Healing gardens serve as natural environments that counterbalance the high stress levels experienced by patients and alleviate the emotional impact of being hospitalised, ultimately contributing towards their healing progress and overall well-being. Although healing gardens have become a visible trend in healthcare design, the effectiveness and longevity of these spaces for healing purposes remain questionable. This paper examines the wide-ranging benefits of healing gardens by reviewing relevant literature published between 2000 and 2024. It also outlines the key elements defining the functional and inclusive nature of healing gardens, specifically in healthcare settings, as well as the challenges associated with the development and expansion of healing gardens at healthcare facilities. The findings hope to provide a holistic understanding of the importance and complexity of healing garden development and its sustainability in healthcare facilities, offering valuable insights to healthcare designers, planners, and policymakers.
The rapid growth of the e-commerce industry has increased the demand for courier services in Malaysia. These services play a crucial role in ensuring fast and efficient product delivery. However, a rise in complaints from online shoppers regarding issues during the parcel delivery process by Shopee Xpress has led to customer dissatisfaction. This study examines the factors influencing online shoppers' satisfaction with Shopee Xpress delivery services in Malaysia using the SERVQUAL model. Data collected from 134 respondents in Peninsular Malaysia was analysed through Pearson correlation and multiple regression analysis. The findings revealed that three out of five variables—price, reliability, and responsiveness—positively impact online shoppers' satisfaction, while assurance and empathy showed no significant influence. Price emerged as the strongest predictor of customer satisfaction, followed by reliability. This study enhances the understanding of the key factors affecting customer satisfaction with Shopee Xpress delivery services in Malaysia. Future research is recommended to include a more diverse sample of respondents to improve the accuracy of data analysis and to compare delivery services from different providers across Malaysia.
The digital marketplace has revolutionised the global marketing landscape, enabling businesses and retailers to expand their reach and engage in transactions with a wider audience. While these platforms offer convenience, variety, and accessibility, they also present certain risks that may influence consumer decision-making. Guided by the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), this study examines how perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness interact with perceived risks—specifically product, financial, delivery, time, and information security risks—in shaping consumers’ intentions to engage in online shopping. Focusing on the East Coast region of Malaysia, the research employed a structured questionnaire administered to 300 respondents to assess consumer awareness of these risks and their impact on technology acceptance in digital marketplaces. The integration of TAM provides a theoretical lens to understand how risk perception affects behavioural intention and how positive technology perceptions can mitigate such effects. The findings offer valuable insights for e-retailers, marketers, and business owners in formulating effective risk-reduction strategies and enhancing perceived ease of use and usefulness, thereby increasing consumer trust and confidence. By addressing the dual dimensions of technology acceptance and risk perception, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of online consumer behaviour and offers practical guidance for fostering a more robust and sustainable digital marketplace ecosystem.
Green Human Resource Management (Green HRM) has been acknowledged as a strategic approach to encouraging green sustainability within organisations. However, there is a lack of structured practices for ranking the most impactful Green HRM practices, especially among Malaysian manufacturing industries. This study addresses the research gap by evaluating the relative importance of Green HRM practices using the Fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). It aims to identify whether Fuzzy TOPSIS can serve as a prominent decision-making tool for determining the most effective Green HRM practices in organisations. A pre-test was conducted with two decision-makers comprising Human Resource (HR) managers from the manufacturing industries. The questionnaire was developed based on prior studies and the variables encompassed four Green HRM practices: green recruitment, green training, green rewards, and green employee involvement. Fuzzy logic was incorporated to handle the uncertainty in expert judgment. The findings revealed that green rewards ranked first, followed by green employee involvement, green recruitment, and green training. This suggests that reward-based and involvement strategies are the most influential factors in driving sustainable HR outcomes within organisations. This study contributes to the limited research on decision-making tools in Green HRM and provides a practical foundation for future large-scale evaluations by using Fuzzy TOPSIS.
The oil and gas industry is one of the major contributors to global economic growth and industrial development. However, its operation is high-risk with challenges such as human error, chemical hazards, flammable materials, high-pressure systems, and complex machinery, which can lead to accidents. A prominent solution to handle such risks is to promote and strengthen a good safety culture practice in oil and gas sites. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the organisational factors influencing the safety culture in the oil and gas industry. A systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted using the Preferred Reporting Items for System Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) method and the data were analysed using thematic analysis. The findings revealed six organisational factors (safety rules, safety reporting, working environment, job satisfaction, accident and incidents, and technology equipment) that significantly influence the establishment of a safety culture in the oil and gas industry. This study can assist managerial personnel to strengthen their company by fostering organisational safety culture and minimise workplace accidents.
University campuses, such as University Malaysia Pahang Al-Sultan Abdullah face recurring challenges in managing traffic and parking due to increasing vehicle numbers and limited infrastructure. This study addresses these issues by employing Discrete Event Simulation to evaluate and enhance parking and traffic efficiency at Block Z, University Malaysia Pahang Al-Sultan Abdullah, Gambang Campus. It aims to identify the primary problems of insufficient parking spaces and traffic congestion that led to significant delays and inconvenience for students, staff, and visitors. The objectives of this study are to develop a simulation model of the current parking and traffic system, assess its efficiency, and recommend improvements. The ARENA software was used to run several simulation scenarios that integrated input gathered through observations, interviews, and records from University Malaysia Pahang Al-Sultan Abdullah Holding. The simulation performance was evaluated through metrics such as waiting times, parking utilisation, and vehicle flow. Validation and verification techniques, including Mean Absolute Percentage Error and face validation, were done to ensure the model's accuracy and reliability. Key findings suggest that reorganising parking layouts and adding parking spaces closer to Block Z significantly reduce waiting times and traffic congestion. Scenario 2, involving eight additional organised parking spaces near Block Z, proved most effective, achieving a reduction in waiting times by 75% and eliminating parking shortages. The study highlights the value of Discrete Event Simulation as a decision-making tool for optimising campus infrastructure, offering practical insights and scalable solutions for University Malaysia Pahang Al-Sultan Abdullah and similar institutions.
The Malaysian textile industry is experiencing rapid development as a result of increased local demand, a robust export market, government backing, e-commerce expansion, and the expanding impact of social media. However, the industry also produces a significant amount of harmful wastewater, thus raising wastewater management as an environmental concern. The purpose of this review paper was to explore the industrial management of textile wastewater, including wastewater characteristics, treatment options, and sustainability initiatives. It analysed the present state of water sources in Malaysia, specifically focusing on the impact of wastewater from the textile industry. This was followed by a discussion of the trends in Malaysia's textile industry, the issues concerning the wastewater generated by this sector, and the use of industrial engineering and management in wastewater treatment. This concise review provides valuable information regarding future studies in wastewater treatment, with a specific focus on textile wastewater. Effective water resource management is crucial for ensuring sustainable industrial growth. Industrial management is an ongoing process that entails overseeing and coordinating all aspects of an organisation's production and operations.
Queue management is a critical challenge for hypermarkets, where prolonged wait times can negatively impact customer satisfaction and operational efficiency. The congested checkout areas at Lotus Alor Setar are caused by a high number of customers and insufficient cashiers, resulting in slower transaction times for scanning, payments, and assistance. Such queuing problems cause delay to the overall service, thus reducing customer satisfaction. In response to the issue, this study aimed to enhance the queueing system at Lotus Alor Setar through a simulation model and to propose the most efficient hypermarket queueing system. Discrete Event Simulation was used to replicate the existing systems, followed by the testing of three scenarios to determine their respective performance in addressing the issue. The significance of this study lies in identifying ways to efficiently allocate resources, such as personnel and checkout stations, to promote cost savings and higher service quality. These findings offer useful insights not only for improving the queuing system at Lotus Alor Setar but also for guiding other hypermarkets alike.
PN17 classification is synonymous with companies that fail to comply with the Bursa Malaysia laws, thus serving as an early warning for potential financial issues. Accurately determining the financial status of PN17 companies often requires an extensive review of the reports and procedures. This study employed a logit model to identify the factors contributing to PN17 classification with a combination of financial distress indicators: stock volatility, leverage, liquidity, profitability, and probability of default (PD). A sample of financial data from 46 companies listed on Bursa Malaysia, comprising both PN17 and non-PN17 companies, from 2017 to 2022 was analysed using logistic regression. The results reveal that stock volatility, liquidity, and leverage are statistically significant to PN17 classification at a 95% confidence interval. The logit function obtained from the logistic regression analysis was able to classify PN17 and non-PN17 companies with 85.1% accuracy. Nonetheless, the accuracy of classifying PN17 (31.9%) is lower compared to non-PN17 (96.4%). This may be due to class imbalance bias (PN17 and non-PN17) and the negative relationship found in leverage, which is contradicted by the financial theory where higher leverage means higher risk. The ROC-AUC analysis supports the struggle in classifying PN17 due to the counterintuitive relationship in leverage. This suggests a complex relationship in leverage that requires further investigation into its linearity, bimodality, and relations with other predictors. Overall, PN17 classification can be improved with stock volatility as the strongest predictor, followed by liquidity and leverage. Meanwhile, profitability and PD were found to be insignificant to PN17 classification. These findings highlight the gaps in the existing literature regarding the predictive power of the logit model when incorporating additional financial indicators (stock volatility and PD) and understanding the relationships of the financial factors in classifying the minority PN17 class. Regulators might consider giving more weight to stock volatility for identifying financially distressed in PN17 companies. Future research may consider data augmentation methods and other model approaches to address the class imbalance bias and counterintuitive relationship in leverage in order to produce a more robust model.
The cup noodle manufacturing plant in Semarang, Indonesia, renowned for its "Cup Noodle" brand, faces significant challenges in its inbound logistics process, including inconsistencies in delivered quantities, delays in arrivals, and work-related accidents. This study addresses these issues through the application of the House of Risk (HOR) methodology to systematically identify, analyse, and prioritise risks associated with the inbound logistics of raw materials. Employing a qualitative research approach, the study integrates semi-structured interviews with key personnel from the raw material and beads warehouse departments, non-participatory observations of the inbound process, and the analysis of relevant documentation, such as annual reports, monthly logs, and operational photographs. The HOR methodology was implemented in two phases: Phase 1 focused on the identification and ranking of risk events and risk agents, while Phase 2 concentrated on the formulation and evaluation of mitigation strategies based on their Effectiveness to Difficulty Ratio (ETDk). The research identified several critical risk agents and recommended three principal mitigation strategies: enhancing communication procedures, establishing pertinent Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and adopting an integrated Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. These strategies are expected to mitigate logistical discrepancies and delays, thereby improving inventory accuracy and reducing operational disruptions. The findings provide actionable recommendations aimed at enhancing the efficiency and reliability of inbound logistics, ultimately contributing to overall operational improvements and reduced disruptions at the manufacturing plant.
This study examines the impact of mobile applications (mobile apps) on customer effort across two main customer categories (residential and business) of a prominent energy provider in Malaysia. A questionnaire survey was administered to 951 respondents selected via stratified sampling, and Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM), SmartPLS 4.0, was employed to analyse the data using bootstrapping and multigroup analysis. The results indicate that customer effort was influenced by functionality and design quality. Conversely, social trust and information quality negatively impacted customer effort in both customer categories. The multigroup analysis revealed no substantial variances among all variables on customer effort. These findings can assist energy companies in standardising their mobile app services across various customer segments, thus improving customer experience and satisfaction. Future research can expand the study by including other industries for better generalisability of the findings.
Business analytics (BA) has emerged as a pivotal tool for enhancing decision-making and business performance through data-driven insights. However, its implementation remains a significant challenge. This study employed a systematic literature review methodology and utilised Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar as a backup database to retrieve relevant literature. The review followed a structured process comprising identification, screening, eligibility, and data collection/extraction stages. The searches initially retrieved 83 articles, of which 41 met the inclusion criteria based on peer-reviewed journal status, language, and relevance. Google Scholar was utilised to access articles unavailable in the primary databases. Following full-text assessments and accessibility checks, 25 articles were selected for analysis. The findings categorise antecedents, strategies, and consequences of BA implementation, highlighting the importance of management support, data infrastructure, and cultural readiness. Additionally, it identified several gaps in the literature, including research on skills development and adoption within small and medium enterprises. This study provides actionable insights for practitioners and future research directions to advance BA implementation.
This study examines the role of controlling shareholders in determining the level of corporate social responsibility (CSR) investments. The data was collected from Pakistani listed firms and analysed using the panel regression technique. The results revealed that controlling shareholders have direct and nonlinear relationships (U-shaped) with social investments. The U-shaped relationship indicates that CSR investments decrease at lower levels of shareholders and increase when controlling shareholders own more shares. Subsequently, controlling shareholders may be risk-averse or consciously keep lower level of CSR investments while owning less shares. However, CSR investments may later increase as controlling shareholders own more shares for reputation and survivability concerns. The findings are useful for managers and policymakers to explore the impact of main corporate governance actors (i.e., controlling shareholders) towards CSR investments. It offers guidelines for managers, minority shareholders, and the government regarding CSR investments and whether controlling shareholders will align or contradict these endeavours. The study also extends the theoretical boundaries of the agency theory and reference point for developing economies with weak governance mechanisms and poor investor protection.
The construction industry plays a crucial role in economic development by providing essential infrastructure, creating jobs, and supporting other industries. However, this sector faces persistent technical challenges that impede successful project contracting, including issues, such as inadequate supervision, unskilled labour, and outdated equipment. Despite the industry's importance, there is limited research on how these technical challenges impact project contracting, creating a gap in understanding and addressing these issues effectively. This study investigates the influence of technical challenges on project contracting in construction. The data were gathered using a structured survey and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to analyse the impact of challenges like resource shortages, supply chain issues, and insufficient workforce skills on contracting outcomes. The findings revealed lack of qualified supervision, unskilled labour resulting in poor workmanship, material shortages due to defective supply chains, and ambiguous project specifications as significant challenges that influence projects. The structural equation modelling confirms the reliability of the proposed model, highlighting the interplay between identified technical challenges and their latent constructs. These findings highlight the need to invest in training programs in ensuring that project supervisors and managers possess the necessary qualifications and skills to effectively oversee construction projects. The study concludes by outlining suggestions for further research to deepen the understanding of technical challenges in the delivery of construction contracts and inform evidence-based strategies for industry improvement. This research not only addresses gaps in current literature but also provides practical recommendations for optimising contract deliverables in the construction industry.
This study highlights the importance for YP Plantation Holdings Sdn Bhd (YPPH) to maintain the use of machinery in palm oil plantations without damaging the environment. One of the keys to achieving such goal is to conduct regular inspections and maintenance to ensure that all machinery is working properly and efficiently, thus avoiding costs associated with breakdown and repair. It is also important for the machinery to comply with environmental regulations. This will not only promote environmentally friendly operations but also establish a positive impression among environmentally conscious stakeholders. In conclusion, proper maintenance of equipment and machines will help YPPH to save costs and become an environmentally friendly entity, thus ensuring its long-term success in the palm oil industry.
The growing railway industry demands organisations and educational institutions to produce high-quality human resources with specific competencies in the railway transportation sector. However, the competitiveness of vocational education graduates is lower compared to university graduates. Therefore, enhancing the skills and competencies of human resources can be achieved by improving the academic performance of vocational students. This study explores the influence of vocational awareness, vocational aspiration, and attitude on the academic performance of students from the Indonesian Railway Polytechnic. Probability simple random sampling was employed to select 212 students from the Railway Transportation Management Program and Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) was used for data analysis purposes. The results show that vocational awareness, vocational aspiration, and attitude have an impact on academic performance. This research contributes to the scholarly literature in the field of Resource-Based Theory, whereby personal attributes are considered strategic assets that are difficult to be replicated by competitors. Such insight is valuable for higher education institutions in producing excellent and competitive graduates. This study is limited by the restricted sample size of 140 respondents and the research subjects are students from a single study program. Therefore, future research can expand to include all study programs and across universities in the railway sector for better generalisability of the findings.
This paper addresses the critical issue of inefficient logistics costing practices within garment manufacturing small medium enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia, which often leads to suboptimal cost management and competitive disadvantage. It investigates the current practices of logistics costing in local garment manufacturing SMEs and examines the challenges posed by emerging trends in logistics costing. The study also aims to identify prevalent practices in logistics management, ascertain the factors influencing logistics costs, and recommend effective strategies for optimising these costs. A qualitative method via semi-structured interview was employed to gather the data. The findings reveal that logistics costs are predominantly calculated based on transportation fees alone. Significant factors affecting logistics costs include currency exchange rates and labour expenses. The recommended best practices for managing logistics costs effectively include outsourcing logistics functions and opting for smaller vehicles, such as cars or vans, instead of larger lorries.
There has been a significant increase in the number of recorded casualties within the construction business between 2020 and 2022, with a monthly rise in the frequency of such incidents. This study examines the correlation between safety practices and turnover intentions in the construction industry, focusing on registered construction companies in Kuala Lumpur. The target participants were Grade G5 to G7 construction companies registered with the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) in Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur. The data was gathered through an online survey with 136 respondents and analysed using Structural Equation Modelling. A strong correlation was found between improper safety practices and turnover intention among construction workers. The findings hope to provide valuable insights for the construction industry to comprehend the impact of several variables on turnover intention. It also serves as an indicator for the most effective interpretation of employee turnover measurements to improve successful safety policies
Recent technological advancement has prompted smart organisations to become the focal point of any organisation. This research investigates the role of smart organisations (understanding the environment, finding strategic alternatives, continuous learning, smart processes, and intelligence teams) in organisational ambidexterity (exploration and exploitation of ambidexterity). Simple random sampling was used to select 60 educational supervisors in the Duhok Governorate. A quantitative approach via survey questionnaire was employed for data collection and Statistical Package for Social Sciences was used for data analysis purposes. The findings demonstrated a significant relationship between smart organisations and organisational ambidexterity. Future studies are recommended to investigate the nexus between additional factors and their moderating and mediating roles as well as exploring the strategic differences between balancing exploration and exploitation and maximising their scope.
Ensuring high service quality in the taxi service sector is critical for achieving customer satisfaction, which is a serious metric for organisational success and longevity. This study examines the levels of customer experience and satisfaction towards the app-based taxi service in Iraq. A questionnaire was distributed to 223 participants to assess their level of customer satisfaction in terms of driver behaviour, price fairness, time reliability, and stakeholders, and the mediating role played by customer service in the relationship. Smart PLS was used to analyse the data. The results revealed that all four variables have a considerable influence on consumer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is positively influenced by time reliability and stakeholder performance but negatively impacted by driver behaviour and price fairness. These variables subsequently have a large effect on customer service as the mediating variable. The findings highlight the significance of these aspects in improving the overall quality of taxi services and customer satisfaction in Iraq.
