Kuwait’s SMEs contribute to the economic growth of the country by creating productive jobs for Kuwaiti youth and professionals and improving income diversification. SMEs in Kuwait are faced with numerous challenges and these problems must be addressed to achieve and ensure longer-term success and better performance. This paper seeks to examine the relationship between the determinants of organizational performance such as entrepreneurial leadership (EL), learning orientation (LO), and innovation capacity (IC) of Kuwaiti's Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The study used a quantitative method. A survey questionnaire was administered to gather the data, where the useable data was obtained from 384 of the 500 SME owners and CEOs in Kuwait. The outcomes of this study indicate that entrepreneurial leadership and learning orientation had positive and significant implication on organizational performance. Moreover, the innovation capacity is also found to be a significant mediator in the relationships.

The main objective of this research paper is to examine the mediating roles of place attachment and tourist satisfaction on destination attractiveness and loyalty relationship using the phantom approach among foreign tourists visiting Langkawi Island, Malaysia. Tourists from three countries listed in the top 20 international markets visiting Malaysia were chosen as the target population. The survey was conducted at the departure hall of Langkawi International Airport using a simple random sampling method. A total of 365 useful ques-tionnaires were returned and analyzed using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). The findings of the study have empirically demonstrated that destination attractiveness had no significant direct influence on destination loyalty. However, the study discovered that tourist satisfaction and place attachment fully mediated the relationship between destination attractiveness and destination loyalty. Destination attractiveness has an indirect effect on destination loyalty. The study also illustrated that the tourist satisfaction factor had a stronger mediator effect than place attachment factor in the destination loyalty relationship model. The study suggested several insightful recommendations to the destination management office in maximizing tourist’s experience with cultural attractiveness and adequate infrastructure, thereby, enhancing the visitation of international tourists to Langkawi Island.

Nowadays, global technologies, especially digital things, have become an important tool for businesses to maintain feasible partnerships and build a great value connection with other companies. New digital technologies that are emerging every day are on their way to affect nearly all business processes and activities. This study investigates the effect of the digital supply chain on the supply chain and organization performance in the Malaysia manufacturing industry. This paper also further assesses the mediating effect of supply chain performance in the relationship between the digital supply chain and the organizational performance in the Malaysia manufacturing industry. The objectives are achieved via quantitative research design. The researchers emailed the online survey questionnaire to 1160 manufacturing companies listed in the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) directory via stratified sampling technique and received 63 responses. 7 incomplete responses have been deleted and 56 usable responses representing 5.43% of the response rate used for data analysis. The data was analyzed by using the Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). Three hypotheses are not supported and seven hypotheses are supported, which includes all the hypotheses of moderating effect. The manufacturing companies in Malaysia can consider adopting the DSC in the business process to remain reliable in the competitive market by providing good supply chain performance and best organizational performance as a whole. The implication of the study is given to academics and practitioners, specifically manufacturing companies. The limitations and the recommendation for future study have been highlighted.

In Malaysia, manufacturing industry is a major contributor to the economic advancement. As a result, cutting-edge technology like the internet of things (IoT) is projected to have a significant impact on business operations and supply chain management (SCM). However, research into the influence of IoT deployment on supply chains and organizational performance is relatively sparse. Therefore, this study is to determine the relationship between benefits and challenges of IoT adoption and organizational performance. Furthermore, this study looks into the mediating role of supply chain performance in the relationship between IoT adoption benefits and challenges and organizational performance. The population of this study is comprised of 3019 manufacturing companies in Malaysia, while the minimum sample size needed is 43 manufacturing companies.1160 complete set of survey questionnaire were distributed through email and 63 responses received representing five per cent of response rate. Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) is used to assess all of the study's hypotheses. The results of this paper support six out of the seven hypotheses tested. In conclusion, the manufacturing industry in Malaysia needs to be exposed more to the benefits of IoT rather than keep discussing its challenges. This study can be a guideline to the manufacturing companies in decision making for IoT adoption. The limitations and recommendation for future study is highlighted.

The COVID-19 outbreak is a black swan event that has uncovered the delicateness of global supply chains and business architecture. Underpinned by the agency theory and institutional theory, a proposition for business continuity in the highly regulated pharma industry is presented in this paper. A cross-sectional quantitative study was carried out on a sample of 102 pharma supply chain executives in Malaysia. The primary data were gathered by administering a self-administered questionnaire and analyzed using the partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The result reveals that supply chain orientation directly influences supply chain resilience. Also, introducing collaborative regulation as a mediator in this relationship shows partial mediation. The notion of collaborative regulation as a behavioral governance mechanism is relatively new, thus, presenting interesting opportunities for further exploration of the subject matter.

The development of Islamic tourism such as Umrah does not get much attention in the literature though there are 6 million people all around the world performing Umrah every year. Nowadays, social media has been recognized as an important tool in building and maintaining the image of tourist destination especially in the Umrah context. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the effect of social media experiences (interactions and sharing of contents) on attitudes and behavioral intentions towards Umrah package (booking decisions and electronic Word of Mouth) among generation X and Y. Sums of three hundred eighty-four respondents were engaged as the respondents. The population of this study was among Malaysian Muslim citizens who had social media experiences in seeking online information and knowledge about Umrah and already performed Umrah. The data then was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) and Partial Least Squares (PLS) software. The findings of this study confirmed that sharing of contents of social media experiences has significant and positive relationship on behavioral intentions (booking decisions and electronic Word of Mouth).

Most counterfeit studies engage consumers’ intention to purchase without considering their past experiences. Understanding consumers who have experienced in counterfeit product situations and how this has influenced their actual perceptions, attitudes and behavior on this is-sue is important to understand. Therefore, this study aims to understand the repurchase behavior of experienced consumers in regards to counterfeit products and their demographics, past purchases, materialism, economic and social factors. In addition, this study also investigates the mediating effect of attitude on the relationship between the factors and the repur-chase behavior. The participants are among 200 working adults who have purchased counterfeit products in a six-month period. Multiple regression analysis indicates that gender (female), past purchasing behavior, materialism and social factors had positive relationships with repurchase behavior. Remarkably, the economic factor is found to be significant. However, it has a negative relationship with repurchase behavior indicating that experienced consumers in counterfeit products purchase fake goods to minimize the economic effect. Hierarchical regression analysis indicates the mediating effect of attitude on the relationship between past purchase and materialism on repurchase behavior. The outcome of this study can also be used as a reference and knowledge base for scholars and marketers in understanding the attitude of consumers and their repurchase intention of counterfeit products.

Large-scale wind turbines mostly use Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT) as the transmission system, which is highly efficient. However, it comes with high complexity and cost too. In contrast, the small-scale wind turbines that are available in the market offer a one-speed gearing system only where no gear ratios are varied, resulting in low efficiency of harvesting energy and leading to gears failure. In this research, an unsupervised machine-learning algorithm is proposed to address the energy efficiency of the automatic transmission system in vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT), to increase its efficiency in harvesting energy. The aim is to find the best adjustment for VAWT while the automatic transmission system is taken into account. For this purpose, the system is simulated and tested under various gear ratios conditions while a centrifugal clutch is applied to automatic gear shifting. The outcomes indicated that the automatic transmission system could successfully adjust the spinning in line with the wind speed. As a result, the obtained level of harvested voltage and power by VAWT with the automatic transmission system are improved significantly. Consequently, it is concluded that automatic VAWTs, equipped with the machine-learning capability can readjust themselves with the wind speed more efficiently.

The Flexible flow shop (FFS) is defined as a multi-stage flow shops with multiple parallel machines. FFS scheduling problem is a complex combinatorial problem which has been intensively studied in many real world industries. This review paper gives a comprehensive exploration review on the FFS scheduling problem and guides the reader by considering and understanding different environmental assumptions, system constraints and objective functions for future research works. The published papers are classified into two categories. First is the FFS system characteristics and constraints including the problem differences and limitation defined by different studies. Second, the scheduling performances evaluation are elaborated and categorized into time, job and multi related objectives. In addition, the resolution approaches that have been used to solve FFS scheduling problems are discussed. This paper gives a comprehensive guide for the reader with respect to future research work on the FFS scheduling problem.

The features of a holistic view in an organization create the data value of the Business Intelligence (BI) and Knowledge Management (KM) in viewing the big picture of organizational performance diagnostics framework. This research focuses on the specific features of railway supply chain performance in viewing the decision-making process and creating better knowledge formation. The intention of the study is to structure supplier performance using BI-KM framework development to determine holistic perspective factors. The outcomes indicate that BI and KM significantly increased the railway supply chain and significantly increased the information system. This BI-KM framework relates the current analytic characteristics in designing the railway supply chain towards information system in determining the strategic theme of the decision-making process of the decision support system together with system features, characteristics of data, the content of the themes, and the effect of the decision-making process and for executive strategic performance diagnostics tool that provides effective strategic decision making in supply chain performance. The quantitative research method uses SmartPLS software version 3.2.8 for empirical analysis through distributing survey questionnaires to 320 railway suppliers in Malaysia. Using a model-driven development framework, to measure the implementation success of the decision support system, the study is conducted in the railway supplier focusing on strategic management that helps to make the decision and facilitate the organizational success.