Agrarian transformations in Bangladesh’s Lower Ganges Basin, influenced by neoliberal policies, population growth, and environmental shifts, are reshaping rural livelihoods and food security landscapes. This study investigates how shrinking arable land impacts informal food sources—such as wild plants, uncultivated crops, and natural fisheries—that have historically sustained small-scale and landless farmers. Through a qualitative methodology incorporating in-depth interviews and ethnographic observation, this research reveals the essential role these informal food resources play for rural communities as formal agriculture recedes. Field insights show that modern agricultural practices driven by neoliberal policies and commercialization disrupt these informal food systems, which are increasingly relied upon amid diminishing arable land. Research participants shared their struggles adapting to industrial agriculture, underscoring the need to preserve natural food sources as buffers against food insecurity. The study advocates for balanced policies that protect these informal food systems while accommodating agricultural progress. Findings have significant implications for food security policies and rural development in Bangladesh and other countries centered around the Ganges River, especially concerning the resilience of vulnerable communities.

This study aims to examine the influence of green human resource management (HRM) practices on the service behaviors of bank employees operating in the banking sector of Bangladesh. The study endeavors to offer valuable insights into the effectiveness of green HRM practices in enhancing practices and employee service behaviors in the banking sector. The results indicate that green human resource management practices have a beneficial influence on employee service behaviors by green knowledge sharing, green training and development, green performance appraisal, green reward system. This study also emphasizes how green HRM practices affect banks in terms of organizational sustainability, employee motivation, talent acquisition and retention, and the necessity of ongoing evaluation and improvement. Moreover, the current study used convenience sampling techniques to collect data from 258 workers of several commercial banks in Bangladesh using a self-reported questionnaire that had been modified from other studies. 95% confidence interval was used to accept the hypotheses during regression analysis. The results show that each and every hypothesis is supported, whereas hypothesis tests were analyzed using SPSS version 26.0. The results show that employees’ knowledge sharing tendency, training facility, performance appraisal and reward system have a significant and positive impact on bank employees’ service behavior. This study may contribute to the growing subject of sustainable HRM and offers useful advice for banks looking to include environmental sustainability into their HRM plans to spur progress and enhance service.

Work engagement is a vital practice that should be encouraged among employees and employers, particularly within large companies or organizations. This importance arises from the fact that such entities typically have multiple divisions and sub-divisions, including departments and sections. Work engagement plays a crucial role in fostering effective teamwork among employees and employers across these various departments. While the interplay between work engagement and life satisfaction has been explored in both Western and non-Western studies, there is limited research on this topic within the context of Sabah, Malaysia. Moreover, research focusing on the relationship between work engagement and life satisfaction in Sabah remains relatively sparse. This study aims to investigate the role of marital status as a moderator in the relationship between dimensions of work engagement and dimensions of life satisfaction. A total of 348 female government servants participated in this research, which employed a snowball sampling method. Data collection was concentrated in the district of Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia. Questionnaires, both online and physical, were distributed among the participants. The findings suggest that marital status moderates the relationship between work engagement and life satisfaction among female government servants in Kota Kinabalu. Furthermore, marital status partially moderates the relationship between their dedication to job responsibilities and their cognitive life satisfaction.

Background: Life satisfaction among working-class women in Malaysia are influenced by several factors includes their socio-demographics such as marital status, age, religiosity, ethnicity and their education background. This is also not limited to other external influential factors such as work-life conflict. Only little amount of research focuses on life satisfaction among working-class women in the state of Sabah, Malaysia, in relation with their socio-demographics and work-life conflict. Objectives: Firstly, this research aims to investigate the relationship between socio-demographics and life satisfaction among working-class women in Sabah, Malaysia. Next, will also to examine the relationship between work-life conflict and life satisfaction among working-class women in Sabah, Malaysia. Methodology: A total of 348 female government servants in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia participated in the study by using snowball sampling method. An online questionnaire and physical questionnaires distributed to the respondents at government sectors. Results: It was shown that marital status among working-class women in government sectors partially mediated the relationship between dimensions in work-life conflict and dimensions in life satisfaction. Morever, there was a correlation between all dimensions in work-life conflict and cognitive life satisfaction (p < 0.01) among working-class women in government sectors. Based on results, female government servants in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia's level of life satisfaction are partially influenced by their marital status, especially married individuals. Further research is needed to investigate whether the role of female government servants' grade position in their work organizations influence their level of life satisfaction.

This study aimed to test the potential mediating role of perceived value in the correlation between destination quality and tourist satisfaction. The study tested the mediating effect of perceived value using SPSS-process on a sample of 374 Chinese tourists visiting Sabah from 2017 to 2020. The results demonstrated that the proposed hypotheses were supported. There is a significant positive effect of destination quality on tourist satisfaction. Both dimensions of perceived value, emotional value and economic value have a positive predictive effect on tourist satisfaction. The relationship between destination quality and tourist satisfaction can be moderated by both emotional and economic value. In addition, this research results confirmed that emotional value and economic value had a partial mediating effect. The research indicates that destination managers need to tap into the unique attributes of the destination to enhance service quality. It is also essential to emphasize the perceived value to tourists and to test the quality of the destination by the perceived value, so as to improve the satisfaction of tourists.

This data article describes a dataset derived from a comprehensive household survey aimed at understanding the dynamics of agrarian transformation and its impacts on rural community food security within the Lower Gangetic Basin, specifically along the Arial Khan River, Bangladesh. The survey was conducted as part of a doctoral research project and encompasses data collected from 250 households across a defined Mouza within the basin. The dataset provides detailed insights into various dimensions such as household demographics, land ownership and use, agricultural practices and transformations, socio-cultural and environmental factors, power dynamics, food security status, and the strategies employed to enhance food security.The survey employed a structured questionnaire comprising 78 questions distributed across seven distinct sections. Each section aimed to capture specific aspects of the household's agricultural and food security-related characteristics. Data collection was carried out from September 2023 to March 2024, following ethical guidelines approved by the University Malaysia Sabah, which included obtaining informed consent from all participants.This dataset is unique as it offers a granular look at the interplay between agricultural practices and food security in a region highly susceptible to the impacts of environmental change and economic transformations. The data are presented in a structured format across multiple Microsoft Excel sheets, which are comprehensively labeled to facilitate ease of access and analysis. The dataset is significant for researchers and policymakers focusing on agricultural development, food security, and rural development in South Asia. It provides a valuable resource for comparative studies, policy formulation, and in educational settings, aiming to address issues of sustainability and community resilience in agrarian societies.

With the tourism industry's recovery, there is an increased demand for outbound Chinese tourists. With Chinese tourists as an important submarket in Sabah, a better understanding of Chinese tourists' perceptions of destination tourism is crucial for development. In this study, the representative Tanjung Aru Beach in Sabah was selected as the study case, and the review content was selected through the travellers’ reviews on China's largest travel online platform - Ctrip.com, as the study sample. Through Octopus Collector 8, the text data was analyzed for word frequency, web semantics, and sentiment using the ROST CM6 tool. The results of the study found that most of the Chinese tourists at Tanjung Aru Beach gave satisfactory comments. These positive comments focused mainly on the natural landscape and resources of the beach, the services of the Shangri-La Hotel, the ease of language communication, and the local cuisine. More often than not, Chinese tourists mentioned the beach's sunsets, evening sunsets, flaming clouds, sand, cloud formations, and sea breezes. The study also found that “beach” and “sunset” were the resources that Chinese tourists recognized for the attraction, with the majority of reviews revolving around these two themes. It should be noted that Chinese tourists showed dissatisfaction with the sanitary environment and facilities at Tanjung Aru Beach. The study concludes with recommendations for management.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the mediating role of farmers’ adaptive capacity between adaptation practices and economic, social, natural, technological, and institutional limitations. A survey questionnaire was employed to collect data, which was subsequently analysed using PLS-Structural Equation Modelling Structural equation modelling. The entire population was stratified into 27 Pertubuhan Peladang Kawasan out of which 500 targeted respondents were randomly selected from seven strata for data collection. The findings revealed that only 67% of farmers are aware of adaptation practices, while 33% are uninformed. The study also revealed that economic, social, natural, technological, and institutional barriers affect farmers’ adaptive capacity levels and ultimately hamper their adaptation practices. This result further affirms the influence of farmers’ adaptive capacity level on their adaptation behaviour. Adaptation strategies are essential to mitigate the negative effects of climate change. However, the success of these strategies is contingent upon the farmers’ adaptive capacity level, which is strained by several barriers. The findings contribute to the development of a national adaptation plan in a bid to aid the implementation of the 2011–2020 National Agri-Food Policy (NAP) to increase the competitiveness and production capacity of the entire agri-food industry value chain and ensure food security in Malaysia. This study will help policymakers come up with a good policy framework to get rid of the problems that get in the way of adapting to climate change.

Marine Protected Areas (MPA) are an important management tool adopted by most the nations for conservation of marine and fisheries to save marine ecosystems that are in danger of being overexploited. Malaysia is no exception as coastal regions of Malaysia is prospective for fisheries and many others development activities. The MPAs have an immense impact on people’s livelihood. This study aims to understand the livelihoods of the fishing community in MPAs, Marudu Bay, Sabah, Malaysia. It is guided by the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (SLF) to analyze the indicators of sustainable livelihood capitals and strategies of the MPAs fishing communities. This study uses a qualitative approach. In-depth interviews with five informants were chosen for the data collection using the purposive sampling technique. According to the findings, the informant’s human capital, such as education, health, leadership, skills, and training, has not yet reached a level that could offer a reasonable standard of living and livelihood for the research site's population. Residents of the study sites do not have many options for increasing their household income level. In many locations, fishing is a less appealing occupation. The study provided recommendations and strategies on how to further develop and sustain the livelihood of the fisheries community in MPAs, Sabah.

SME sector's success also depends on its employees' job satisfaction as satisfied employees are likely to be more productive at the workplace and positively enhance SME business performance. Small and medium firms are the heart of the economy, and employees are the main and valuable asset for the SME firms. If SME business managers can increase employee satisfaction, then SMEs' performance will also increase in the future. Hence, the current study aims to determine the job satisfaction of SME employees by analyzing the impact of job training (JT) and promotion (PRO) opportunities on employee job satisfaction. Purposive sampling is applied in the study, and 202 SME employees have participated as sample respondents. The final sample size is n = 202. SPSS 26.0 version is used to analyze the hypotheses. The study findings show that both job training (JT) and promotion (PRO) have a positive effect on SME employee job satisfaction. It does indicate that SME managers need to provide necessary training programs and timely promotion to their current working employees to keep them satisfied with their job. Promotion and effective job training will certainly enhance employees' job satisfaction. The study has also offered a few strategic implications for SME business managers.

The present work is an empirical study of the causes of labour migration, especially, Bangladeshi temporary migrants to Malaysia. The study is based on the survey of 100 Bangladeshi migrant workers who were selected according to two stage sampling procedure. On one stage, an area where Bangladeshi workers reside was selected through random sampling procedure. On the second stage, 100 respondents were selected from the area according to purposive snowball sampling procedure. The main objective of the study is to find out the causes for migration of Bangladeshi workers to Malaysia. The majority, 66 respondents, leave their country because of poor income. These respondents had some income in their origin country but that was not sufficient to survive their needs to look after their family. It was also found that 31 respondents left the country because of unemployment. Thus, most of the Bangladeshi workers left their country due to poor income and unemployment. Finally, the study suggested that adequate measures should be taken to provide pre-departure training on job and host county’s culture to the expected migrant workers.

The new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) which spread across the globe has no effective treatment or vaccine and calls for other ways to control its infection are needed. The disease easily spread among people in close contact through cough and/or sneeze. This prompted the World Health Organisation WHO to recommend other ways of controlling the disease to include quarantine, isolation and social distancing where people without the symptoms are distanced from one another. Students may experience loneliness, anxiety, depression, and insomnia due to self-quarantine and other issues like social isolation, perceived dangers, uncertainty in relation to study, physical discomfort, fear of virus infection from others, negative news in the mass media. As such, international students who are far from home were invited as respondents to explore the effect of these control measure on those under self-quarantine. A qualitative online interview protocol was sent to the locations of these students at Sungai Chinchin in Gombak and international student hostel Sabah. To be eligible, respondents should be international students and observing self-quarantine.

The study investigates the incidence of domestic violence as reported by the press under the Movement Control Order MCO during the pandemic. The study also discussed how of issues of domestic violence can be handled now and during future pandemics. Empirical evidence used in this study is based on secondary data and qualitative analysis technique adopted to assess issues of domestic violence. To get relevant data, Google Scholar was used as a tool to access the major databases provided by Springer, IISTE, Tailor and Frances, Emerald, Elsevier, Sage and others. Data were obtained from newspaper articles and news articles from various online news outlets as the only source to access data of incidence of domestic violence in Malaysia during the lockdown. Results indicate a slight decrease in calls on domestic violence immediately after the MCO was implemented on March 18. It is found that the decrease was due to the fact that survivors or victims were trapped with the abusers and could not seek help or escape. The study further found that organizations attending to domestic violence cases reported a serious increase in number of abuse cases in Malaysia in the second week of the MCO thus between 18 and 31 March. The findings are intended to contribute to the narratives on violence against women now and during future disease outbreaks. It may also assist in the future improvement of the provision of services and interventions for victims of domestic violence during pandemic.

This is an empirical study on Bangladeshi workers’ socio-cultural adjustment to Malaysian environment in Kuala Lumpur. It explores and assesses three-dimensional adjustments—social, work and non-work environment—of Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia. The focus is on socio-cultural adjustment to the general or non-work environment, adjustment to work and adjustment to interactions with co-workers and the locals. The first stage of the study is based on the interview with 25 Bangladeshi temporary migrant workers to collect relevant information about their level of adjustment. The difficulty in getting the list of migrant worker did not allow the researchers to select samples randomly. On the second stage, 100 respondents were selected from the area according to purposive and snowball sampling procedure. The data were analysed using SPSS version 18.0 software. Cronbach alpha was computed to ascertain the reliability and validity of the instrument. Multiple regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. The study revealed that Bangladeshi workers’ adjustment on non-work or general adjustment and interaction adjustment are quite high, but their adjustment is less on work adjustment dimension. Furthermore, workers’ degree of comfort (adjustment) with non-work condition was related to their performance of work, but their degree of comfort (adjustment) with work adjustment and interaction adjustment is not related to their work performance. The study suggested that adequate measures should be taken to provide pre-departure training on job and host county’s culture to the expected migrant workers. The government of the native country should also monitor the activities of recruiting agencies.

The underutilization of formal health services is a common scenario among migrants that leads to the development of serious medical conditions. This study aims to examine the influence of socio-demographic factors on the use of health services among Bangladeshi migrant workers in Malaysia. It employed Andersen’s ‘population characteristics framework’ behavioral model, which is based on a quantitative method. A questionnaire was developed to collect relevant information through face-to-face interviews from respondents involved in the construction, manufacturing, and service sectors. The results revealed that the majority of Bangladeshi workers were not consistent in visiting doctors, hospitals, or clinics when they experienced illness in the past year. The theoretical implication of Andersen’s behavioral model comprising predisposing and need factors was found to be significantly and positively associated with the use of health services. The findings indicated that predisposing factors including marital status and education, and need factors, including self-rated health status, sickness, and chronic illness in the previous year, had the greatest impact on healthcare utilization. However, there was no significant relationship between respondents’ ages and their utilization of healthcare services during their stay in Malaysia. Finally, the study suggests that adequate measures should be taken to provide pre-departure training related to the existing healthcare system in Malaysia, including health insurance cover and extension of services to future migrant workers.

This study focuses on the extent to which social work practice in Malaysia can be indigenised. The social work programmes and practices needs to accommodate the traditions and sociocultural practices of the people to provide adequate and relevant services. Considering the shortcomings and inadequacies of current social work theories and practices, social problems in Malaysia might better be handled if the practice of social work is indigenised. Combination of direct and summative qualitative content analysis research methods is adopted. As such, the studies assessed factors encouraging social work practice and why the need to indigenise social work in Malaysia. To get relevant data, Google Scholar was used as a tool to access the major databases provided by Tailor and Frances, Emerald, Elsevier, Springer, Sage and others. Relevant literature reveals that for development with indigenisation, social workers have delved into different forms of service delivery and different assumptions as proposed service delivery in other parts of the globe. It is revealed that the analysis of social workers is centered at the micro level due to the casework orientation.

In order to minimize the adverse effects of climate change, appropriate adaptation strategies are paramount. Farmers' socio-demographic factors play a significant role in the selection of appropriate adaptation methods. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence on how farmers’ socio-demographic factors affect the choice of specific adaptation strategies to minimize the negative effects of climate change. This study explores what the main determinants are for farmers when choosing specific adaptation strategies in the context of local climate. Data was collected using questionnaires and analyzed using statistical tools. The study found that income level, education level and experience had a positive and significant influence on farmers’ choices of climate change adaptation strategies. This implies that well-educated, wealthy, and experienced farmers are able to adapt more easily. The results also showed that farmers are aware that climate change has affected livestock and land degradation, increased food costs, and increased rural-urban migration. These negative effects of climate change on ecosystem services and agricultural production in Malaysia could be barriers to achieving sustainable agricultural practices. Therefore, the findings bring new perspectives to policymakers when developing adaptation policies for farming communities in the Malaysian agricultural sector.

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) led students feel anxious with a constant internal dialogue of 'Am I safe?' that may take a serious toll on their psyche. The self-quarantine and physical distancing, economic hardship and fears of contracting the disease are likely sources of stress. Quite apart, students may also experience both physical sufferings and mental stress due to the news of increasing number of infected cases and reported deaths across the globe. A range of expert guidelines have been developed by governments and health authorities to curtail the spread of the virus. This study models a position paper which persuades the reader to realize that the opinions expressed are valid and could be defended. In gathering supporting evidence, an online qualitative survey was conducted to examine the stress of students observing self-quarantine and physical distancing in and around Desa Ilmu and Unigardern in Kota Saramarahan as well as in apartments at Jalan Kingfisher Sabah. These students were invited as respondents in this online investigation using interview protocol to take their responses. This study is among the first to examine the stress and coping strategies of students observing self-quarantine and physical distancing. The paper may provide useful information about how students cope in stressful situations and also identify effective ways to manage people during distress times in future.

The primary objective of this study was to identify the barriers to accessing health-care services as perceived by Bangladeshi temporary workers’ in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The participants comprised 300 migrants working in the construction, manufacturing, and service sectors from three areas of Kuala Lumpur with the highest concentration of Bangladeshis. Following an analysis of the face-to-face structured interviews, the findings indicated that the main barriers were health-care providers not understanding migrant workers’ health problems, high medical costs, self-medication, and lack of transportation. It is recommended, therefore, that a pre-departure orientation program should be developed to familiarize migrant workers with the Malaysian health-care system and procedures, as well basic courses in Malay (Bahasa Melayu) and English, to help them access and use health-care services. In addition, it is suggested that a further, larger study is conducted to extend the findings to other states in Malaysia where there are Bangladeshi temporary migrant workers from similar backgrounds.