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This is an exploratory study of reading behaviors and interest among students residing in a female residential college of Kolej Datin Seri Endon (KDSE), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) and the use of reading stations (RS) placed at strategic locations throughout the main campus. The UTM's Vice Chancellor project of developing various RS was to promote a reading culture in UTM. Currently there are 48 RS in the main campus of Skudai and ten more in UTM International campus. Most of the books were donated by UTM staff and students themselves.

Using simple random sampling, 187 students were selected from a population of 1,300 female students. The survey instrument was designed in the form of structured questionnaire comprising a series of close‐ended and open‐ended questions design. A team of researcher investigated and evaluated at least 15 Reading Stations through out the campus.

The findings highlighted some factors related to reading habits and interest of students. The student's evaluation of the RS has been positive. Students however lamented that the books found at the RS are outdated, too academic and unrelated to their specific interest. This showed that even though the RS have been well received by students but it called for many areas of improvement in order for the RS to be of benefit and relevant to the campus community.

It is hoped that this study will stimulate further in‐depth studies and institutional budget allocation for training courses such as speed reading and mind mapping to inculcate a reading culture among students.

This is an original article on the reading habits of students in a certain college in UTM and the evaluation of RS, a newly launched project to promote reading culture among students.

The area of focus is on organization strategies, specifically in developing appropriate strategies for business expansion in a situation of high economic uncertainties.

This case is designed for advanced undergraduate in the business and management programs and students in the MBA programs. It is suitable for courses of organizational management, organization theory and design, strategic management, and managerial economics.

At the end of 2009, Kumpulan Perubatan Johor Healthcare Group was the largest public-listed healthcare service provider in Malaysia, with revenues of RM1.5 billion (approximately USD0.5 billion) and a net profit after tax of RM115 million (approximately USD38 million). The country was experiencing economic downturn, which affected demands of the affluent as well as medical tourism segments, which were the targeted market of the company. Datin Paduka Siti Sa'diah Sheikh Bakir, the group's CEO and her management team realized that the company needed to seek a new growth strategy. The case stimulates a discussion on the future strategy of a high-growth healthcare company that aspired to be the leading healthcare player in the region.

Understanding the process of analyzing an industry, as well as formulating strategies, enables case analysts to extend the practice of making strategic decisions to many business situations.

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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the performance of Islamic banks in developing countries from 2007 to 2010 which includes the period of the financial crisis by empirically examining the way in which the macroeconomy affected Islamic banking performance (IBP) in developing countries. The empirical examination involves two approaches of measuring performance: Sharia-based and conventional-based performance measurement.

For this paper, the authors have utilized a Data Stream/Bank Scope database and data from the Bank Negara Malaysia (Malaysian Central Bank) to collect a panel set of annual financial information for Islamic banking from the year 2007-2010. The initial sample covers 34 Islamic banks from developing countries that are listed on the International Islamic Service Board. Furthermore, the authors adopted only those listed Islamic banks to tackle the data availability issue. The authors’ final sample comprised 136 observations with complete data as the numbers of Islamic banks in developing countries are low in comparison to their conventional peers. The financial crisis dummy follows America’s commonly used National Bureau of Economic Research timeline for the financial crisis. The authors also used the method of a generalized least square (GLS) method of pooled panel data analysis regression model. The rationale for employing the GLS technique was made on the basis of the ability of GLS to give less weight to the error term that is closely clustered around the mean, to improve the goodness of fit and to remove autocorrelation compared with normal, random, and fixed effect models.

The authors of this paper found that the macroeconomic factors reflected in gross domestic product, gross domestic product growth, and inflation rate have a significant positive relationship with the return on assets. In addition, a significant negative relationship was found between the financial dummy and IBP in developing countries. On the other hand, it failed to find evidence of a relationship between the macroeconomic factors and performance including the legal system and the financial crisis dummy, when the performance is reflected by the Zakat ratio. The result embedded that the financial crisis had an impact on the performance of Islamic banks in developing countries when viewed from the conventional banking perspective. The financial crisis played a role in reducing the profitability of Islamic banks which is consistent with a previous study by Hasan and Dridi (2011). However, in the view of Sharia, the financial crisis did not have any effect on IBP; even the macro factors did not have any effect on the level of performance.

There are possible explanations for these contradictory coefficient signs. First, the contradictory signs of the coefficient for the same independent variable that was regressed with different dependent variables show that researchers would need to take caution in using the right indicators when measuring IBP. Conventional indicators bring different results in comparison to Islamic indicators (Badreldin, 2009; Mudiarasan. Kuppusamy, 2010; Zahra and Pearce, 1989). Second, Richard et al. (2009), having reviewed performance measurement-related publications in five of the leading management journals (722 articles between 2005 and 2007), suggested that the past studies reveal a multidimensional conceptualization of organizational performance with limited effectiveness of commonly accepted measurement practices. Accordingly, these studies call for more theoretically grounded research and debate for establishing which measures are appropriate in a given research context. Today, there is a general consensus that the old financial measures are still valid and relevant (Yip et al., 2009). However, these need to be balanced with more contemporary, intangible, and externally oriented measures. It has been argued that various researchers working in their own disciplines using functional performance measures (such as market share in marketing, schedule adherence in operations and so on) ought to link their discipline to focused performance measures of overall organizational performance.

Islamic banking has unique characteristics in comparison to conventional banking and this paper examines the differences between the two and also investigates the resilience of Islamic banks during a period of economic turbulence. Furthermore, due to these unique characteristics, a comparison cannot be made by using the conventional performance measures alone. In addition, amid the in-depth studies examining the resilience of Islamic banks during periods of economic crises, there are instances of theoretical disagreement in the extant empirical literature examining finance and economics. In that regard, the majority of the existing literature is either based on advanced markets or countries where the majority of the population practices the faith of Islam, and little is known about the performance of Islamic banking from the pooled emerging markets; particularly in developing countries.

Introducing Zakat as a performance measurement in Islamic banking context relating it to macroeconomic factors enhances the thinking of new research in Islamic theory about bank performance.

This paper aims to examine the concept and practice of Islamic banking in the context of a non-Islamic country such as Uganda.

Semi-structured interviews were used to elicit the strategies banks may use to ensure that the Islamic banking system is successful and to ascertain those factors that may hinder its success. Chief executive officers of business associations, heads of committees on Islamic banking and religious leaders were interviewed.

The strategies used by financial institutions in ensuring the adoption of Islamic banking are now known such as “creating awareness of Islamic banking’s mode of operation among existing and potential clients.” The findings also show that factors such as “lack of trust among clients” may hinder the success of Islamic banking.

The research findings are useful for informing the deliberations of regulators, the business community and financial institutions. The results are applicable only to those countries in the preparation stages of adopting Islamic banking services for the first time, but they could be generalized to any new product launch in any country.

This paper may help Ugandan financial institutions to design strategies that will accelerate the adoption and, ultimately, the diffusion of Islamic banking in Uganda.

The purpose of this paper is to review the history of Islamic banking in Malaysia from 1963 until 2010.

To review the history of Islamic banking in Malaysia, data have been gathered from different articles, books and reports about the Islamic banking system in Malaysia.

The paper found that Malaysia as an Islamic country has an outstanding infrastructure to support the establishment of an Islamic banking hub in the Islamic region.

The paper shows that Malaysia was of the first countries to take a systematic planning approach to develop the Islamic finance system in the region. Islamic banking systems in Malaysia are growing rapidly and progressively, in spite of some other countries wishing to be ahead of Malaysia, such as Singapore and the UK.

This article examines the experiences of women leaders and their challenges in Brunei Darussalam. Globally, women are underrepresented in leadership positions. Though the Brunei government does not discriminate against any gender in delivering free education, medical facilities and healthcare, women in leadership positions are as well underrepresented. I try to understand the factors that challenge as well as motivate women to become leaders in Brunei. For this research, I conducted qualitative interviews with some respondents selected purposively. The study results show that women leaders in Brunei face challenges in obtaining financial support and accessing resources. Despite the challenges, there are some women who have been assuming and excelling in their leadership roles. The study identified that personal strengths have also been critical in contributing to their successful leadership.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the interactive effects of professionalism in the relationship between intellectual capital (IC) and performance of small and medium audit practices (SMPs) within the context of a developing economy, Uganda.

Data were collected through a questionnaire survey of 77 SMPs registered with the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Uganda through their managing partners. The authors utilized multiple regression analysis to test hypotheses using centered variables and an interaction term between IC and professionalism.

IC is a significant determinant of performance of SMPs in Uganda; while professionalism when acting alone is not significant, however, results have shown that professionalism interacts with IC to enhance performance of SMPs.

This study, owing to the absence of publically available published financial statements of SMPs, utilizes a questionnaire to collect data on performance of SMPs which could be less objective. Further, as the study is limited to SMPs in Uganda, it is possible that the results are only applicable to Uganda’s accountancy field. In addition, the use of multiple regression is prone to problems associated with sampling error. However, the likelihood of these problems is mitigated by the interface with data and regression analysis diagnostics that were carried out.

This study provides initial empirical evidence on the relationship between IC, professionalism and performance of SMPs in developing economies. The study further indicates that while IC acts independently to influence firm performance, its interaction with professionalism enhances this performance.

The purpose of this paper is to report on the results of a study carried out to examine the mediating effect of attitude in the relationship between subjective norm, religiosity and intention to adopt Islamic banking in a developing secular state like Uganda.

This study’ research design was cross sectional. Closed ended questionnaires were distributed to 258 managers of micro businesses in Uganda. Data were analyzed with the help of SPSS v22 and MedGraph program (Excel version).

Attitude is a significant mediator in the relationship between subjective norm and intention to adopt Islamic banking. Also, attitude significantly mediates the relationship between religiosity and intention to adopt Islamic banking.

The study used only a single research methodological approach; therefore, future research could be undertaken using a mixed-methods approach.

Emphasis should be put on improving the mindsets of Ugandans toward Islamic banking.

While there has been a number of studies on Islamic banking, this study provides an initial empirical evidence on the mediation effect of attitude in the relationship between subjective norm, religiosity and intention to adopt Islamic banking in a single study in an African developing secular state like Uganda.

It hardly seems possible that I have now been in the secretarial chair for six weeks. I am still busy learning the ropes, but hopefully my response time to your enquiries is improving. We continue to have a steady stream of visitors to our office at 3 Station Parade, which I may say we much enjoy. We also get a large number of letters from overseas on a wide variety of subjects. These again we enjoy, particularly as it helps to widen our horizon from the rather narrow outlook of the office and get us out into the world beyond.