Search results

The purpose of this paper is to study the principal factors that are critical to the success of a construction project in Malaysia, and determine their relative importance as perceived by different respondents. The findings of this study will provide the researcher with up‐to‐date information in formulating appropriate strategies to address the challenges brought about by human‐related issues. The paper will only discuss the first part of the ongoing research based on the pilot survey.

Following a thorough literature search, a total of 37 factors were consolidated and grouped into seven major categories. These factors were assembled into a questionnaire survey and distributed to clients, consultants and contractors. The respondents represent a wide range of professions, including those who are involved in design, construction, engineering, project management and quantity surveying. An analysis of the responses identified 15 factors to be accepted as critical to the success of construction projects.

The results suggest a strong consistency in perception between respondents in recognising the significance of human‐related factors such as competence, commitment, communication and cooperation towards the success of a construction project. These factors being the core element in relationship‐based procurement reinforced the need and viability of such procurement methods to the Malaysian construction industry.

The findings can be used to facilitate the analysis of performance of various procurement systems, as well as identifying critical elements crucial to the development of a relationship‐based procurement in Malaysia.

This paper captures the perception of construction participants regarding the critical success factors of construction projects in Malaysia and fulfils an identified need to study the critical elements vital to the development of a new procurement approach in Malaysia.

The cost of residential building maintenance can harmfully affect low-income earners' expenditure if not checked. A customised maintenance concept via a framework will ensure efficient and proper building maintenance operations. The outcome may keep the life cycle cost down. Studies concerning the low-cost housing (LCH) maintenance concept through a framework are scarce in Malaysia. Thus, the study aims to investigate the state of LCH and develop a framework to improve LCH maintenance practices in Malaysia.

The study adopted a soft system methodology (SSM) to comprehend Malaysia's LCH building maintenance practices. The SSM allowed an alternative approach to improve LCH maintenance practices via a developed framework. Virtual interviews were conducted with experts, and findings were presented. It was in line with the SSM seven steps.

The findings show that apart from the poor state of LCH maintenance, there is the absence of a framework to improve maintenance practices, especially in LCH across Malaysia's cities. The findings developed a framework that would reposition the joint management body and management corporation in collaboration with the proposed maintenance agency for better service delivery via substantive, technical and administrative aspects.

This study's data collection is restricted to Pulau Pinang, Kuala Lumpur and Johor through a qualitative research design approach. Future research is needed to consider more extensive coverage and validate the developed framework from this study via a quantitative research design.

Apart from the conceptual model that was developed, the suggested framework can be employed by Malaysia's maintenance practitioners and policymakers as a guideline to improve LCH building maintenance practices across the cities.

This study examined Malaysia's LCH maintenance practices via SSM to identify the state of the houses, identify the information required and propose a suitable framework to improve Malaysia's LCH maintenance practices.

Undergraduate students are known to be a high-risk group for mental health problems. The purpose of this paper is to constitute a repeated cross-sectional study on the trend of depression over the years and factors associated with depression among undergraduates.

Cross-sectional data from five surveys between 2013 and 2020 (N = 1,578) among the undergraduates of Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, a private university in Kampar Malaysia, were combined. The Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale-21 was used to screen for depression. Cochran’s Armitage test was used to detect trend in depression. Logistic regression, random forest regression and extra gradient boosting regression were used to identify risk factors and classification.

The prevalence of depressive symptoms was found to be between 26.4% and 36.8% between the years with an average of 29.9%. There was no significant time trend in the prevalence. The risk of depressive symptoms was higher among female students, those who were dependent on family for financial support and those who were stressed.

Periodical screening for depression is warranted for the identification of students at risk for depression. Professional cognitive-behavioral therapies, peer support and consulting services should be made available to the students in need.

Depression among students had been studied widely, but the trend over years remains unexplored, especially in developing countries.

Accompanying the casino liberalization in Macau has been the massive increase in the importation of migrant workers to drive the labour-intensive, service-oriented economic growth there. Nevertheless, the employment of migrant workers has become an intensely contentious issue. The traditional pluralist approach to migration policy has highlighted a mismatch between restrictive policy pronouncements and actual expansive outcomes. This mismatch has resonated strongly in Macau, where the number of migrant workers skyrocketed in the last decade in spite of repeated guarantees from the government of the adoption of a protectionist labour policy. The pluralist approach has attributed the mismatch to strong constituencies supporting more immigration. The purpose of this paper is to dispute this and maintain that the Macau Government is a capitalist state committed to increasing labour importation to facilitate wealth accumulation.

The paper uses a qualitative approach based on extensive research of news and media reports, facilitated by a close observation of political developments.

The Macau Government started, in 2005, to talk about reforming its labour importation programme by adding a migrant worker levy, a ratio mechanism and a six-month waiting period. This paper investigates how the capitalist state navigated the reform process by promising changes and building consent with the working classes. The author maintains that “a game of protection” has been constructed and played to secure the consent of the local working classes for the migrant worker programme.

Very little literature is available that has studied the changes made to the migrant worker system in Macau. This paper will help to close this gap.

This study aims to understand the importance and challenges of adopting artificial intelligence (AI) in the banking industry in Malaysia and examine the factors that are important in investigating consumers' intention to adopt AI in banking services.

The qualitative research was carried out using in-depth interviews from officials in the baking industry to understand the importance and challenges of adopting AI in the banking industry. In the quantitative study, a total of 302 completed questionnaires were received from Malaysian banking customers. The data were analysed using the SmartPLS 3.0 software to identify the important predictors of their intention to adopt AI.

The qualitative results reveal that AI is an essential tool for fraud detection and risk prevention. The absence of regulatory requirements, data privacy and security, and lack of relevant skills and IT infrastructure are significant challenges of AI adoption. The quantitative results indicate that attitude towards AI, perceived usefulness, perceived risk, perceived trust, and subjective norms significantly influence intention to adopt AI in banking services while perceived ease of use and awareness do not. The results also show that attitude towards AI significantly mediates the relationship between perceived usefulness and intention to adopt AI in banking services.

Financial technology (FinTech) is regarded as a critical determinant of strategic planning in the banking industry. While AI provides various disruptive opportunities in the FinTech space in terms of data collection, analysis, safeguarding and streamlining processes, it also poses a sea of threats to incumbent banks. This study provides vital insights for the policymakers of the banking industry to address the challenges of adopting AI in banking. It also provides the important predictors of the bank customers' intention to adopt AI in banking services. Policymakers can devise their strategies to enhance AI adoption considering the facts.

This study is amongst the pioneer in exploring the importance and potential challenges in implementing AI technology in banking services and identifying the essential factors influencing the intention to adopt AI in Malaysia's banking services.