International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science

SME restaurants have reported declined earnings and faced challenges to remain open during the Movement Control Order (MCO) period imposed by the Malaysian government due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. SME decision-makers were observed to be making changes regarding their day-to-day operations and management strategies to mitigate MCO restrictions. This paper aims to review the significant adaptations made by SME restaurants in Malaysia throughout the MCO period. Three (3) prominent areas of adaptations made by decision-makers have been identified based upon ceaseless news reports and media contents. The adaptations made commonly depict actions to (i) Nurture Creativity, (ii) Sustain Reputation, and (iii) Maintain Profitability. The outcomes of this paper provide essential survival guides for SME restauranteurs to embrace the COVID-19 outbreak. These can be helpful to related policy and decision-makers to implement the crucial traits of SME restaurants to reduce the impact on SME restaurants for the foreseeable future.

This paper attempts to explore the issue of enhancing pedagogical skills among the college teachers of Bangladesh through CPD. This is a literature review paper that divided the topic into different themes and sub-themes in order to analyze the issue properly. After analyzing 60 studies including journal articles, conference proceedings, and research reports of different authors and organizations this study found several positive impacts of CPD on the teachers regarding uplifting their professional skills. It has also found some challenges of implementing CPD for college teachers identifying the scarcity of resources at the heart of all the challenges. Finally, the paper ends up with some recommendations to enhance the teachers’ professional skills through CPD in Bangladeshi colleges

The increase of scandals involving non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has provoked concerns from the public for their accountability. In the case of Yemen, the NGOs receive financial support from both local and international donors. These organisations, however, are not obliged to disclose how they manage the donation funds, although the donors usually outline specific requirements on how the funds should be utilised. At the same time, the success of projects undertaken by the NGOs funded by the donors can help to enhance the organisation’s reputation and legitimize its activities to secure more funds. This study investigated the level of accountability practices in the Yemeni local NGOs. A questionnaire survey was sent to 75 active local NGOs. The findings show that the level of accountability practices among local NGOs is moderate. Most of these organisations evaluated the impact of their projects at their completion. However, they tend to avoid an independent assessment of any third party. They also restricted the local communities’ involvement in determining where and how the money of the project should be spent. This suggests that the local NGOs are more likely to be “seen” as being accountable rather than being accountable. A further improvement perhaps through policymaking is thus necessary to ensure effective accountability practices in funds management of the NGOs.

Employee turnover is a classic problem that is often faced by entrepreneurs. The behavior of employees who move from one company to another can be an indication of employee dissatisfaction with the company and the lack of good relations between employees and the company. Social support can increase the likelihood that employees will be tied to work as social support can help individuals overcome work problems. The sample of this research was 274 retail company sales employees in Purwokerto. Data were collected using the work satisfaction scale, psychological contract scale, and turnover intention questionnaire. The results showed that there was no effect on job satisfaction and Psychological contracts on Turnover Intention by using social support as a mediating variable,  VAF was less than 20%. While the relationship between psychological contracts and turnover intention is significant.

The purpose of this study is to develop a model to investigate the impact of brand image and religious beliefs on Muslim consumers switching intention. Moreover, it also intends to examine, how switching intention affect the customer equity of international branded products. This study seeks to expand the body of knowledge in consumer behaviour research with emphasis on religious beliefs (Islamic beliefs). The benefits that will be yielded from this study will not only provide guidelines to business researchers, but will also enhance the current understanding of Muslim consumers. It studies how the Muslim consumer’s brand switching behaviour is influenced by religious beliefs of Muslim consumers and image of a brand, yet previous studies have only attempted to understand brand switching without considering the religion specifically Islam.

Marriage is one of the most important social institutions, as it greatly influences the stability of families, population, and socio-economic well-being. The changing trends of marriages and divorces in South Africa confirm the importance of predictive analysis on the stability of marriages. Marriage duration prediction is a challenging task, as it is affected by a number of factors. Recent developments in machine learning techniques provide new opportunities to model this problem. This experiment used the following seven different classifications: Random Forest, Gradient Boosting, XGBoost, Logistic Regression, Support Vector Machine, K Nearest Neighbours, and Decision Tree, which aimed to forecast the categories of marriage length (short, medium, and long). The models used the following metrics: accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score, macro ROC-AUC, and the ROC curve. The results showed that ensemble-based approaches performed better than conventional classifiers. Gradient Boosting had the best performance in macro ROC AUC and was best at discriminating classes, especially for long and medium-length marriages. Random Forest had the best overall accuracy and was best at balancing classes. XGBoost had a similar performance to that of Random Forest in predicting. SVM had a high precision value but a lower recall value. Decision Trees and KNN had poor performance. Gradient Boosting was found to be the best-performing method for multi-class prediction of duration of marriage and achieved a balance between sensitivity and specificity. The results obtained from these studies prove that ensemble learning methods can be effectively utilized for modelling complex societal events.

This study systematically reviews literature to explore the Moderated Mediation Model of Customer Intention in Omnichannel Technology, particularly under the transformative influence of technologies like AI, AR, and big data analytics. Amidst evolving consumer expectations and the drastic shifts induced by the COVID-19 pandemic, the retail industry's shift from multichannel to omnichannel strategies has become crucial. This review analyzes 59 studies published between 2018 and April 2023 to discern the dynamics influencing customer intention within the omnichannel framework. Our research highlights the sparse but critical discourse on the mediating roles of perceived value and trust and the moderating effects of factors like age and product involvement. Although extensive, the literature reveals gaps, particularly in unified frameworks integrating these diverse insights. We propose a novel conceptual framework centered on these mediators and moderators to better understand and harness customer intentions toward omnichannel technology adoption. Key findings indicate that seamless integration across online and offline channels, responsive to the nuanced needs and behaviors of consumers, significantly enhances customer engagement and loyalty. This synthesis not only offers a consolidated view of the omnichannel retail landscape but also provides strategic pathways for retailers aiming to optimize customer interactions and satisfaction in a digitally dominated era. Our review contributes to the omnichannel retail literature by offering a structured overview of the factors driving customer intentions and suggesting directions for future research to bridge identified gaps, particularly through longitudinal studies and expanded demographic analyses.

Entrepreneurial orientation (ENO), social network ties (SOT) and market intelligence generation (MIT) are independently modeled as distinct antecedents of entrepreneurial intention (EIN). However, the intervening variables for such models are typically under-explored in their applicability to university students in sub-Saharan Africa. Accordingly, drawing on the theory of planned behavior (TPB), the present study argues that ENO impacts EIN, primarily explained by SOT and MIT. Using cross-sectional data gathered from university students in Ghana, a sub-Saharan African country, our findings reveal that ENO has both direct and indirect relationships with EIN. Thus, this relationship is mainly mediated when students build and develop social network ties (SOT) instead of gathering marketing intelligence (MIT).

The increase of scandals involving non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has provoked concerns from the public for their accountability. In the case of Yemen, the NGOs receive financial support from both local and international donors. These organisations, however, are not obliged to disclose how they manage the donation funds, although the donors usually outline specific requirements on how the funds should be utilised. At the same time, the success of projects undertaken by the NGOs funded by the donors can help to enhance the organisation’s reputation and legitimize its activities to secure more funds. This study investigated the level of accountability practices in the Yemeni local NGOs. A questionnaire survey was sent to 75 active local NGOs. The findings show that the level of accountability practices among local NGOs is moderate. Most of these organisations evaluated the impact of their projects at their completion. However, they tend to avoid an independent assessment of any third party. They also restricted the local communities’ involvement in determining where and how the money of the project should be spent. This suggests that the local NGOs are more likely to be “seen” as being accountable rather than being accountable. A further improvement perhaps through policymaking is thus necessary to ensure effective accountability practices in funds management of the NGOs.

Despite official crime figures showing a continuous decline in the rate of crime, the perception of the high level of crime by many Malaysians suggests other factors are affecting their perception of safety from crime. The objective of this study is to identify and understand these factors through a qualitative study that employs online focus group discussions. This study argues that the perception of safety from crime is the result of interactions of a number of factors such as the experience of victimisation, crime information, neighbourhood conditions as well as the perception of law enforcement and government crime reduction policy. The sense of safety from crime is also contextual as it may fluctuate according to time, place, activities and situations. Analysis of the data from the focus group discussions found that participants generally have a high perception of safety from crime. However, participants felt less safe when they were in public places and when interacting with online services. In most circumstances, participants' sense of safety is affected by the pressure to be vigilant and to avoid criminal victimisation. This pressure is exacerbated by low-quality information on crime that is often received through social media. Crime information on social media has a significant impact on participants’ perceptions of crime. The overall analysis of the findings suggests that the most important factor which affects the perception of safety from crime among these selected Malaysians is their sense of safety in their homes and their neighbourhood.  Hence, efforts to increase the sense of safety among Malaysians should focus on this context.