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This research is an effort to conceptualize the relationship between total quality management (TQM) and knowledge management in a new way. While some researchers considered knowledge management as a facilitator of TQM other scholars concerned TQM as an antecedent for knowledge management. The purpose of this paper is to propose a reciprocal causation between TQM and knowledge management.

The main focus of literature review is focusing on common practices of TQM and knowledge management. In the next step, joint variance analysis method is used to reanalyze the results of the empirical studies linking TQM to knowledge management. This approach aims to divide the multiple correlation squared and demonstrate what portion is distinctly connected to predictor variables and what portion is on account of common variance among predictors.

The result indicates that nearly half of all explained variances in empirical studies that considered the relationship between TQM and knowledge management disregarding the criteria are accounted for the joint variance of TQM and knowledge management processes. Therefore a reciprocal causation between TQM and knowledge management can be formulated.

This research is one of the first studies which explores the diverse results of the relationship between TQM and knowledge management from a methodological perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how employers can get the best results from job interviews.

This paper considers the relative merits of structured interviews, behavioral interviews, experience-based interviews and situational interviews.

This paper explains that each type of interview has its place, dependent on the type of job to be filled.

It is revealed that proper preparation by employers can help them to get the most suitable candidates.

This paper reveals how employers can learn to conduct effective interviews that produce reliable results.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that drive students to use Facebook for educational communication and explore the impact of Facebook use for educational communication on perceived academic achievement.

A survey was conducted through a self-administered questionnaire to collect data from student Facebook users at a large technology and engineering university in Malaysia. Partial least squares path modeling was used to test the hypotheses in the research model.

This empirical study showed that Facebook use in educational communication is determined by subjective norms and purposive value. Facebook use in educational communication positively affected perceived academic achievement.

The findings provide useful insight for higher institutions and educators regarding the potential academic effects of integrating Facebook into higher education learning. Moreover, this study provides insight into the factors that drive Facebook use in educational communication.

Prior studies have largely investigated the determinants and the effects of Facebook use among university students. However, little research has focused on educational communication phenomena. This study investigated determinants and academic achievement effect of Facebook use in educational communication among university students.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a reciprocal peer review approach that resembled the scholarly peer review process using the Moodle e-learning system. The authors investigated interrelations among engagement in providing peer feedback, engagement in responding to peer feedback, learner-content interaction and learning outcomes.

An experimental intervention study was designed. A total of 45 students who enroled in an undergraduate research methods course completed the assigned project. Reciprocal peer review was adopted, in which the participants provided a peer review report on a randomly assigned peer’s research proposal. Subsequently, participants revised and submitted their proposal along with a response letter that highlighted the revisions.

This study highlights that the engagement in providing peer feedback exerts an indirect effect on learning outcomes through learner-content interaction. Learner-content interaction fully mediates the causal relationship between engagement in providing peer feedback and learning outcomes.

Learner-content interaction fully mediates the causal relationship between engagement in providing peer feedback and learning outcomes. Thus, e-learning practitioners who engage in peer review should first construct high-quality course materials to enhance learning outcomes.

Learning outcomes can be enhanced if there is a high level of engagement in providing peer feedback among learners. However, learner-content interaction fully mediates the positive effect of engagement in providing peer feedback on learning outcomes. Furthermore, engagement in providing peer feedback will enhance the learner’s motivation to intensify his or her learning from the course material.

The purpose of this study is to understand the relationship between the role of internal consultant and role of the HR practitioners in the manufacturing companies of Malaysia.

Three main elements in the competency of internal consultation are measured. They are: knowledge in the area of project management; internal coaching ability; and the ability to be a solution provider.

The HR practitioner needs to overcome many barriers to reach the ultimate goal of becoming a strategic partner in his or her organisation. The findings suggest that the HR executive that understands business strategy is more likely to develop HR processes and procedures that support the implementation of a business strategy and are therefore, better able to involve themselves in organisational development activities on a deeper level.

This study by its very nature is limited by virtue of its having been carried out only on manufacturing companies in Johor, the Southern‐most state of Malaysia. Thus, its findings cannot be generalised. The number of respondents in this study was relatively small (89) and does not fully represent the thousands of HR managers employed by manufacturers in Malaysia.

Even though the findings cannot be used to reflect the overall HR competency of internal consultation in Malaysia, it does serve as an exploratory study that can be expanded more broadly in the future.

The paper can help HR professionals to look more perceptively into the expectations of their CEOs concerning their role as HR practitioners and will be of interest to those working in that area.

This paper aims to explore the role of human‐resource (HR) specialists as change agents and the competencies they need in order to execute this role.

Drawing on the HR literature, the paper enumerates the skills that HR specialists should seek to acquire in order to make them more valuable members of their organizations' top teams during periods of change.

The paper highlights the importance of culture management, effective relationship and communication skills, good human‐resource development practices, performance‐management skills, value‐chain knowledge, conflict‐management skills and the ability to use the latest information technology.

The paper urges HR specialists to be actively involved in operational matters, so they can understand more fully the relevant issues and assist line managers in improving efficiency.

The paper explains how today's volatile business environment makes it more important than ever for HR people to be able to guide their organizations’ change‐management initiatives.

The paper reveals ways in which HR specialists can play a more strategic role in their organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to address the question “what is the relationship between employees’ perception on training and employees’ organisational commitment?” using the widely accepted theories of three-component model of organisational commitment and training-related variables.

This study utilises the survey methodology approach. The study design is an associational descriptive research designed to identify the relationship between employees’ training measured by five training variables (perceived availability of training, motivation to learn in training, perceived co-worker support for training, perceived supervisor support for training and perceived benefits of training) and employees’ organisational commitment measured by three organisational commitment components (affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment). The target population of this study consisted of academic staffs of one of the faculty in a public university in Malaysia. The name of the University is not disclosed due to the request from the management of the University. Comprehensive sampling approach was used in this survey, whereby the survey was distributed to all the target population. This approach was chosen to ensure higher response rate from the respondents. The target population is academic staff and 60 responses were analysed.

Findings from the study revealed a significant and positive relationship between the training-related variables (availability of training, motivation to learn, co-worker support for training, supervisor support for training and benefits of training) the affective and normative commitment components of the organisational commitment; while a non-significant relationship with continuance commitment. Additionally, the results of the study revealed that the best predictor of affective commitment is co-worker support for training followed by availability of training. For normative commitment, the best predictor was availability of training.

Although this study was conducted in the education industry, the results of this study were consistent with previous studies conducted in western countries and the few studies conducted in some Asian countries such as Qatar, China, Australia and Malaysia that are non-education industries. However, the study was conducted in a single university in Malaysia and therefore results of the study may not be generalisable to all higher institutions nor the universities excluded in the sample. The study was limited to academic staffs, and does not involve other employees such as non-academic staff. Therefore the result may not be generalisable to those excluded staff as training policies, skills and knowledge requirement among various staff categories differ.

This study has indicated that co-worker support for training and supervisor support of training enhance emotional attachment/sense of belonging (i.e. affective commitment) and loyalty (i.e. normative commitments) among academic staff. Thus in this view the university authority could create an environment where there is a strong encouragement by colleagues and supervisors towards participating in training activities. Supervisors in the context of this study refer to HoDs, Deans, head of research groups, etc. This research has also revealed that availability (or access) to training has a strong relationship with both affective and normative commitments; with availability of training a strong predictor of the former type of commitment. Therefore the university through supervisors can play a role in publicising the availability of training to the academic staff. The university can also design more in-house training and development programmes/activities as well as encourage and financially support external training programmes that will enhance the academic staff teaching and research skills. Such move by the university could be perceived by the academic staff as support and care which ultimately leads to better organisational performance.

This is a pioneering study on perception on training towards organisational commitment among academic staff in a public university in Malaysia. The result of this study will spur public universities in Malaysia to find ways to improve their training plan and design to achieve maximum satisfaction among the academician.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate surroundings for transfer film formation and removal, the effect of the transfer film formation on friction coefficients, the effect of four different abrasive components, ZrO₂, ZrSiO₄, Al₂O₃ and Fe₃O₄, on transfer film formation and the effect of lubricating component MoS₂ on transfer film formation and friction coefficients.

Two different MoS₂ contents of 5.5 and 8.5 per cent were added to friction materials with no MoS₂ content, which have four different abrasive components, ZrO₂, ZrSiO₄, Al₂O₃, Fe₃O₄. Friction tests composed of three different stages were conducted for those materials, and the friction surfaces of the counterpart disks were examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to access the formation of transfer film at each stage.

For the transfer film formation, high temperature was a prerequisite, but the magnitude of deceleration rate was not important. The effect of the transfer film formation was to reduce the friction coefficients for most friction materials. Friction coefficients of materials which contain lubricating component MoS₂ were higher than those which contain no MoS₂ for most friction materials. The effect of the lubricating component MoS₂ was to suppress the formation of transfer film, thus resulting in increase in friction coefficients.

The transfer film was rather thin, with thickness of 1-2 µm for most friction materials. That hindered the examination of mechanical properties of the transfer film, such as hardness.

This research explained the surroundings for transfer film formation, and its effect on friction coefficients. The research suggests to suppress the formation of transfer film to make friction materials with high friction coefficient, and the lubricating component MoS₂ can be used for the purpose.

Development of high-friction-brake materials conventionally depends on the use of strong abrasive components, which may induce attacking of counterpart disks. The enhancement of friction coefficients with addition of MoS₂ content is expected to open a new prospect in development of high-performance friction materials, which can be applicable to brake pads for racing cars.

The study is in pursuit of the transfer film formation in successive friction stages, which revealed the conditions for transfer film generation and removal. Specimen preparation for SEM observation of cross section of friction surface was painstaking to not damage the developed friction surface. The study revealed the effect of different abrasive components on transfer film formation and the effect of lubrication contents of MoS₂ on transfer film formation and friction coefficients.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of ISO 14001 certification on US public firms’ equity structure regarding whether the typical heavy investment required for environmental management system is justified in terms of equity risk.

This study employs the event study methodology and examines the pre- and post-movements of firms’ equity structure around the ISO 14001 certification date. This study investigated 5,189 listed firms in the New York Stock Exchange and National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation and the abnormal performance of firms’ equity structure was measured by using four dependent variables (assets, liabilities, debt ratio (liabilities/equity), and market-to-book ratio of equity).

The results showed that the adoption of ISO 14001 increased a firm's total assets, liabilities, and debt ratio in the long run, implying that pursuing the certification entails the increase in a firm's size and equity risk. The long-term movement of the market-to-book ratio of equity showed no abnormal performance, while it fluctuated in the short term.

This study suggests that managers should consider the potential risk from a firm's equity structure when they decide to pursue the ISO 14001 certification.

This study is the first effort to investigate the long-term effect of ISO 14001 certification on the firm's equity structure using the event study methodology in the USA.

The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore how highly educated women respond to career chance events in a Korean context where traditional cultural values and male-dominated organizational culture coexist.

The authors conducted 50 semi-structured interviews with highly educated women operationalized as women with doctoral degrees in and out of Korea. The authors used a collaborative research process with a team of ten Korean-born researchers who have built consensus on research themes through discussions on the collection and analysis of a large data set, thus reducing the researcher bias issue inherent in qualitative research.

In an analysis of the interview data collected, the authors report on three themes: before obtaining a doctoral degree, during and after their doctoral study and responses (coping strategies) to chance events in their careers. Highly educated women’s pursuing a doctoral degree was a way to maintain work–life balance in Korea where women are expected to take a primary caregiver role. After obtaining a doctoral degree, participants struggled with limited job opportunities in the male-dominated higher education. Women’s unplanned and unexpected chance events are intertwined with the male-dominated culture in Korea, and career interruptions as such a chance event, whether voluntary or involuntary, happened largely due to family reasons. In this context, highly educated women responded to chance events largely at individual and family levels and articulated the need for support at organizational and government levels.

The study findings confirm the literature that women’s careers are limited by traditional family roles in non-Western countries where strong patriarchal culture is prevalent. Particularly, women’s career interruptions surfaced as a critical chance event that either disrupts or delays their careers largely because of family issues. Future research is called for to identify both individual and contextual factors that influence women’s decisions on voluntary and involuntary career interruptions as their responses to chance events.

Based on highly educated women’s coping strategies largely at individual and family levels, we suggest national human resource development policies put in place not to lose out on the opportunity to develop highly educated women with doctoral degrees as a quality workforce for a nation’s sustainable economic growth. Additionally, organizations need to be aligned with the government policies and programs for the provision of developmental programs for women in the workplace, beginning with highly educated women’s career planning, while creating organizational culture to promote gender equality as a long-term goal.

The participants’ voluntary career breaks helped them care for their children, be involved in their children’s education, reflect on work–life balance after having long hours of work for many years and move forward with personal satisfaction. Voluntary career breaks can be understood as highly educated women’s unique way of responding to chance events.