Zatul Karamah

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between capital structure and corporate performance of public listed oil and gas companies in Malaysia. For this, unbalanced panel data sets of 12 oil and gas companies were tested using panel data regression technique over the period of 2003-2013. Capital structure, the independent variable is measured by three proxies namely short-term to total debt (STDTA), long-term to total debt (LTDTA) and total debt to total asset (TTDTA). While corporate performance is measured by the company's return on equity (ROE), return on asset (ROA) and gross margin (GM). The finding shows that capital structure is negatively related to firm's return on equity, suggesting that an increase in the firm's debt level would negatively affect its shareholders return. The effect of firm's debt level with ROA and GM on the other hand, shows no impact and appears to be insignificant.

Much of the literature found that there were financial literacy gaps in terms of demographic variables (Lusardi & Mitchell, 2006., 2010). Sabah, being one of the most diversify state in Malaysia in term of ethinicity and cultural aspects, and the second largest state in term of geographical area, is offering an exciting avenue to confirm or discount norms, values, and previous findings related to financial literacy. The results of the research suggest that the level of financial literacy in Sabah was seriously low. Furthermore, more than 70 percent of respondents felt below midpoint range (which 12 out of possible 24 points). The findings also revealed that the lower income group as well as those lower formal education were more financially illiterate. There was also some marginally gender gap as males were more financially literate than females. Older age group also fared marginally better. Perhaps the most interesting and important contribution from this research was the existence of financially literacy gap among ethnicity in Sabah. The Chinese and the Kadazan/Dusun communities demonstrated the highest literacy level than other community groups. Even though the findings hereby presented was only a part of a bigger result, the information would assist in understanding the state and implications of financial literacy and shed some lights on the importance of financial education in eradicating poverty particularly in the State of Sabah.

The paper attempts to examine the influence and relationship of corporate governance attributes with regard to accountability of corporate governance practices for insurance companies in Labuan International Business and Financial Centre. The findings of the study reveal that rules and regulations disclosure practice, directors’ qualifications and experiences, and audit committee’s effectiveness are found to be the key factors that influence the corporate governance regime. In all, the paper concludes that there is substantial scope for improvement in the current practices and suggests that effective corporate governance system is crucial to enhancing the performance of a firm.

The approach of giving Micro-credit has been reported as appropriate in addressing the basic needs of the poor, yet other components of Micro-credit such as Micro-saving and Micro-insurance have received minimal study despite being crucial to social cohesion of small groups, communities, or societies. The main objective of this study is to explore the conceptual framework on the relationship between the products of Islamic Micro-finance and the Clients Wellbeing in the perspective of a service provider. The study identifies different products used to develop entrepreneurial skills leading to individual's personal development, increased productivity and income, and participation in economic and social life. The methodology of this study is quantitative research approach that seek responses from the service provider. The perspective of the Clients through impact assessments have been used in previous studies but the challenge with that methodology has been to demonstrate the causality of Clients' Wellbeing as a direct consequence of Micro-finance. Such endeavours results in partial or contested impacts, or perhaps not measuring the right variables. This study will seek responses from the staff of Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia (AIM) in the East coast states of Malaysia, i.e. Kelantan, Pahang and Terengganu who are directly involve in the delivery of the Micro-finance services and are in close contact with the clients. For service providers to achieve long term growth and sustainability, they must have visibility and a bird's eye view of the condition of their clients in order to have a better analyses to improve on offering strategic business portfolios.