Journal of Science, Technology and Innovation Policy
Latest Publications

Respect has a crucial role in a dyadic relationship, especially between leader and subordinate, because of the reciprocal costs in the relationship when respect is gained or earned. Leaders can be respected because of their position or fair treatment given to their subordinates. Respect has been featured in the leadership literature; however, few touches on the perspective of mutuality in respect, especially in a dyadic leader-subordinate relationship. The impact of the leader-subordinate relationship is significant in the Malaysian public services, as the scheme of grades determines the employees’ hierarchy. The Malaysian public services organizations' issues often arise from employees’ behavior and working relationships that affect their delivery. A high exchange of the dyadic leader and subordinate relationship correlated with desirable outcomes such as positive performance and attitudinal outcomes. One of the significant elements of the subordinates’ response is the attitude of respect towards the leader. Hence, this paper aimed to investigate the influence of mutual respect on the leader-subordinate working relationship in the public services that has implications for performance and service delivery.

Leadership and social influence have been hotly debated as among the top 21st-century skills. Previous research on leadership and social influence has focused mostly on leadership traits and characteristics, while little research has examined the social influence process by which public servants become effective leaders. The purpose of this paper is to develop an initial review from a public service perspective to outline the skill that contributes to the development as a future-ready human skill by public servants. This conceptual paper relies on prior research and existing theory to focus on the developmental processes that lead to acquiring the leadership and social influence skill as future-ready human skills. Additionally, leadership and social influence skills could contribute to particular behaviours to the effectiveness of good governance practices. Based on the literature review, it is assumed that there is a positive relationship between leadership and social influence and the effectiveness of good governance practices. Most importantly, this paper addresses how the skill is unique and most realistically developed in a public organisation.

Youth entrepreneurship is an emerging enquiry, which is critical in addressing unemployment crisis among young people. This paper explored prospects and challenges of youth entrepreneurship in developing economy, Zanzibar in Tanzania. The paper adopted qualitative methods using thematic analysis techniques to derive prospects and challenges from recorded transcripts according to administrator’s perspective from public and private institutions responsible for entrepreneurship in the country. The study found that youth entrepreneurship is strategic initiative of transforming necessity entrepreneurship into opportunity entrepreneurship, stimulating innovation initiatives for solving challenges facing society, promoting sectoral linkage, job creation and building entrepreneurial culture. However, youth entrepreneurship is constrained internally by lack of funds, poor growth and sustainability of youth enterprises, lack of entrepreneurial mindset and alertness to opportunities, while externally by poor coordination of public institution responsible for entrepreneurship development, bureaucracy, and lack of family support. The study becomes empirical evidence on the importance of youth entrepreneurship and thereby recommended for policy intervention would ameliorate the challenges and helps build entrepreneurial culture for the development of entrepreneurship in the country.

Low-income earners have always been identified as a group that encounter mental health issue due to interpersonal conflicts. As indicated by numerous studies across disciplines, work-family conflict is found to be one of the important predictors of mental health. However, studies on work-family conflict as predictor of mental health among low-income earners specifically in the Malaysia context remains scarce. Thus, the purpose of the current study was to examine the influence of work-to-family conflict dimensions (i.e., behavior-based conflict time-based conflict and strain-based conflict) on mental health dimensions (i.e., stress, anxiety and depression) among low-income earners working at public sectors. Quantitative and cross-sectional research design were utilized in this study. By using a convenience sampling technique, 265 respondents from eight Johor Local Authorities participated via online survey using Google Form. Data were gathered using demographic and socioeconomic status questionnaires, Work-family Conflict Scale (WFCS) and Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21). Data preparation was conducted using SPSS Version 26.0 while inferential was performed through SmartPLS Version 3.0 structural equation modeling. This study found that strain-based conflict established significant positive influence on stress, anxiety and depression. Meanwhile, behavior-based conflict was found to significantly predict anxiety and depression only. The findings from this study provide insight to the organization, especially public sector to re-design work in order to enhance mental health well-being among the low-income earners.

The Forestry Department Peninsular Malaysia's (FDPM) ICT Security Policy was developed and implemented in 2012 and reviewed in 2015. This policy aims to take the lead in managing data, hardware, software, network, and ICT security under legal regulations. Amongst the department's responsibilities are to implement data confidentiality, integrity, and availability policies to ensure the continuity of activities and services while mitigating the impact of security incidents. Accidentally, on September 16, 2016, a fire broke out in the FDPM building, causing property damage and document destruction with an estimated loss of RM30 million. Currently, in Malaysia, cybercrime and government data intrusion has become increasingly difficult to combat. Raising public awareness, particularly among officers who serve as service providers and department employees, is therefore critical to address those issues. Therefore, the objectives of this research are to determine the level of awareness of FDPM employees regarding FDPM ICT Security Policy as well as to investigate the factors that influence information security awareness. Inputs from this study were derived from both primary and secondary sources to meet the objectives. Primary data was gathered through surveys where 130 questionnaires were distributed to FDPM headquarters employees at the management, professional, and support team levels. Meanwhile, secondary data was gathered from FDPM annual and management reports, statistical data, journals, reference documents, and the Internet. The findings were analyzed statistically using SPSS. The level of awareness has been determined and an appropriate criterion to improve the level of information security awareness among FDPM employees was recommended which may help for a better understanding of department culture and increase a higher level of security awareness among FDPM employees.

Investing at the grassroots level is an essential intervention to achieve the goals that the international and national communities have set in terms of sustainable development. However, substantial performance remains the concern of the many developing countries in establishing a strong strategy on education in supporting grassroots economies. The general objective of this paper is to engage in discussion on how the country's strategy is designed to meet the intended results in supporting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through entrepreneurship at the grassroots level. The specific objectives first will focus on critical analysis on the level of matching of the designed strategy and the implementation and secondly on the role of social innovations and the motivations of social entrepreneurs in supporting socioeconomic progress and employment creation. The paper outlined key issues from Malaysia and Zanzibar experiences using a qualitative approach. The findings indicate that in Zanzibar the grassroots entrepreneurs were dominated by weak education, mindset, and traditional experiences in transforming their practices using emerged innovation initiatives, there is also a weak government initiative on innovative measures and a lacks policy initiatives. While in Malaysia the grassroots entrepreneurs failed to use the existing opportunities of the STI initiative to transform themselves into global and regional opportunities. It is suggested that to realize the effective role of entrepreneurship in supporting SGD's goals in employment, quality life, and poverty reduction, there is a need for a paradigm shift to support entrepreneurship education which will support socio-economic development at all levels.

The use of alternative fuel in ships can help alleviate high carbon emissions and adverse environmental consequences produced by the maritime industry. Due to the complexity of assessing many performance factors and lack of information, it is challenging for decision-makers to select the best sustainable alternative energy source for shipping from various options. Nevertheless, alternative energy decisions can be supported, and contradicting impacts can be analyzed with MCDM methodologies. This study focuses on applying decision-making processes for sustainable energy development concerns. A systematic review of published papers in the Scopus database on alternative fuel technologies and MCDM approaches from 2001 to 2021 has been conducted. All the selected articles were sorted by application area and process. In classifying the scientific journal articles and in-depth analysis, a SWOT analysis of MCDM techniques is offered. Convincing data support the conclusion that MCDM methods help decision-makers select appropriate fuel technology and are widely utilized in practice.

Delphi strategy may be a method and organized approach utilized to audit and collect suppositions of a gather of specialists, be that as it may, has it possess shortcomings. The Fuzzy Delphi Method (FDM), which is based on a variation of the Delphi method, has been demonstrated to be more successful in showing human phonetic knowledge in numerous tests (which is the signature of the Delphi Procedure). The Fuzzy Delphi Method was used to assess the content of communication abilities among engineering graduates in this article. This stage of development could be part of a larger project to develop a Malaysian employability aptitude system. This stage includes the view of 10 specialists who are experienced and have profound information in designing. It may be a thorough factual examination to approve the legitimacy of the theoretical concept of communication skills. The results of the experts' analysis were presented in the study, as well as the usefulness of the Fuzzy Delphi Method as a tool for gathering information about the validity of communication abilities content. Experts' recognitions have appeared disjointed about communication and get it more than one dialect among engineers. The specialists concurred with building graduates it can be donated by a clear heading, tune in and inquire address in their employability aptitudes capability.

This qualitative study is purposive in sampling and explored a small number of women leaders in the education industry who are policymakers of Malay Muslim origin of their experiences in leadership positions. Policymaking here involved policies at the micro-level, which related more to their institutions and organizations. The researcher examined the women's leadership styles and the factors that influenced how they lead explicitly. Likewise, the researcher focused on how gender, culture, and religion may relate to women's experiences. Basic interpretive and descriptive qualitative research methods were employed. Data were collected through in-depth individual interviews. Participants interviewed included nine women leaders in the public and private sector who were either teachers/lecturers or administrators in the education industry. These women held positions within the top echelon of their organization or institution. The finding of this research indicated that gender, religion, and culture play an important role in women's leadership experiences, therefore, themes emerged around influences on the women's approaches to leadership, with particular emphasis on the role of the larger environment in impacting women's leadership behaviors. To further focus on the impact of culture and religion on women's leadership styles, the researcher conducted a focused discussion group on the second group of Malay Muslim women leaders. This group of women leaders compromised mainly of women leaders who are department and section heads but still involved in policymaking decisions albeit within their department or sections. This study can provide insight into the landscape of women‘s leadership roles and how to support these leaders.

The aim of this article is to discuss the process of public policymaking and how the policy consultation helps to elaborate the processes involved in enhancing cooperation among government agencies. Existing literature indicates that there has never been any research that studies in detail on the consultative process of the process of policymaking in the country’s public service. The only available guidance is in the National Policy on the Development and Implementation of Regulations to improve the decision-making process for policy implementation. Therefore, a further reference has been done to a qualitative study on the policymaking process of the proposed National Halal Policy. The study indicates that an effective consultative approach must be able to act as either a vehicle of communication or stakeholder management in the policy process. The framework of negotiation-based policy consultative informs clearly on what types of consultative process practiced by the country and how does it operate in promoting wider participation in the policy process.