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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.

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.

The quality of GeOx–Ge interface and the equivalent oxide thickness (EOT) are the main issues in fabricating high-k/Ge gate stack due to the low-k of GeOx interfacial layer (IL). Therefore, a precise study of the formation of GeOx IL and its contribution to EOT is of utmost importance. In this study, the GeOx ILs were formed through post-oxidation annealing of sputtered Al₂O₃ on the Ge substrate. The purpose of this paper is to report on growth kinetics and composition of IL between Al₂O₃ and Ge for HCl- and HF-last Ge surface.

After wet chemical cleaning with HCl or HF, Al₂O₃ was grown onto the Ge surface by RF sputtering. Thickness and composition of IL formed after post-anneal deposition at 400°C in dry oxygen ambience were evaluated as a function of deposition time by FESEM and characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, respectively.

It was observed that the composition and thickness of IL were dependent on the starting surface and an aluminum germinate-like composition was formed during RF sputtering for both HF- and HCl-last starting surface.

The novelty of this work is to investigate the starting surface of Ge to IL growth between Al₂O₃/Ge that will lead to the improvement in Ge metal insulator field effect transistors (MISFETs) application.

The purpose of this study is to identify and review strategic government policies on agricultural financing in Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa. Four factors dictated the choice of these countries. In the first place, the study is set in African emerging markets – and the four countries are the widely acknowledged emerging markets in Africa (Onyiriuba, 2015). Secondly, the spread of the countries, to a large extent, mirrors Africa in general – Egypt and Morocco are in North Africa; Nigeria is a West African country; and, of course, South Africa. Thirdly, other countries in Africa tend to look up to the four countries, apparently as the largest economies in their respective regions. Needless to say, Nigeria alternates with South Africa as the largest economy in Africa. In this capacity, the two countries influence – indeed, mirror – continental Africa's emerging economic progress. Fourthly, lessons from agricultural policy and financing experiences of the four countries will certainly be useful to the other African countries. The specific objective of this paper is to determine how the government seeks to address the financing issues attendant on the risk-laden nature of agriculture through policy interventions. With this end in view, the paper analyses the strategic goals, objectives and beneficiaries of the agriculture financing policies of the government, as well as the constraints on access to finance by the farmers and the policy response.

The study involves a review of empirical literature and government policies on agricultural financing in Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa. The high risks in agriculture (Onyiriuba, 2015; Mordi, 1988), risk aversion behaviour of banks towards agricultural financing (Onyiriuba, 2015, 1990), and the reluctance of insurers to take on agricultural risks (World Bank, 2018; Federal Republic of Nigeria, 2016; Onyiriuba, 1990; Mordi, 1988) underpin this methodology. There are two other considerations: the needs to find out how government seeks to address the financing issues in agriculture through policy intervention, and to avoid unwieldy research, one that combines government and institutional policy perspectives on agriculture financing. Thus the study is not approached from the perspective of banks and other lending institutions; neither does it combine government and institutional policy perspectives. It rather focuses on government policy in order to properly situate implications of the findings.

The authorities seek to get rid of bottlenecks, ease participation and redress constraints on access to finance in agriculture through policy interventions as a means of sustainable economic growth. The findings are characteristic of emerging markets, rooted in the transitional challenge of opening economies, economic reforms and the March of progress. However, with agriculture and natural resources – rather than industrialisation – as the main stay of their economies, the African emerging markets face an uphill task in their development efforts. This is evident in the divergent and gloomy pictures in which the literature paints their agricultural economies.

Government should gear financing policies to boost output as a means of ensuring food security. It should address risk aversion tendencies among the lenders and feeble credit guarantee, subsidies and budgetary allocations to agriculture. This will ensure effective commitment of the lenders to agriculture and underpin agricultural insurance. However, it demands strengthening links in the chain of access to, and monitoring of, credit for agricultural production. A realistic policy response should target the rural economy – with youth, women and smallholder farmers as ultimate beneficiaries. These actions should be intensified as measures to boost farming and the rural economy.

Current literature fails to situate the empirical findings in emerging markets context, reflecting economies in transition. Besides, in its current state, the literature does not explicitly clarify that agriculture, like most other sectors in such economies, is bound to experience the observed financing constraints. Neither does it clearly reflect how and why the findings should be seen as fleeting realities of the March of progress in transitional economies. This study will help to fill the gap.

The purpose of this study is to investigate consumers’ cryptocurrency adoption through the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) and complexity theory.

By using a purposive sampling method, a configurational model was developed and a questionnaire-based survey was conducted to gather responses from a Malaysian sample. A total of 223 responses were obtained. Partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) were adopted to analyze the data.

The PLS-SEM indicated that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and affinity for technology interaction were positive cryptocurrency adoption predictors, whereas regulation was a negative predictor. Based on the fsQCA, cryptocurrency adoption could be explained by six configurational paths, which comprised combinations of the proposed causal conditions: the UTAUT factors (performance expectancy, effort expectancy, facilitating condition and social influence), environmental factor (regulation) and individual factors (financial knowledge and affinity for technology interaction).

This study offers contributions to the theoretical body of knowledge by articulating the relevance of extended UTAUT and extending the established UTAUT model by integrating external environment and personal factors, also showing the linear and nonlinear interplays of performance expectancy, effort expectancy, facilitating conditions, social influence, regulation, financial knowledge and affinity for technology interaction.

The findings facilitated practitioners’ (cryptocurrency brokers, governments and businesses) fostering of cryptocurrency adoption through the joint consideration of different factors. The factors spanned technological attributes and individual characteristics to regulation. Practitioners should acknowledge that different combinations of the aforementioned antecedents can be equally effective to increase cryptocurrency adoption. The findings suggested that these causal conditions should be considered holistically and that there is no best predictor.

In social terms, the research is expected to contribute to the dissemination of cryptocurrencies and help governments and central banks to develop, regulate and supervise digital currencies, as well as in the implementation of a digital currency ecosystem aligned with sustainable development goals. Economically, the results might foster a high cryptocurrency adoption rate and stimulate crypto-token-based business models and investment opportunities that present new means of revenue generation at individual, organizational and national levels.

This study offers unique perspectives for the body of knowledge and practice in the cryptocurrency domain, using both symmetric and asymmetric methodologies, by delineating the configurational logic involving technological capabilities, social influences, regulation and individual characteristics in facilitating more efficacious dissemination of cryptocurrencies.

This paper aims to evaluate the awareness level of university students on energy conservation by focusing on their knowledge, attitude and practice. Energy awareness is a feasible energy conservation measure, but an inappropriate approach can cause the wastage of resources. The current number of reported awareness studies especially among the university student is quite limited, and focus is more given to the awareness on renewable energy, instead of energy conservation.

A paper-based survey using a set of questionnaires that involved 2,857 respondents. There are four sections in this questionnaire, which are basic background information of respondents, knowledge (yes/true or no/false choice of responses), attitude (a scale of 1–10, where 10 indicates “strongly agree” and 1 chooses “strongly disagree”) and practices (a scale of 1–10, where 10 indicates “Always” and 1 selects “Never”). The evaluation includes the correlation analysis of all awareness variables with an educational background to disclose the most critical aspects that should be highly considered in the forthcoming awareness campaign.

This research revealed that university students have a high level of awareness of energy conservation. They hold a high knowledge level and show a positive attitude with very good energy conservation practices. However, some issues require serious attention in preparing energy management plans. Effective approaches should be taken by considering the field of study, gender and family economic status to enhance the awareness level of the university students on energy conservation.

The absence of appropriate references complicates the preparation of energy management plans including the establishment of energy policy and strategies. The findings of this research can contribute some contextual information in the local perspective to ensure the effectiveness of the energy management program and strengthen academic leadership by emphasising the element of sustainability. This is crucial for developing an energy saving culture among the young generation that will be our future scholars and leaders.

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.

This present aims to present the numerical study of the unsteady stretching/shrinking flow of a fluid-particle suspension in the presence of the constant suction and dust particle slip on the surface.

The governing partial differential equations for the two phases flows of the fluid and the dust particles are reduced to the pertinent ordinary differential equations using a similarity transformation. The numerical results are obtained using the bvp4c function in the Matlab software.

The results revealed that in the decelerating shrinking flow, the wall skin friction is higher in the dusty fluid when compared to the clean fluid. In addition, the effect of the fluid-particle interaction parameter to the fluid-phase can be seen more clearly in the shrinking flow. Other non-dimensional physical parameters such as the unsteadiness parameter, the mass suction parameter, the viscosity ratio parameter, the particle slip parameter and the particle loading parameter are also considered and presented in figures. Further, the second solution is discovered in this problem and the solution expanded with higher unsteadiness and suction values. Hence, the stability analysis is performed, and it is confirmed that the second solution is unstable.

In practice, the flow conditions are commonly varying with time; thus, the study of the unsteady flow is very crucial and useful. The problem of unsteady flow of a dusty fluid has a wide range of possible applications such as in the centrifugal separation of particles, sedimentation and underground disposable of radioactive waste materials.

Even though the problem of dusty fluid has been broadly investigated, limited discoveries can be found over an unsteady shrinking flow. Indeed, this paper managed to obtain the second (dual) solutions, and stability analysis is performed. Furthermore, the authors also considered the artificial particle-phase viscosity, which is an important term to study the particle-particle and particle-wall interactions. With the addition of this term, the effects of the particle slip and suction parameters can be investigated. Very few studies in the dusty fluid embedded this parameter in their problems.

Academic vitality and burnout studies can help the university administrators and lecturers to develop a quality education and provide more conducive working environments. Hence, understanding and fostering what contributes to faculty and institutional vitality is central to prevent burnout during times of change. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to investigate the level of vitality amongst lecturers in Malaysia and to see if there is any significant difference in vitality between the subgroups of the demographic variables.

The study was conducted on 379 academicians from selected public and private universities, polytechnics and university colleges. Data were collected via Survey Monkey application. Descriptive analysis was conducted where mean values, standard deviation and median were calculated. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to see whether there is significant difference in vitality between the subgroups of the demographic. Additionally, Box and Whiskers plot was used to analyse the outliers to further scrutinise the extremely low mean scores. Open ended responses were also analysed to support the statistical analysis.

Results obtained reveal that almost 25% of the respondents indicate high vitality; another 25% are moderately vital; while about 50% fall under the group of low to very low vitality. Only administrative posts were found to have a significant difference in overall vitality, while age, gender, number of children, income level, working experience and teaching field showed no significant difference.

This paper differs from other previous studies as it defined the different levels of vitality amongst academics based on quartiles. One important contribution of this paper is the use of the slider scale with percentage as the scoring units that provide an infinitesimal rating option that enriches the collected data and enables application of mathematical operations, such as the mean. The use of this slider scale had also facilitated the analysis of outliers due to the scale’s discriminative feature to scrutinise those considered as outliers.

The Malaysian economy is expected to face another tumultuous year in 2019. It has been reported more than 21,000 people lost their jobs in 2018, half of whom were in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur. This rising unemployment gravely affects a person’s source of income, particularly when he/she is the sole breadwinner of the family. It further leads to the inability to pay one’s monthly commitments such as home, personal and car financing. Notwithstanding the above situation, Sharīʿah encourages leniency on the part of the creditor, that is, when the debtor is in a difficulty, to grant him/her time until it is easy for him/her to pay. Nonetheless, in Malaysia, the inability to pay debt or non-performing loan/financing entitles the financial institutions (both conventional banks and Islamic financial institutions) to proceed with legal proceedings in civil court It is trite that Islamic financing in Malaysia is governed by Sharīʿah principles and legislations, which are conventional in nature; and contractual rights and duties involving Islamic finance are enforceable in the civil court of law. This chapter examines procedural laws governing the event of default of Islamic financing in Malaysia. The methodology adopted in this chapter is doctrinal legal analysis whereby the relevant laws, namely, Rules of Court 2012, Insolvency Act 1967, Limitation Act 1953, Evidence Act 1950, Court of Judicature Act 1964 and the National Land Code 1965 are analysed in addition to the relevant case law. The study reveals that while some of the provisions are sufficient to regulate the event of default of Islamic financing, the laws are largely inadequate. The chapter also finds a significant number of legal issues and challenges relating to event of default in Islamic financing, which require legal reform.