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Integrated Case Study, Advanced Management Accounting, Environmental Management Accounting (EMA), Human Resource Management.

This case is designed for undergraduate students in accounting, business or human resource management programmes.

The case is about Irfan, a former Production Manager in Omicron, a small and medium-sized enterprise in Selangor, Malaysia, manufacturing automotive metal parts. Irfan is truly enthusiastic for environmental and cost-reduction tools and wishes to pursue it further to his best possible. The case presents Irfan facing the dilemma of how to align his passion for these tools to his future career choice. He is faced with three options – to remain in Omicron, to accept a job offer in another company or to establish his own consultancy firm. The case highlights the heavy involvement of Irfan in the implementation of a new environmental tool, Material Flow Cost Accounting (MFCA) in Omicron, and all the tasks, activities, benefits and challenges encountered. Being at the ground with the implementation and outputs achieved, Irfan is excited about MFCA and wants to continue with it, due to the rich and valuable experience gained from its implementation and its potential for future savings. However, he does not seem to observe a similar excitement among the higher management. The case details an example of the implementation of MFCA for one of Omicron’s products and other relevant information that could serve as a guidance to any future implementation either in Omicron, the new company or even his own company. The case also provides details about Omicron and how Irfan regard Omicron as his second family to hint a strong pulling factor for Irfan to remain in Omicron, hence providing the extra weight on the dilemma he faces.

In the process of assessing a career choice dilemma for a middle-level manager, students are expected to analyse the three career options available to this middle manager, whose dilemma also relates to his passion of pursuing environment-related and cost-reduction tools. Where the environment is concerned, some parties need extra persuasion to pursue it and this also triggers the middle-manager’s dilemma. This case is intended to provide a tool to enable students to review and discuss matters, such as overcoming obstacles of pursuing environmental-related initiatives and progressing a mid-life career that provides self-fulfilment financially, emotionally and mentally. Among the theories and concepts referred include diffusion of innovations theory, EMA concepts and Hofstede’s cultural dimensions.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 1: Accounting and Finance.

The surge in pharmaceutical and health supplement usage among consumers aims to enhance personal well-being. This growing opportunity for pharmaceutical brands has resulted in increased market share and intensified industry competition. Using the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), this study aims to identify the factors influencing Malaysians’ choices regarding pharmaceutical and health supplements. In addition, the variable of past behaviour was incorporated to account for consumer decisions based on prior experiences.

Using purposive sampling, 300 questionnaires were gathered and analysed via Statistical Package for the Social Sciences and structural equation modelling technique via Analysis of Moment Structures software to validate the reliability of each variables and the postulated relationships within the research framework.

Results revealed a pronounced impact of past behaviour on the intention to consume pharmaceutical and health supplements. The mediating role of perceived behavioural control in bridging past behaviour and consumption intention was also ascertained. Notably, the findings support the inclusion of past behaviour in the TPB as a pivotal determinant of intention.

The insights gleaned underscore the escalating trend of pharmaceutical consumption in Malaysia, providing strategies to enhance and maintain the competitive edge and market position of pharmaceutical brands.

Having Middle Eastern tourism industry as the context, this study aims to examine the impact of the four main dimensions within service innovation (i.e. product, process, organizational and marketing innovations) on tourist satisfaction; subsequently, towards the development of destination loyalty. Realized that religiosity prevails as an important social force that shapes individual behaviours, this study, hence, placed further assessment upon its moderating role, specifically in the relationships between tourist satisfaction and destination loyalty.

With adopting the approach of self-structured questionnaire, 214 usable responses had been collected for this study. Obtained data was then analyzed by conducting exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and multiple linear regression analysis through the usage of structural equation modelling.

Analysis of obtained data has revealed all the investigated dimensions within service innovation as active predictors to tourist satisfaction, with the exception of product innovation, while having marketing innovation being of highest significance. In turn, tourist satisfaction is found to greatly influence the formation of destination loyalty. Findings then provide notable indication on religiosity as a moderating factor to the proposed relationships within the investigated framework, between service innovation and tourist satisfaction, as well as tourist satisfaction and destination loyalty.

This study, thus, revealed the level of religiosity, particularly from the standpoint of Islamic perspectives, in playing a critical role towards predicting capability of service innovation on tourist satisfaction, and further, destination loyalty. Contributions hereby lie on theoretical and pragmatic insights concerning aspects of service and Islamic marketing within today’s tourism front.

A total of 210 valid paper-and-pencil questionnaires were received from fast-moving consumer goods/small and medium-sized enterprises (FMCG-SMEs) to empirically test the proposed model. Structural equation modelling approach was performed to assess the model fit, measurement and structural models for exogenous and endogenous constructs, and test of nonlinearity.

In the hyper-competitive world, while the essence of strategy making is often focussed on environmental and market-based analysis or the structure of the market, the important role of resources and capabilities in determining firm performance and overall strategy formulation within SMEs begs attention. Grounded in the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm, organisational improvisation theory and componential theory of creativity, the purpose of this research is to look beyond the determinants of creativity, innovation and proposes a theoretical model investigating organisations formative performance in strategy formulation.

The results imply that intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, creativity-related processes and expertise as the firm's capabilities positively influence improvisational creativity, and creativity-related processes and expertise also positively impact on compositional creativity. Surprisingly, intrinsic and extrinsic motivations are not conducive to compositional creativity, and the relationships between extrinsic motivation and improvisational creativity as well as improvisational creativity and performance are nonlinear. Furthermore, both improvisational creativity and compositional creativity are found to be predictors of innovation in FMCG-SMEs.

Thus, organisations and specifically FMCG-SMEs can increase the level of improvisational creativity if they formulate strategies to motivate employees both intrinsically and extrinsically, and further, they can boost the level of compositional creativity in their companies through hiring and nurturing experts.

Less attention has been paid to motivation, creativity, innovation, performance and strategy linkages as the prominent source of competitive advantages among FMCG-SMEs, especially in developing countries. Theoretically, through introducing extrinsic motivation as the predictors of improvisational creativity and innovation, from strategic management perspectives, the empirical findings of this research illustrate that resources and capabilities (RBV) lead to improved competitive performance within the FMCG-SMEs. This study also provides empirical evidence for the nonlinear nature of the relationship between motivation and creativity.

The entrepreneurial marketing (EM) literature has grown rapidly during the last decade, yet much is left undiscovered. This paper aims to conduct a bibliometric analysis and text mining of the EM domain to provide trends in previous EM research to address this issue. Future avenues for EM research are provided.

Using the Scopus database, a bibliometric analysis and text mining are conducted with EM articles published between 1976 and 2020.

The paper reports the most frequently published and cited authors and their co-author networks. Journals which contain these articles are included with country data, subject areas and use of author keywords related to the EM topic. Frequencies of keywords and newly-emerging keywords in every three-year period during the past 12 years are also examined. The findings suggest that future researchers should explore the subtopics of EM education, legitimation, entrepreneurial networking and social media/digital marketing within the EM domain.

Bibliometric analysis and text mining are relatively new methods with which to study the EM research domain, allowing for analysis of emerging trends over the past 12 years.

This chapter focuses on the challenges that the Malaysian AIDS council (MAC) have been facing in creating the social awareness. Moreover, this chapter briefly discusses the HIV epidemic in Malaysian context. The harm reduction and prevention campaigns as well as the intervention programs taken by MAC are then highlighted. Finally, the challenges associated with implementing such programs are also discussed.

University students have a clear need for bank accounts as they have fees, expenses and cash needs. The usefulness of a current account is therefore pre‐evident and Islamic banks need to focus on their brand image and the services they offer. Indeed, understanding bank selection from Muslim customer's perspective can provide useful information to banks' senior management to help them allocate resources and design products that promise to attract and better satisfy customers. Literature collected so far suggests a strong Islamic brand reputation as well as better financial and banking services are the main factors which influence the selection of a brand. The purpose of this paper is to test this within a positivistic empirical framework and amongst the younger generation in Malaysia.

The sample was based on 300 students at the International Islamic University of Malaysia. The study utilised five selection criteria based on previous research, personal experience and interview with bank officials and university students. The study also provides some insight into the younger generation's awareness of Islamic banking and the processes involved in the selection of their preferred brand.

It would seem that whilst the importance of religion is a major driver in the choice of Islamic banking the fundamental differences between Islamic and conventional banking are poorly understood. What is important is brand, ease of use and the quality of the customer interaction.

The paper investigates the factors which determine a customer's choice of a particular bank and provides insights into cementing relationships with existing customers as well as how to gain new ones.

As high school and college graduates enter today's highly competitive and diverse, globalized economies, cultural competence and social and emotional learning (SEL) competencies continue being essential skills for college, career, and life success. These capabilities are more than valuable assets, they are employability requirements in a modern workforce dependent on navigating relationships and interactions between people from different backgrounds. In education, educators are increasingly expected to cultivate these skills within equitable learning environments for all students, international and domestic. Recent research demonstrates greater need to support international students in the United States who often experience unique academic barriers, stressors, and lack of support services for managing international relocation and integration into unfamiliar academic and cultural systems. To better understand how culturally responsive SEL education can serve as a lever for increasing equitable conditions for international students and to contribute research-based practices on how distance learning can strengthen culturally responsive SEL skills, the following chapter introduces how one online academic and cultural studies course influenced high school and undergraduate international students. Through qualitative and quantitative sources (e.g., written homework reflections; cultural orientation indicator (COI) report; paper: My Action Plan; course evaluation survey), themes emerged from the data that identified how explicit online SEL education, using a culturally responsive lens, contributed to gains in cultural competence, educational equity, academic and professional development, and self-efficacy.