Vol 20 (S2), 2017
Regular Articles
Cover Page Vol 20 (S2)
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Editorial
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Front and Inside Cover Vol 20 (S2)
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Contributors
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Cover Vol 20 (S2)
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Preface
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Instructions To Authors
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Financial Practices And Physical Health Influencing Financial Health Of Malaysian Employees Consumers’ Trust And Values Towards Halal Cosmetics And Personal Care Products Maqasid Al-Shariah Perspectives On The Implementation Of Hire Purchase Act 1967 In Malaysia With Reference To Al-Ijarah Thumma Al-Bai’ Financing Contract Predictors Of Purchasing Intention Of Luxury Goods Among University Students In Selangor Pembentukan Indeks Pendayaupayaan Pengguna Malaysia Relationship Of Personality Factors And Purchase Intention Of Counterfeit Products Among College Students Does The Bijak Wang (Smart Money) Programme Benefit Schoolgoing Children? The Effect Of Manager’s Ecological Concern And Firm’s Sustainable Green Practices Determinants Of Retirement Savings Willingness To Pay For The Consumption Of Green Food Product Among Households
Husniyah, Mohd Fazli, Norhasmah, Mohd Amin, Norafifah, Fatin Farwizah, Universiti Putra Malaysia
Page 1-20 | Download PDF | ABSTRACT PREVIEWAbstract
Individuals make financial decisions throughout their working days to be financially well. Physical health and financial health of individual may be interrelated and determined the choice of financial practices that they performed. This study aimed to identify the interrelation between financial practices, physical health and financial health of employees. Important factors affecting financial health of employees are also identified. Prior to these, the employees’ levels of financial practices, health risks and financial health were determined. Four states selected from four zones in Peninsular Malaysia were sampled via multistage random sampling to obtain a target of 500 respondents. Selected agencies in those states were contacted to appoint liaison officers who facilitated the data collection processes. Self-administered questionnaires distributed through them resulted in only 356 usable questionnaires. Findings revealed that among the financial practices, only investment was found to be not significantly correlated with financial health, however the regression results revealed that only savings was found to be influencing financial health. This reflected that other financial practices were not as important as savings to the financial health. Health risks were prevalent from the physical and mental measures of health with PCS and MCS slightly below the border of 50 while financial health was slightly above the midpoint of its scale. Older employees with higher income were revealed to have better financial health as compared to younger and lower income employees. Furthermore, only physical measure of health significantly influenced financial health but not mental health. As majority of these employees were young, the health risks may pose a risk on their job productivity and the impact on the quality of public services. Thus, it is critical for the government to forsee these health risks and financial health situation of their employees to ensure better outcomes for the public and country.
Keywords: Financial practices, Physical health, Financial health, Health risks, Savings
Elistina Abu Bakar, Puziah Hashim, Universiti Putra Malaysia
Nashaqilla Norlee Rosslee, Mohiddin Othman, Afida Mastura Muhammad Ariff
Page 21-35 | Download PDF | ABSTRACT PREVIEWAbstract
Halal is not just applicable to food and drinks consumed internally but also products applied externally. Halal is often associated with products that are safe, clean, healthy and in accordance with the principles of halalan toyyiban. Muslim consumers often face problems to ensure that the products they buy, including cosmetics, are genuinely halal as they can only rely on the certification of the authorities. However, the question is to what extent do Muslim consumers in Malaysia trust the responsible authorities such as Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia (JAKIM) and the Ministry of Health (MOH) in determining the halal status of a product. In addition, the consumers‟ values are also important to determine consumers‟ behaviour. Therefore, the objectives of this paper are to identify consumers‟ level of trust towards JAKIM, the Ministry of Health, the international certification bodies and also the producers of cosmetic and personal care products. In addition, this paper will also determine the value the consumers consider when they buy halal cosmetic products. The multiple regression analysis is used to examine whether trust and values are determinant factors of consumers‟ behaviour towards halal products. A total of 400 Muslim consumers in Klang Valley participated in this study and they were selected through stratified random sampling. The results showed that trust towards JAKIM is the highest, followed by trust towards International Halal certification agency, the MOH and lastly, the producers. Meanwhile, the values associated with halal cosmetics are the quality, followed by emotional, economic, social and lastly conditional values. However, only two variables which are the trust towards MOH, and also emotional value, are significantly affecting the consumers‟ behaviour where the emotional value is the strongest predictive factor. This study is expected to help stakeholders such as JAKIM, the MOH as well as producers of cosmetics products to enhance the Halal industry and therefore increase economy while protecting the welfare of Muslim consumers in Malaysia.
Keywords: Halal Cosmetics, Trust, Value
Mohd Daud Awang, Universiti Putra Malaysia
Mehmet Asutay, Durham University
Page 36-56 | Download PDF | ABSTRACT PREVIEWAbstract
This study aims to critically examine the meaning of the Al-Ijarah Thumma al-Bai‟ (AiTAB) contract and hire-purchase (HP) contract. It is also to explore several issues regarding the procedures of the Malaysian Hire-Purchase Act 1967 and it‟s contradiction to the Shariah. There are three main issues that were highlighted; transferring of ownership, right and liability, and charges. The Maqasid al-Shariah framework is a compatible approach for this study to solve these issues which does not only to harmonise both contracts but also in morally aspect. The findings of this study demonstrate how Maqasid al-Shariah should employ HP contract issues that might not be contradicted to AiTAB in developing a better understanding between AiTAB and HP practices as Islamic banking product.
Keywords: Al-Ijarah Thumma Al-Bai‟, Malaysian practice of hire-purchase, Maqasid al-Shariah
Syuhaily Osman, Universiti Putra Malaysia
Afida Mastura Muhammad Arif, Cham Xiau Yean
Page 57-80 | Download PDF | ABSTRACT PREVIEWAbstract
Luxury goods can be anything that is desirable and more than a necessity and ordinary and these luxury goods tend to make life more pleasant for the buyer. Over the past few years, brand consciousness among the Malaysian society, especially the younger generation has been in the raising trend. The purpose of this paper was to examine the relationship between attitude, perceived brand, perceived quality, and perceived price with purchasing intention of luxury goods among university students in Selangor as well as to determine the most influential predictor of the purchasing intention. Multi-cluster sampling method was used to select a total of 300 respondents from Universiti Putra Malaysia and Multimedia University. The data were collected through a set of self-administrated questionnaire. The findings of Pearson correlation analysis demonstrated attitude (r=0.433, p=0.000), perceived brand (r=0.626, p=0.000), perceived quality (r=0.586, p=0.000) and perceived price (r=0.455, p=0.000) had significant positive relationship with purchasing intention. The multiple regression analysis showed that the most influential variable that predicts respondent‟s purchasing intention was perceived quality (β= 0.428, p ≤ 0.001). This paper concluded that perceived brand, perceived quality and perceived price were significant predictors for purchasing intention of luxury goods, where perceived quality was the strongest predictor. The findings of the study have several implications that would be beneficial to the consumers in investigating the factors that will lead consumers to spend on luxury goods. Furthermore, the luxury goods producers can also plan on new business strategies that focus on quality of the goods since the result of the study showed that university students‟ perception of quality of goods will trigger their purchasing intention of luxury goods the most. This paper can also serve as a guideline for future researchers and government to develop policies in order to expand the luxury markets in Malaysia.
Keywords: Purchasing intention, Attitude, Brand, Quality, Price, Luxury goods
Laily Paim, Syuhaily Osman, Sharifah Azizah Haron
Page 81-105 | Download PDF | ABSTRACT PREVIEWAbstract
Dalam usaha meningkatkan kesejahteraan pengguna Malaysia, Kementerian Perdagangan Dalam Negeri, Koperasi dan Kepenggunaan (KPDNKK) berpandangan bahawa satu indeks perlu dibangunkan sebagai penanda aras tahap pendayaupayaan pengguna. Indeks ini bukan sahaja dapat digunakan untuk menentukan trend dan tahap pendayaupayaan pengguna, bahkan dapat mengenal pasti kumpulan sasar dan komponen serta indikator pendayaupayaan yang perlu diberikan perhatian atau ditingkatkan. Justeru, Indeks Pendayaupayaan Pengguna Malaysia (IPPM) diperlukan dalam penggubalan polisi yang berteraskan bukti dan dalam pelaksanaan program ke arah meningkatkan kesejahteraan pengguna di pasaran dengan lebih berkesan. IPPM wajar dijadikan kayu ukur untuk memantau pelbagai kesan pembangunan, perkembangan teknologi dan sebagainya ke atas rakyat negara ini. Oleh itu, artikel ini membincangkan tentang proses pembentukan IPPM yang melibatkan beberapa peringkat pengumpulan data secara kualitatif dan kuantitaif. Peringkat yang dilalui melibatkan analisis meta, perbincangan kumpulan berfokus dan teknik kumpulan nominal, kajian pra, kajian rintis, dan kajian pasca. Data kuantitatif telah dianalisis menggunakan analisis faktor bagi mengekstrak domain dan indikator, serta diuji kebolehpercayaan dengan menggunakan pekali Cronbach alpha.
Keywords: Indeks, Kesahan, Kebolehpercayaan, Domain dan indikator, Pendayaupayaan pengguna
Leong Mei Kei, Universiti Putra Malaysia
Syuhaily Osman, Nur Syaheera Abu Bakar
Page 106-122 | Download PDF | ABSTRACT PREVIEWAbstract
This study aims to determine the influence of personality factors which inclusive of price consciousness, fashion consciousness and value consciousness towards purchase intention of counterfeit products among college students. A total of 178 respondents have been selected through two levels of sampling, which are simple random sampling and systematic random sampling. Pearson correlation analysis showed that there were significant relationships between price consciousness towards purchase intention of counterfeits products (r=0.394, p=0.000) and fashion consciousness towards purchase intention of counterfeits products (r=0.475, p= 0.000). The result of multiple Regression showed that fashion consciousness is the main influence on purchase intention (β= 0.386, p<0.001). Based on the result, it gives the implication of knowledge to the consumers to further understand consumers‟ behaviour. Besides that, it also enables the producer of the original products to propose suitable designs and pricing structure to attract price consciousness and fashion consciousness consumers in purchasing original goods.
Keywords: Price Conscious, Fashion Conscious, Value Conscious, Purchase Intention, Counterfeit Products
Mohamad Fazli Sabri, Thinagaran Moga Dass, Lee May Poh, Normadia Liz Zakaria, Rozita Wahab, Nurhayatul Nira Ramli, Universiti Putra Malaysia
Page 123-143 | Download PDF | ABSTRACT PREVIEWAbstract
The Bijak Wang or Smart Money programme is a half-day interactive workshop on money and money management targeted at children aged 10 to 12 years. The objective of the programme is to develop financial literacy through the use of an interactive games kit i.e. Smart Money Kit: Bright Kids Smart Money. This innovative programme was developed as an alternative learning and teaching tool for children to acquire personal financial management knowledge and skills with guidance from parents and adults. The kit comprises conservative board games that help to sharpen children‟s soft skills in communication, strategic planning and critical thinking. Research literature has revealed that instilling money management knowledge and skills in children will impact positively on them, empowering them to manage better their finances in future. The concept behind this programme is learning through play. This programme was conducted with four groups of participants from different geographical areas. Participants engaged in gameplay with Profesor Bijak Wang and Ekspedisi ABCD which are both board games; Cuba Ingat dan Teka which is a flash card game; and Reka Tabung ABCD. All these games are highly integrated with the six basic money management concepts. As the participants play, they undergo cognitive absorption of money management concepts, which they will tend to apply in their future daily lives. Pre and post-testing using a self-administrated questionnaire was conducted to analyse the level of money management skills and knowledge the children had before participating in the programme and the level that they had acquired after they had participated in the various gameplays. The results of the post-test show that the children‟s financial literacy improved with their increased acquisition of money management skills and knowledge as compared to the level they initially had as revealed by the results of the pre-test conducted. This indicates that children learn effectively through interactive learning using the Smart Money Kit: Bright Kids Smart Money. As such, parents and teachers should use innovative and creative approaches in educating children about money and money management and treat this learning as a lifelong process so children will make prudent financial decisions in their future.
Keywords: Financial Literacy, Money Management, Smart Money Programme, Game-Play
Peter Yacob, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman
Woong Lai Soon
Page 144- 167 | Download PDF | ABSTRACT PREVIEWAbstract
Despite decades of research, the motivations that drive managers to engage in pro-ecological behaviour remained uncertain. The complex nature of manager‟s ecological concern and other forms of pro-environmental behaviour poses a challenge in explaining and predicting the sustainable green practice. This study examines the degree to which value-belief-norm framework in explaining engagement in sustainable green practices with the mediating effects of manager‟s ecological concern. A questionnaire-based survey was used to collect data from 260 SMEs manufacturing firms. The data collected was analysed by employing Structural Equation Modelling. Results indicated that ecological values and ecological beliefs have significant positive effect on firm‟s sustainable green practices, but such effects were not shown by ecological norms. Furthermore, manager‟s ecological concern found to mediate the relationship between the two ecological concern factors (i.e. Ecological values and ecological beliefs) and firm‟s sustainable green practices. These results suggested that managers‟ ecological behaviour is a critical component in achieving firm‟s sustainable green practices apart from ecological concern factors.
Keywords: Ecological orientation, Sustainable green practices, Manager‟s ecological concern
Radduan Yusof, Universiti Teknologi MARA
Mohamad Fazli Sabri, Universiti Putra Malaysia
Page 168-183 | Download PDF | ABSTRACT PREVIEWAbstract
Global demographic changes and retirement savings adequacy have emphasised on voluntary pension as a new paradigm for the retirement system. This has led to many types of research pertaining to the development of the private retirement system. The effort was followed by making the mandatory Second Pillar and voluntary Third Pillar of the social security system as more financially sound and important. This is to encourage contributors to the retirement fund to switch focus from a less generous pension-guaranteed-defined benefit system to a more individualistic-defined contribution plan. This review article collected, compiled, and reviewed selected articles on the determinants of retirement savings and planning. It was sourced from several electronic databases in an attempt to group the determinants into different categories. The input from the reviews was then categorised into economics, socioeconomics, and noneconomics sub-categorical behavioural, psychological, and demographic determinants and its application, as reported in researches pertaining to retirement savings and planning of the near decade. Some suggestions were made in light of the analysis.
Keywords: Pension system, Retirement, Retirement fund, Retirement planning, Retirement savings
Zuroni Md Jusoh, Universiti Putra Malaysia
Nizam Ahmat
Page 184-195 | Download PDF | ABSTRACT PREVIEWAbstract
Green food refers to food that is safe to eat, good quality, healthy, concerned about animal welfare and is produced under the principles of sustainable development. The objective of this study is to determine the ability of households to pay according to the attributes of green food product, and to estimate the implicit price for each attribute that is modelled. Data collection was carried out in the Klang Valley from June until August 2016 by using convenient sampling method. A total of 309 respondents were selected. Data were collected using questionnaires distributed to households in the Klang Valley area, namely the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya, Ampang and Subang Jaya. Data were analysed using SPSS version 21 for descriptive and inferential test while SAS and 9.0 LIMDEP logit 3.0 was used to analyse the household’s willingness to pay (WTP) through the Choice Model (CM) technique. The study found that on average, consumers are willing to pay RM3.46 for the reduction of risk to human health and willing to accept the compensation of RM1.723 for the environmental impact of the chicken production process. It explains that on average, households would be very concerned about the risk factors to human health and the impact on the environment in green food choices for a healthy lifestyle. Meanwhile, the external characteristic was not significant and did not affect households in sustainable food choices. Therefore, the food manufacturers and the government should take the initiative to apply these attributes in sustainable food production so that a healthy lifestyle can continue to be practised by the consumers.
Keywords: Willingness to pay, Green food, Choice model
