technologies for safety management and the safety enablers involved, construction safety can be enhanced using integrated technological solutions.

This paper aims to provide an analytical literature survey of selective studies on legal documentation in Islamic home financing with particular reference to Malaysia.

This study adopts the legal positivist methodology, with particular reference to inclusive legal positivism which takes into consideration the possibility of moral values challenging positive law. Within the context of this study, though positive law provides for rules that govern contractual matters in Islamic home financing, standardisation is a functionality of maslahah (or public interest) which transcends the mandatory provisions of positive law but helps to protect the interest of all stakeholders. This is analysed through a systematic literature review which aims to provide practical insights into industry practices relating to Islamic home financing in Malaysia.

This paper provides information on the standard documentation used by conventional banks and existing practices of diverse models of legal documentation in the home financing sector within the Islamic financial services industry in Malaysia. It also recognises the need for standard documentation that is not only Sharīʿah-compliant but also consumer-friendly, as the terms of any standard financing agreement ought to ensure consumer protection. There is also the need for a Shari’ah-compliant Sales and Purchase Agreement, as it forms part of the complete set of legal documentation for Islamic home financing.

It is not an exhaustive study, as it did not consider practices in other jurisdictions offering Islamic financial services and products but only focusses on Malaysia. Though one may not generalise the findings of this study, Malaysia remains a leading model and a global hub for Islamic financial services and products.

A very useful source of information on the current state of legal documentation in Islamic home financing in Malaysia and the prevailing practices in the industry, which may serve as a guide for policymakers such as the Association of Islamic Banks in Malaysia (AIBIM) to embark on a full scale project of standardisation of all the legal documentation used in Islamic home financing.

This study fulfils an identified need of standardisation of legal documentation used in Islamic home financing in Malaysia and offers practical help to policymakers and future researchers starting out on systemic reforms.

Given the emerging nature of integrating blockchain into food traceability systems, this study aims to investigate the intention to participate in a blockchain-based Halal traceability system through a united model that consists of Halal orientation strategy, institutional theory and diffusion of innovation theory.

A sample that consists of 143 Malaysian Halal food and beverage manufacturers was drawn from Halal Malaysia Official Portal using the simple random sampling technique. The responses were collected from the key managerial personnel with experience and knowledge on the Halal supply chain using phone interviews. Subsequently, the partial least squares structural equation modelling approach was then used to analyse the theoretical model.

The manufacturers would go through a chain of the process before deciding to participate in the traceability system. Firstly, the manufacturers which practice a comprehensive Halal orientation strategy will be more perceptive towards the institutional pressures that demand them to participate in a traceability system. Secondly, in response to the pressures, the manufacturers would evaluate the technological characteristics of the system and subsequently develop their perceived desirability. Thirdly, the manufacturers with favourable perceived desirability shall decide to participate in the system.

This study advances the current literature of Halal supply chain, information systems, operations management and blockchain through an integrated model that could explain 73.19% of the variance in intention to participate.