The Malaysian government actively encourages the development of e-wallets in Malaysia and set a goal to enter a cashless society by 2050. However, the mobile technology that has swept the world does not seem to be developing smoothly in Malaysia. The objective of the study is to investigate the determinants that impact the user behavior of Malaysians in adopting e-wallets and proposes integration theoretical models, namely UTAUT 2, Diffusion of Innovation, and self-efficacy to support the study. Data were collected among 253 Malaysian e-wallet users in the Federal State of Kuala Lumpur. The survey (online questionnaire) was distributed to respondents via QR codes and links as data collection. The PLS-SEM was utilized to test hypothetical relationships. The findings of the study demonstrated that compatibility, hedonic motivation, habits, and self-efficacy have a significant relationship with the user behavior of e-wallets. Self-efficacy was found to be the strongest predictor in influencing the use behavior of e-wallets. Conclusion, implications, and suggestions for future study were also discussed.

Studies on supply chain resilience have been well documented, but most of these studies were conducted at organizational level and hence the role of facilitating managers in the supply chain is conspicuously neglected. The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of tripartite social capital (bonding, bridging and linking) on managers’ resilience building and to examine the underlying mechanism through which these relationships exist. Data were collected through self-administered questionnaire from 452 supply chain managers in Nigeria, a country that has been rocked by series of environmental turbulences. The measurement and structural models were assessed by Partial Lease Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) using SMART-PLS 3 software. The findings suggest that linking social capital influenced manager’s resilience, but bonding and bridging did not. Bonding, bridging and linking influence manager’s commitment. Additionally, manager’s commitment mediated the relationship between tripartite social capital and manager’s resilience, Theoretical, practical and methodological implications were also discussed.

The primary objective of this paper is to investigate the mediation role of port supply chain integration between Human Resource Management (HRM) practices and port performance (PP) in Kingdome of Saudi Arabia. The present study employed partial lest square structural equation modeling technique to analyze the collected data. The study found some positive significant direct relationship between HRP, port supply chain integration (PSCI) and PP. Besides, this study also found some positive and significant relationship between HRP and PSCI. Additionally, the study confirms the mediating role of PSCI between HRP and PP. The study contributes to the literature and to the practice of ports to understand how the process of HRP and PSCI produces better port performance.

Malaysian Private Entity Reporting Standard (MPERS) serves as new reporting framework to private entities and significant milestone to the capital market. The qualification for first-time MPERS adoption is incremental and it is important to prepare in advance for private entities if they intend to move to the MPERS or MFRS framework in the near future. A common question that private entities may ask is how far-reaching or how reliable the current Private Entity Reporting Standards (PERS) Framework is comparable to the new MPERS or MFRS framework. The adoption of MPERS is retrospective. The purpose of the analysis is to analyze the implementation of MPERS on small medium enterprises (SMEs) and how they perceive the implementation. The study covers all sectors of the SME sector, namely services, manufacturing, agriculture, construction, mining and quarrying, and is subdivided into Micro, small and medium and in three categories. These sectors were selected based on the SMEs landscape of Malaysia following the issuance of MPERS on February 14, 2014. There were 55 of SMEs participated in this research by answering the questionnaire. The study evaluated using linear regression and the measures of research are based on the factors described in the literature review, influence the variables. Hence, the SMEs experiences have the potential to make respondent’s perception of MPERS also agreeable. The implications of the research highlighted that the implementation of the MPERS still at the infancy level as there are few challenges faced by the SMEs regards to the implementation. Therefore, the regulators and standard setter can identify the challenges and provide appropriate assistance to ensure the financial reports are fairly presented.

This study investigates the effect of perceived risks, i.e., financial risk, product risk, and convenience risk, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic situation on online shopping behavior among Malaysians. This study uses convenience sampling techniques and comprises 185 respondents who have experience buying online. In addition, the study setting was non-contrived, and data was gathered using a closed-ended questionnaire through an online survey. Descriptive analysis was conducted using SPSS version 25.0 software and SmartPLS version 3.2.8 to test the proposed hypotheses. This study found that perceived risk factors such as financial, product, and convenience risk did not influence online shopping behavior. In contrast, the COVID-19 pandemic positively influences online shopping behavior among consumers. It showed a new development in the theory of online shopping behavior, where users continue to make purchases despite being aware that there may be various risks due to the spread of COVID-19. The role of the ministry, business owners, and consumer associations needs to be given attention to form a sustainable electronic commerce system and protect the rights of consumers. This research can help consumers understand their rights.

In a confirmatory study, researchers are expected to employ the covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM). One of the key presumptions when utilizing CB-SEM is that the data is multivariate normal. Nevertheless, a perfect normal distribution is rarely observed in real-life data. To resolve this, the unweighted least square (ULS) is designed to specifically deal with non-normal data in SEM. However, ULS often yields improper solutions like negative, or boundary estimates of unique variances since it considers measurement errors in observed variables. The disturbance in SEM is reflected in unique variance, which is random error due to unreliability or measurement error and reliable variation in the item that indicates unknown latent causes. Consequently, this can generate bias in indicator loadings estimates. As an action to disentangle this issue, the present study proposes the implementation of regularization parameters by adding small positive values to the variance-covariance matrix. The ratio of bias to variance in a model can be improved to obtain the best estimation performance. Pro-Active Monte Carlo simulation was used to produce multivariate non-normal data with designated sample sizes and population characteristics. The data were analyzed using R Programming Environment by employing “psych”, “MASS”, “foreign”, “mvrnonnorm”, “purr”, and “semTools” packages with 1000 replications to produce multivariate non-normal data. Next, the “lavaan” package was used for SEM and regularized SEM analyses. The outcome of this study proves the capability of regularized ULS to improve parameter estimation.

Poverty is one of the significant problems, and almost all countries worldwide face poverty issues that negatively impact society. This study is written to investigate the students' knowledge and awareness of poverty and interest level in conducting e-business and garage sales. Also, examine the relationship of knowledge and awareness on students' intention to conduct e-business and garage sales. There were 152 respondents from the same university who participated in this study. The data analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics performed by SPSS-23 and SmartPLS 3.3.3. The survey showed that the student's knowledge and awareness of poverty are still lacking and need improvement. Half of the respondents said they are not familiar with SDG1, and they were not aware that their university has done an event related to SDG1 and poverty. There were 25% and 85% of students interested in conducting e-business and garage sales that increased their pocket money and reduced poverty rates among university students. Overall, this study's result shows a positive response from all respondents, and most of them have general ideas of poverty. In addition, this study has identified that the variable knowledge and awareness have a significant positive effect on student's intention to conduct e-business and garage sales.

In this paper, a new hybrid AHP and Dempster-Shafer Theory of Evidence is presented for solving the problem of choosing the best project among a list of available alternatives while uncertain risk factors are taken into account. The aim is to minimize overall risks. For this purpose, four groups of risk factors, including Properties, Operational and Technological, Financial, Strategic risk factors, are considered. Then using an L24 Taguchi method, several experiments with various dimensions have been designed and solved by the proposed algorithm. The outcomes are then analyzed using the Validating Index (VI), Reduced Risk Indicator (R.R.I%), and Solving time. The findings indicated that, compared to the classic AHP, the results of the proposed hybrid method were different in most cases due to uncertainty of risk factors. It was observed that the method could be safely used for selecting project problems in real industries.

This work investigated and predicted the fatigue life durability of Austenitic Stainless Steel 316L due to its importance in plant industries worldwide. Modelling and simulations were performed to clarify the fracture as well as stress distribution using integrated mechanism. Experimental fatigue validations were also carried out to demonstrate the effect of various fatigue life parameters. Various loading conditions with variable load amplitudes were validated utilizing a frequency of 5 Hz and a stress ratio of 0.1. The accuracy of the simulation results were also verified based on the experimental data. High consistencies between the predicted fatigue life and the experimental results were achieved which increases the validity of the built model.

This paper investigates the relationship between supply chain management practices and organizational performance with the mediating role of innovation. Data were collected from 207 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Punjab, Pakistan. PLS-SEM was used to analyze the proposed hypotheses. Findings reveal that strategic partnership with supplier and level of information sharing had no influence on organizational performance. In addition, quality of information sharing, internal supply chain process, and lean practices had significant influence on organizational performance. Moreover, all five practices of supply chain management had significant and positive influence on innovation. Meanwhile, innovation significantly and positively mediated the relationship between supply chain management five practices and organizational performance. The findings of this study will help managers of SMEs enhance their performance.