Fam

Institutions are at the heart of societal progress and advancement. Climate change institutions are more complex than other types of institutions because climate change is a cross-cutting issue that is not restricted to a single institution. Climate change requires high levels of coordination and access to resources, both human and financial. This study examines the characteristics of climate change institutional arrangements in five countries. In spite of different conditions existing in these countries, there is a high level of similarity in institutional arrangements. All five countries have a Ministerial level or official level coordinating body on climate change that make important policy decisions that affect climate change. In some countries, the body is chaired by the Prime Minister or Deputy Prime Minister and included other relevant Ministers such as Energy, Trade and Industry and Finance. This underscores the cross-cutting nature of climate change and the need for coordination at the highest level. In all five countries, climate change policies or action plans had been launched and were being implemented. To address climate change, all five countries had either climate policies or climate legislation in place. They had also set up either permanent or ad-hoc technical bodies to help in policy-formulation and implementation. They also had permanent or ad hoc arrangements for stakeholder consultations. Finally, they all had Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) systems in place. This high level of institutional similarity could be due to institutional isomorphism.

This study demonstrated the applicability of the ability-enhancing, motivationenhancing and empowerment-enhancing (AME) human resource management bundles in a non-Western setting like Malaysia. It also demonstrated the direct and mediated impacts of the bundles. The two mediators in this study are human capital and perceived organization support (POS). The variables of age, tenure and years of education are included as control variables. This study has been carried out on 192 managers in eight Malaysian firms. Hypotheses testing using Hayes’ PROCESS macro showed that both empowerment-enhancing HRM and ability-enhancing HRM is related positively to human capital. Both empowerment-enhancing HRM and abilityenhancing HRM have direct effects on employee performance, however the former relationship is negative and the latter positive. Only empowerment-enhancing HRM has a mediated effect on employee performance through human capital. Human capital has a direct and positive impact with employee performance. Both motivationenhancing and empowerment-enhancing HRM has direct and positive impacts on POS.

Social exchange theory has been influential in explaining a wide range of organizational outcomes including organizational commitment, performance, turnover and job satisfaction. It has also been combined with other theories such as those on leadership, selfmanaging teams and human resource management to produce new findings of interest to researchers and practicing managers. However, the fact remains that the majority of such research has been done in a Western context. There is a need to test social exchange theory in non-Western settings. This study tested the reliability and validity of social exchange theory in the Malaysian setting. Data was collected from 252 respondents of 18 Malaysian service and manufacturing sector firms. The results using AMOS 23 showed that trust (β = 0.652, p < 0.01) lead to LMX, explaining 42.5% of its variance. Trust (β = 0.443, p < 0.01) and LMX (β = 0.282, p < 0.01) are positively related to empowerment, accounting for a total variance of 43.9%. Furthermore, LMX (β = 0.616, p < 0.01) is positively related to organization commitment, accounting for 53.6% of its variance.  Finally, trust (β = 0.339) and LMX (β = 0.321, p < 0.01)  are positively related to intention to remain in the organization, explaining 52.8% of its variance.

The current treaty that governs intergovernmental actions on climate change is the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol will come to an end in 2020 and be replaced by the Paris Climate Agreement. The Paris Agreement differs substantially from its predecessor, the Kyoto Protocol, because it removes the differentiation between the developing and developed countries on their climate actions. The major implications of the Paris Agreement for Malaysia are discussed.

Generation Y are already the biggest group of consumers in the world, with 2 billion people or 25 per cent of the world’s population. There is therefore, a need to understand their spending habits. Most of the Gen Y live in Asia, with 400 million in Chine, more than five times the number in the United States. As such, they will shape the global economy in the years to come. In Malaysia, 29 per cent of the population are Gen Y and they spend 1.4 times more than other age groups and they buy mainly online. In this research, the impact of various factors on the online purchasing behavior of Gen Y in Malaysia is assessed. Perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, self-efficacy, perceived value, trust, price consciousness, flow and habit are included in our framework to explain online purchase intentions. Both direct and mediated relationships are examined using partial least squares structural equation modeling. Our framework satisfies convergent and discriminant validity, and has sa...

Many studies have been done to demonstrate the impact of human resource (HR) practices on firm performance. The relationships have been generally positive but not always conclusive. Early studies which attempted to measure the direct impact of human resource practices on their dependent variables, reported mixed results. These studies have measured the impact using different frameworks, at different levels and different outcomes. Since human resource practices are perceived by organizational members and implemented by leaders first before they can take effect, their impacts may be more suitably measured from a social exchange perspective. In this study, we combine HR practices with social exchange variables to demonstrate that it is the indirect rather than the direct impacts of HR practices that matter. The findings show that the two key social exchange variables of perceived organizational support (POS) and leader-member exchange (LMX) are important mediators in the relationship b...

Social exchange theory has been influential in explaining a wide range of organizational outcomes including organizational commitment, performance, turnover and job satisfaction. It has also been combined with other theories such as those on leadership, self-managing teams and human resource management to produce new findings of interest to researchers and practicing managers. However, the fact remains that the majority of such research has been done in a Western context. There is a need to test social exchange theory in non-Western settings. This study tested the reliability and validity of social exchange theory in the Malaysian setting. Data was collected from 252 respondents of 18 Malaysian service and manufacturing sector firms. The results using AMOS 23 showed that trust (β = 0.652, p &lt; 0.01) lead to LMX, explaining 42.5% of its variance. Trust (β = 0.443, p &lt; 0.01) and LMX (β = 0.282, p &lt; 0.01) are positively related to empowerment, accounting for a total variance of...

Nursing profession is the second largest workforce after army according to the world statistic of labour. The profession portrays compassionate, committed and passion. Disaster Nursing (DN) requires a great deal of commitment and faced incredible work challenges. Nurses must have prepared to face any disaster such as flood, earthquake, landslide and tsunami which hit Malaysia. The important roles of nurses were truly critical when they were aiding the average 160,000 homeless due to post flood hit in Malaysia in December 2014. Malaysia has to spend billions of RM in each year in order to cover losses due to natural disasters. Which role of nursing care that is really reliable in handling disaster? How the nurses’ groups would be able to develop and help the country in dealing with losses and damages to individuals, their families and their friends in real situation? Are there any guidelines which could be practiced? The purpose of this study therefore is to evaluate the factors impa...

This study demonstrated the applicability of the ability-enhancing, motivation-enhancing and empowerment-enhancing (AME) human resource management bundles in a non-Western setting like Malaysia. It also demonstrated the direct and mediated impacts of the bundles. The two mediators in this study are human capital and perceived organization support (POS). The variables of age, tenure and years of education are included as control variables. This study has been carried out on 192 managers in eight Malaysian firms. Hypotheses testing using Hayes’ PROCESS macro showed that both empowerment-enhancing HRM and ability-enhancing HRM is related positively to human capital. Both empowerment-enhancing HRM and ability-enhancing HRM have direct effects on employee performance, however the former relationship is negative and the latter positive. Only empowerment-enhancing HRM has a mediated effect on employee performance through human capital. Human capital has a direct and positive impact with em...

In recent years, with an increasing number of scientific research findings at colleges and universities, the management of them is increasing step by step. Meanwhile, the work task is also growing. Wonderful management of scientific research is of great significance to promote the development of scientific research in higher educational institutions. This paper, aiming at disadvantages existing in the management of scientific research in our country, put forward a suggestion that is to enhance the management effectiveness of the scientific research achievements at colleges and universities by sounding the management system, making full use of the modern information technology, increasing the investment of funds, realizing the combination of production as soon as possible, strengthening the construction of scientific research innovation team to implement the scientific, accurate, timely, orderly scientific research