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The main purpose of this paper is to examine the direct effects of knowledge sharing and systems thinking on creativity and organizational sustainability in the hotel industry in Malaysia. In addition, the study aims to examine the mediation effect of creativity between knowledge sharing, systems thinking and organizational sustainability.

A survey method based on a questionnaire was used to gather data from 407 middle managers in the hotel industry in Malaysia. The partial least squares technique was used to examine the hypotheses.

The study found support for the effects of systems thinking and knowledge sharing on organizational sustainability. It also found support for the impact of creativity on organizational sustainability. Besides, the mediating role of creativity between systems thinking and organizational sustainability, and between knowledge sharing and organizational sustainability was also supported by data.

This is a pioneer work that has combined various human resources (i.e. systems thinking, knowledge sharing, creativity) to examine their impacts on organizational sustainability. Moreover, this work has established comparatively new relationships, i.e. the impact of systems thinking and knowledge sharing on creativity and organizational sustainability. In addition, the mediation role of creativity between systems thinking, knowledge sharing and organizational sustainability is relatively new in the literature. Furthermore, this study has confirmed the validity and reliability of knowledge sharing and organizational sustainability at first and second orders in the hotel industry in non-Western context.

This paper aims to present an efficient design approach for the micro electromechanical systems (MEMS) accelerometers considering design parameters affecting the long-term reliability of these inertial sensors in comparison to traditional iterative microfabrication and experimental characterization approach.

A dual-axis capacitive MEMS accelerometer design is presented considering the microfabrication process constraints of the foundry process. The performance of the MEMS accelerometer is analyzed through finite element method– based simulations considering main design parameters affecting the long-term reliability. The effect of microfabrication process induced residual stress, operating pressure variations in the range of 10 mTorr to atmospheric pressure, thermal variations in the operating temperature range of −40°C to 100°C and impulsive input acceleration at different input frequency values is presented in detail.

The effect of residual stress is negligible on performance of the MEMS accelerometer due to efficient design of mechanical suspension beams. The effect of operating temperature and pressure variations is negligible on energy loss factor. The thermal strain at high temperature causes the sensing plates to deform out of plane. The input dynamic acceleration range is 34 g at room temperature, which decreases with operating temperature variations. At low frequency input acceleration, the input acts as a quasi-static load, whereas at high frequency, it acts as a dynamic load for the MEMS accelerometer.

In comparison with the traditional MEMS accelerometer design approaches, the proposed design approach focuses on the analysis of critical design parameters that affect the long-term reliability of MEMS accelerometer.

This study aims to examine the role of institutional investors (using proxy voting and voice) in influencing the decisions and governance landscape of their investee firms.

The authors use exploratory research design due to the underdevelopment of the problem phenomena, especially in the context of emerging economies. Using asset management companies (AMC) as a proxy for institutional investors, the authors use a multiple case study design. This design was relevant in the setting as it assured triangulation by studying the same phenomenon across firms with distinct characteristics. The authors sourced the data for the multiple cases from primary sources (such as semi-structured interviews) and secondary sources (such as official Webpages and social media pages of AMC and examination of archival documents). Finally, the authors used qualitative content analysis to analyse the data.

The findings suggest that shareholder activism by institutional investors has grown in India over the period, particularly in matters related to corporate governance, related party transactions, remuneration and compensation. These AMC in India use proxy voting services for advising on voting resolutions in their investee companies. However, voting by AMC does not generally affect resolution results. This is particularly true in the presence of a high concentration of promoter holdings in investee companies.

The study is a novel attempt in an emerging market context to explore the role of institutional investors in influencing firm decisions and improving the governance landscape of the company using proxy voting and voice. This is especially important as the institutional framework in emerging markets is not as strong as in developed markets.

Introduction – In today’s intense competitive environment, businesses that want to have a sustainable competitive advantage must put the customer at the centre of all their activities and create customer loyalty by offering products and services that will provide customer satisfaction. One of the key elements of ensuring customer satisfaction is the effective handling of customer complaints, which is defined as the customers expressing their dissatisfaction with unmet expectations and unsatisfied needs verbally or in writing. The concept of a complaint as a response of customers’ dissatisfaction with the products and services they experience is an invaluable feedback mechanism for businesses to resolve issues relating to their products and services.

Aim – The aim of this chapter is to emphasise the importance of the concept of complaint as an important part of customer relations management and an effective marketing tool for the tourism sector. As a service sub-sector, the simultaneous production and consumption of services in the tourism sector ensures customer satisfaction more than concrete products, due to their inseparable nature. For this reason, handling, evaluating and finalising customer complaints has an important function and value in providing the necessary information for tourism enterprises to become aware of their deficiencies and mistakes. Complaint management has started to play an even more critical role for the tourism industry in preventing customer losses due to dissatisfaction, especially considering the shrinkage in demand in the sector due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Method – Firstly the concept of complaint and the importance of complaints for businesses were explained, customer complaint behaviour and the factors affecting this behaviour were examined in detail, the concept of online complaint was mentioned and the subject was evaluated in terms of tourism businesses.

Results – While the effective management and resolution of complaints should be seen as a goal by every tourism business, it is vital that they understand customer complaint behaviours, the factors affecting this behaviour and how complaints should be managed in a way that will result in favour of the business.

Conclusion – A complaint management process that enables customers to easily report their complaints to businesses and produces solutions as soon as possible will positively affect customer satisfaction. In this context, in order to reduce the negative effects on tourism enterprises, especially through the pandemic, business need to have clear and easy-to-access procedures, provide a quick response, show reliability and consistency in providing a solution, keeping the complainant informed of progress, have employees who can communicate with empathy and courtesy, have enough employees to deal with the situation, and adopt proactive approaches to prevent complaints rather than reducing the volume of complaints.

Originality/Value – This research contributes to the literature in terms of complaining behaviour, examining the factors affecting this behaviour and emphasising the importance of the concept of complaints in the tourism sector. In addition, the research is important in terms of examining the contributions of an effective complaint management system in reducing the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the tourism sector, which is one of the sectors mostly affected on a global scale.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the shariah-compliant status of the firms negatively influences their use of foreign exchange hedging instruments.

This paper uses a logit panel regression on 350 firm-year observations from 70 nonfinancial listed firms over the period from 2010 to 2014. Shariah-compliant companies account for about 84 per cent of the sample firms.

Preliminarily, the results show that none of the samples of the shariah-compliant firms report any use of Islamic hedging instrument, either in the form of wa’d or tawarruq. The results of the study’s logit panel regression contradict the authors’ prediction that the shariah-compliant status negatively influences firms’ decision to hedge. In contrast, shariah-compliant companies are twice as likely as their conventional counterparts in adopting forex hedging.

This study is limited to information disclosed in the items 31, 36 and 37 of financial management policies in the annual report. However, given that shariah-compliant firms must abide by the limit of 5 per cent profits before tax from clearly prohibited activities (including riba’), the need for exclusive disclosure on the adoption of Islamic or conventional hedging appears to be imperative for the viability of the Malaysian Islamic capital market.

In evaluating the shariah compliance of a company, investors (individual or institutional) must look further than just interest-based riba’ in mixed-business companies to ensure that they comply with the 5 per cent maximum requirement on the non-halal business contribution to profit. This is because the finding of this study indicates that shariah-compliant companies are twice as likely to adopt forex hedging, when none of them reports the use of Islamic hedging tools. Investors must therefore give ample allowance to riba’ that can be induced through the use of conventional forex hedging instruments. This is until the security market regulator imposes a requirement on shariah-compliant companies an explicit disclosure of the use of Islamic versus conventional hedging tools, as they had done in the case of Islamic versus conventional debt instruments.

Muslim and socially responsible investors rely on the Shariah-compliant status of the company in ensuring that their wealth grows according to the Shariah principles. To sustain and develop the Islamic capital market which the firms have been relying on for external capital, Shariah-compliant firms and the authority awarding the status are equally responsible for honoring the trust that these investors by ensuring the permissibility (halal) of the business and the conduct of their business.

Conventional forex hedging instruments are criticized for violating as-sarf, a shariah principle, which requires the exchanges of particular assets (gold, silver and currency) to be delivered on the spot, and thereby infusing riba’ al-fadhl. Although Islamic (wa’d- or tawarruq-based) hedging instruments are widely available by Islamic banks in this country since they were introduced by Bank Negara Malaysia in 2010, paradoxically, the authors’ observation indicates that none of the studied firms reports the adoption of these instruments in their annual reports.

The purpose of this paper is to conduct to investigate the factors that enhance employee's performance at workplace. To observe intrinsic feature capacity building and extrinsic features such as supervisory support and organizational support for career development (OSCD) role in employee's productivity.

Quantitative research approach was used; middle level employees of banking industry were selected for analyzing this concept. Reliability and validly of 45 items were ensured and SPSS version 20 was used for model testing by multiple regression analysis technique.

Research outcomes depict that supervisory support and OSCD development does not impact significantly on employees performance of banking sector, whereas capacity building of an individual employee leads to enhance his/her performance.

Capacity building of employee's leads to enhance performance as justified by this research, however, cannot be achieved without providing support for career development to their employees. Therefore, impact of organizational support on capacity building of employee's may be interest corner for researchers.

Observed capacity building positive has impact on employee's performance along with the external factors with statistically significant measures.

The purpose of this paper is to measure the technical efficiency and growth trajectory of Bangladeshi and Indonesian microfinance institutions (MFIs). The motivation for this study was derived from crucial roles that these institutions play in the socio-economic transformation of any nations, especially Bangladesh and Indonesia which are at least prominent in the Asian context in this regard. Rather than “proving” impact, research endeavors have shifted to focusing on “improving” the impact of MFIs, because the ability to improve their impact as socio-economic transformation platform may be hinged on their efficiency over time.

Data were obtained from MIX market database covering a five-year period from 2007 to 2011 for 20 Bangladeshi and 11 Indonesian MFIs. The data obtained were subjected to both efficiency and trajectory analysis using data envelopment analysis (DEA) based on Malmquist productivity index, independent t-test, and latent growth curve modeling (LGCM).

Overall, DEA results indicate that both Bangladeshi and Indonesian MFIs are approximately efficient under constant returns to scale, variable returns to scale, and scale. There has been an improvement in the management practices of Bangladeshi MFIs, while Indonesian MFIs have increased in optimum size. Independent t-test result shows that Bangladeshi MFIs are significantly efficient in terms of performance and firm’s size compared to Indonesian MFIs, but there is no significant difference in their efficiencies with regard to technology. The intercept and the slope of the regression weight in the estimated model using LGCM are not significantly different.

This study measures technical efficiency and growth trajectory of Bangladeshi and Indonesian MFIs over a five-year period. However, future studies could explore this in greater depth by incorporating more data.

The research findings have great implications for the Bangladeshi and Indonesian MFIs. Since this study is among the first of its kind, the researchers have paved ways for further investigation in this area. Moreover, the study encourages the Bangladeshi and Indonesian MFIs to be more concerned of their efficiencies.

This study measures technical efficiency and growth trajectory of the Bangladeshi and Indonesian (MFIs). These have never been examined together in this way before.

This paper critically aims to examine the concept of beneficial ownership and its application in musharakah-based home financing.

The study applies the method of juristic interpretation in analyzing the meaning of beneficial ownership in legal documentation of musharakah-based home financing. This qualitative study uses content analysis approach that investigates the works of Islamic scholars on the concept of ownership and evaluates the concept of beneficial ownership in musharakah-based home financing from the Islamic perspective.

The result finds that beneficial ownership is considered a true ownership, as Shari’ah allows the transfer of ownership based on the offer and acceptance in a contract. Furthermore, the absence of legal registration does not mean the absence of true ownership, whereas all documentations and agreements have clearly stated rights and liabilities of each contracting parties.

This paper provides a fiqhi discussion of analyzing beneficial ownership in musharakah-based home financing. It shows that Shari’ah parameters are essential for the use of beneficial ownership to ensure its compliance with the Shari’ah requirements of milkiyyah (ownership).

Renal failure is an end-stage consequence after persistent hyperglycemia during diabetic nephropathy (DN), and the etiology of DN has been linked to oxidative stress. The purpose of this research was to determine the beneficial synergistic effects of S-Allyl Cysteine (SAC) and Taurine (TAU) on oxidative damage in the kidneys of type 2 diabetic rats induced by hyperglycemia.

Experimental diabetes was developed by administering intraperitoneal single dose of streptozotocin (STZ; 65 mg/kg) with nicotinamide (NA; 230 mg/kg) in adult rats. Diabetic and control rats were treated with SAC (150 mg/kg), TAU (200 mg/kg) or SAC and TAU combination (75 + 100 mg/kg) for four weeks. The estimation of body weight, fasting blood glucose (FBG), oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), oxidative stress markers along with kidney histopathology was done to investigate the antidiabetic potential of SAC/TAU in the NA/STZ diabetic group.

The following results were obtained for the therapeutic efficacy of SAC/TAU: decrease in blood glucose level, decreased level of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) and increased levels of GSH, glutathione-s-transferase (GST) and catalase (CAT). SAC/TAU significantly modulated diabetes-induced histological changes in the kidney of rats.

SAC/TAU combination therapy modulated the oxidative stress markers in the kidney in diabetic rat model and also prevented oxidative damage as observed through histopathological findings.

This chapter focuses on the challenges that the Malaysian AIDS council (MAC) have been facing in creating the social awareness. Moreover, this chapter briefly discusses the HIV epidemic in Malaysian context. The harm reduction and prevention campaigns as well as the intervention programs taken by MAC are then highlighted. Finally, the challenges associated with implementing such programs are also discussed.