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First of two papers which investigate the factors that influence drycleaning performance of commercially available pigskin apparel. Examines two drycleaning solvents and two drycleaning treatments on two colours of pigskin suede and two interlinings. Latent defects were found related to hide selection and processing which may affect apparel performance and consumer satisfaction. When the bond between leather and interlining was permanent, variation in shrinkage was reduced but distortion of garment parts may occur because of differential shrinkage. Pilling of one interlining was so severe it would interfere with overall performance of garments. Manufacturer's recommendation for selection of interlining was not a reliable predictor of performance.

This paper aims to discuss the topic of financial speculation with special reference to forex and offers an analysis from the Maqasid Al-Shari’ah perspective, whereby authors propose to limit the outreach of speculative instruments in the financial markets.

The authors will make use of a simple textual analysis of existing materials and documents. To come up with conclusions, relevant to this study and to make them credible enough, the authors will undertake to review the existing literature in the next part of the paper and will later present his analysis of findings in light of financial crises and the objectives of Shari’ah.

The Maqasid Al-Shari’ah approach used in the analysis suggests that speculative financial instruments do not constitute a necessity, and their harmful practice must be limited to protect the religion, life, lineage, intellect and property.

Financial speculation in general and foreign exchange in particular must be regulated. Their current practices of financial system pose significant challenges for entire economies as well as individuals. Muslims should also avoid speculative financial instruments, such as forex, because they are a clear threat to individual and state wealth and prosperity. In addition, they threaten traditional businesses and social norms in Muslim societies.

Andrew Williams and I have argued since the early 1990s that not only have equity (and subsequently most other assets classes) come to be dominated by institutional ownership of various types, an observation that many have made and documented at length, but that the majority of those institutions are fiduciary ones (primarily pension and mutual funds in the United States). More recently pension and mutual funds have been the source of the majority of funds for many ‘alternative’ investments, such as hedge funds, private equity and commodity funds. In the last two decades there have been parallel developments in other countries, although the form of the institutional investors vary widely, from fiduciary ones mostly in common law countries to fiduciary-like ones in many civil law jurisdictions (e.g. the Netherlands), to some sovereign wealth funds (e.g. Norway and Australia and some others) which do not have fiduciary obligations as such, but in their legal mandates and practices are structured much like those that are fiduciary or fiduciary like. As discussed below, all these (in addition to some other large institutional owners) are universal owners, that is, they own a representative cross section of their investment universe (which increasingly is a global universe). Given their ownership structure characterised by a large degree of diversification, universal owners' long-term interests to a large degree coincide with the economy as a whole.

This study aims to investigate the Malaysian retail investors and fund managers’ investment decision behaviours. The study offers an important opportunity for understanding the investors’ experiences, how they understand the Malaysian economy and their priorities for company selection. Other main aspects of this study are how investors mitigate the influence of emotions and psychological biases and challenges faced during investment decisions.

The researchers have mainly adopted an interpretivist approach for the present study. Qualitative data elicited through semi-structured interviews conducted with four retail investors and four fund managers were subjected to qualitative thematic analysis.

The results reveal that the investment decision processes of fund managers are more comprehensive than those of retail investors. Although both fund managers and retail investors acknowledge the influence of psychological biases on their investment decisions, the former use different and comprehensive approaches to mitigate such influences during investment decisions compared with the latter. Other important findings are how investors understand the Malaysian economy, their priorities for company selection and challenges faced during investment decisions.

The researchers have interviewed eight carefully selected interviewees across retail investors and fund managers divide. Adopting other grouping criteria, focus group discussion with more respondents or adopting a mixed-methods approach may increase our understanding of the investment decision behaviours of Malaysian retail investors and fund managers.

This study could be used as a guide by both retail investors and fund managers when making investment decisions.

This research has included both retail investors and fund managers; it has also increased literature on investment decision and behavioural finance, particularly in the context of Malaysian investors and managers.

Intellectual humility and religious conviction are often posed as antagonistic binaries; the former associated with science, reason, inclusive universality, and liberal secularism, the latter with superstition, dogma, exclusive particularity, and rigid traditionalism. Despite popular images of white American evangelicals as the embodied antithesis of intellectual humility, responsiveness to facts, and openness to the other, this article demonstrates how evangelicals can and do practice intellectual humility in public life while simultaneously holding fast to particularistic religious convictions. Drawing on textual analysis and multi-site ethnographic data, it demonstrates how observed evangelical practices of transposable and segmented reflexivity map onto pluralist, domain-specific conceptualizations of intellectual humility in the philosophical and psychological literature. It further argues that the effective practice of intellectual humility in the interests of ethical democracy does not require religious actors to abandon particularistic religious reasons for universal secular ones. Rather, particularistic religious convictions can motivate effective practices of intellectual humility and thereby support democratic pluralism, inclusivity, and solidarity across difference. More broadly, it aims to challenge, or at least complicate, the widespread notion that increasing strength of religious conviction always moves in lockstep with increasing dogmatism, tribalism, and intellectual unreasonableness.

The purpose of this paper is to report on a program being developed by the Texas A&M University business librarians to employ a street team construct to promote the resources and services of the Texas A&M University's West Campus Business Library and to leverage the importance of “peer relationship” so evident in today's university student.

The paper is a descriptive analysis of the program.

This unique marketing program seeks to increase the awareness of Texas A&M University business students to the resources and services of the West Campus Business Library. By tapping into the youthful energy of these very students, the program proposes to utilize cutting edge cultural and social trends that are aimed to improve communications with its most important customers.

The program seeks to improve communication with students at an extremely low cost.

Discussion includes the rationale for adopting the guerilla marketing technique of street teams, the program planning process, and a discussion of assessment strategies.

The purpose of this exploratory study is to examine the perceptions of Saudi university accounting students of the importance of developing generic skills in their accounting education, the levels of competence they should acquire and expect to achieve during the academic study, and the constraints that may hinder the development of generic skills in accounting education.

The study uses the skills outlined in the IFAC’s International Education Standards (IES) 3 (intellectual, personal, organizational and business management, and interpersonal and communication) and IES 4 (ethics in accounting/business). A survey questionnaire was used to collect the data.

The findings show that students perceived all five generic skill categories to be important, with ethical skills rated as the most important. However, the students expected that they would achieve a somewhat lower level of generic skill by the end of their studies in all areas, and they perceived a number of constraints that impede their skill development. The results indicate the importance of developing generic skills in accounting education and suggest that the Saudi accounting education system could do more to provide students with opportunities to develop generic skills to enable them to succeed in their future careers.

As little of the current literature has focused on generic skills in accounting education in a non-Western country, this research contributes to the literature on generic skills in a developing nation.

This study aims to examine the influence of attitude, subjective norm and adherence to Islamic professional ethics on fraud intention in financial reporting among Muslim accounting practitioners in the Malaysian banking institutions.

A questionnaire was used for a sample of 121 Muslim accounting practitioners who are participants in the financial reporting process of Malaysian banking institutions. The data are analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling.

The study found that attitude and subjective norms are positively significant in influencing fraud intention in financial reporting. In other words, the more the respondents were in favour of fraud and perceived that their referent groups would approve or support the behaviour, the stronger their intentions to commit fraud. On the other hand, the result for Islamic professional ethics is insignificant, which indicates that the Muslim accounting practitioners may not be significantly influenced by the Islamic code of professional ethics on their intention towards fraud in financial reporting.

The study adds to the scant literature investigating factors influencing Malaysian accounting practitioners’ intentions for fraud in financial reporting in the banking sector. The limitations include the use of scenario leading to the issue of social desirability bias and the use of purposive sampling technique that limits the generalizability of the results.

The findings provide potential avenues for Malaysian banking sector managers to enhance their recruitment and training programmes and give some insights to the public, especially the banks shareholders and depositors, into the fraud in financial reporting intention of the actual participants in the financial reporting process.

To the author’s knowledge, this paper is the first to examine, in the Malaysian banking setting, the influence of attitude, subjective norms and adherence to Islamic professional ethics on the fraud intention in financial reporting among accounting practitioners. There are few investigations to date on the factors of influencing or mitigating the accounting practitioners’ intention to commit fraudulent reporting.