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This study aims to present a scaffolding framework incorporating sophisticated technology that can inform instructional design to support student inquiry learning in the self-regulated online environment.

The classic predict, observe and explain (POE) framework has been extended through the incorporation of an additional evaluate (E) phase into the model to enhance the self-regulated online learning environment. The extended POEE scaffolding approach, in this study, has been conceptualized as an implicit guide to support the process of guided inquiry for learning particular science concepts. Digital tools were sourced and integrated into this design framework to substitute for the support typically offered by teachers and peers in classrooms.

The findings suggest that the POEE pedagogical design facilitated the inquiry process through promoting self-regulation and engaged exploration. It also promoted positive emotions in students towards the scaffolded learning modules.

Integrating technologies that benefit students differentially in educational settings remains a considerable challenge. More specifically, in science education, an appropriate inquiry learning context that allows access to well informed pedagogical design is imperative. The application of this inquiry-based scaffolding framework can inform educators in the process of creating their own instructional designs and contexts to provide more effective guided learning.

The purpose of this paper is to improve the socio-economic condition of low-income households in Malaysia, many products and services are available, including access to working capital and enterprise development training programs. This study examined the impact of access to working capital and micro-enterprise development training programs on household income and economic vulnerability among participants of development initiatives in the eKasih (national poverty data bank) in Peninsular Malaysia.

Adopting a cross-sectional design, the authors collected data randomly from the selected 300 micro-entrepreneurs from the list of development organizations available in the eKasih (national poverty data bank) located in four states of Peninsular Malaysia. Quantitative data were collected through structured interviews with the respondents from October to November 2017.

Both the length of participation and total amount of economic loan were found to increase the household income. However, there was no positive and significant impact of total number of training hours on household income. Interestingly, length of participation was found to reduce the level of economic vulnerability, except total amount of economic loan, and total number of training hours.

Despite the overwhelming empirical evidence, the findings indicated that the impact of enterprise development training programs was inconclusive. The effect of total amount of loan on economic vulnerability was also inconclusive. Hence, both policy makers and development organizations should understand how their programs benefit the poor households that can be improved through new implementation strategies.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of entrepreneurial competencies on competitive advantage and to investigate the effect of competitive advantage on the performance of informal microenterprises owned and managed by women micro-entrepreneurs in Kelantan, Malaysia.

This study used a cross-sectional design and collected quantitative data from 384 informal women micro-entrepreneurs operating in “night markets” in Kelantan, Malaysia.

The finding of the analysis using variance-based structural equation modeling indicated that commitment competency, conceptual competency, organizing competency and opportunity recognition competency have a significant positive effect on competitive advantages, and competitive advantages have a significant positive effect on the performance of microenterprises owned and managed by women micro-entrepreneurs in Kelantan, Malaysia.

The development programs and policies should focus on improving the competencies, i.e. commitment competency, conceptual competency, organizing competency and opportunity recognition competency to improve the socioeconomic condition of low-income households in Malaysia. Informal women micro-entrepreneurs should, therefore, focus on value creating strategies to avoid potential competitors from duplicating the benefits of their strategy. This will result in a sustainable competitive advantage of microenterprises in Malaysia.

This study puts forward and tests the effect of entrepreneurial competencies on competitive advantages and performance of informal women micro-entrepreneurs in Kelantan, Malaysia, which provides a foundation for the design and implementation of development programs and policies that promote entrepreneurial activities in Malaysia.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the attributes of innovation adoption and its effects on the performance of Malaysian manufacturing SMEs.

Quantitative data were collected from 360 randomly selected manufacturing SMEs through structured interviews.

The findings of the study confirmed that, in Malaysian manufacturing SMEs, the degree of persuasion (i.e. relative advantages, compatibility, complexity, trialability and observability), strategic orientation (i.e. consumer, market and entrepreneurship) and firm antecedents (i.e. prior condition, knowledge and risk orientation) have significant effects on the innovation (i.e. product, process and service) adoption and performance of SMEs.

For policymakers, this study emphasizes the areas to focus on the development of an effective innovation ecosystem for an innovation-led economy. Because SMEs operate with limited resources and capacity, the programs and policies for innovation support systems must focus on providing new innovation information, cost-benefit analyses for new innovation adoption, innovation adoption processes and how new innovations affect performance.

The paper examines an important, but under-researched issue – designed and tested a model under the premises of the DOI and organizational diffusion of innovation theories which improve the knowledge and understanding about the innovation adoption by manufacturing SMEs.

The aim of this paper is to examine the association between board demographics and firm financial performance of Karachi Stock Exchange companies and describe the attributes of these firms and their boards. The connection between board structure and firm performance has attracted much attention, especially in emerging economies, yet yielded many inconsistent empirical results.

This study examines the relationship between board structure and the performance of Pakistani public listed companies by using a sample of Karachi Stock Exchange 100 (KSE-100) indexed companies. This study exploits the corporate performance by accounting-based measures (return on assets), market-based measures (Tobin’s Q), and economic profit (economic value added).

The outcome of the study shows the positive relationship between the board size, minority representation in board, and family director’s in-board and firm performance. The authors also find that, instead of adding value, independent directors in Pakistan are negatively associated with firm value.

The study is based on KSE-100 indexed companies from 2009 to 2013; however, a large sample and multiple years’ data are required.

The paper provides empirical evidence that board independence is not necessary for public-listed companies in Pakistan and would be of interest to regulatory bodies, business practitioners, and academic researchers.

The paper contributes to the literature on corporate governance and firm performance by introducing a framework for identifying and analyzing moderating variables that affect the relationship between board structure and firm performance.

This study aims to investigate the impact of economic vulnerability upon entrepreneurial competencies (i.e. commitment competency, conceptual competency, opportunity recognition competency, organizing competency, relationship competency and strategic competency) among respondents from varied development initiatives established by the eKasih program (National Poverty Data Bank) in Peninsular Malaysia.

Upon adopting the cross-sectional design, data were randomly gathered from selected 300 micro-entrepreneurs from the list of development organizations available in the eKasih (National Poverty Data Bank), located at four states in Peninsular Malaysia. The quantitative data were gathered by performing structured interview sessions from September until November 2017.

The outcomes of the study displayed that economic vulnerability has a significantly negative effect upon commitment, opportunity recognition, organizing and strategic competency. On the other hand, the results showcased that economi c vulnerability has a significantly positive effect on competency, but insignificantly positive impact upon conceptual competency.

These study outcomes appear to extend the scope of the resource-based view, apart from enriching the existing entrepreneurial competency literature, particularly within the Malaysian context. Hence, it is recommended that the government of Malaysia and development organizations should focus on maximizing the level of competency among micro-entrepreneurs as a viable approach to decrease the effect of economic vulnerability.

This study aims to examine the effect of entrepreneurial skills, market orientation, sales orientations and networking on entrepreneurial competency and performance of micro-enterprises in Kelantan, Malaysia.

Adopting a cross-sectional design, this paper collected data through structured interviews from 403 micro-entrepreneurs from “Majlis Amanah Rakyat,” Kelantan and “Majlis Agama Islam dan Adat Istiadat,” Kelantan.

The findings reveal that entrepreneurial skills, market orientation and networking have a positive effect on entrepreneurial competency. Then, entrepreneurial competency, entrepreneurial skills and networking have a positive effect on enterprise performance. The findings show a significant mediation effect of entrepreneurial competency on the relationships between entrepreneurial skills, market orientation and networking and enterprise performance.

Addressing the understudied “human factor” in entrepreneurship, this paper extends the resource-based view and enriches the existing entrepreneurship literature in Malaysia. It provides useful insights into the improvement of micro-enterprise performance, which is crucial for promoting entrepreneurial activities and for enhancing socio-economic conditions among low-income households in Malaysia. Thus, the government and developmental organizations should focus on the development of entrepreneurial skills, market-oriented approach, networking traits and entrepreneurial competencies and subsequently encourage poor households to perform entrepreneurial activities.

This study aims to examine the effect of creativity and innovativeness, risk taking propensity, proactiveness and autonomy on entrepreneurial competency and performance among micro-enterprises in Kelantan, Malaysia.

Adopting a cross-sectional design, the authors collected data from 403 micro-entrepreneurs who were registered under “Majlis Amanah Rakyat” and “Majlis Agama Islam dan Adat Istiadat”. Quantitative data were collected through structured interviews from September 2017 to December 2017.

The findings revealed that creativity and innovativeness, proactiveness and autonomy had a positive influence on entrepreneurial competencies. In addition, autonomy and entrepreneurial competencies had a positive effect on micro-enterprise performance. Then, entrepreneurial competencies showed a mediating effect on the relationships between creativity, innovativeness, autonomy and micro-enterprise performance.

The findings contributed to resource-based view and enriched the entrepreneurship literature, particularly in the context of small businesses in emerging economies. This study recommended underlying organizations to pay attention to the improvement of creativity and innovativeness, proactiveness, autonomy and entrepreneurial competencies among low-income entrepreneurs through useful policies and training programs, which were expected to improve micro-enterprise performance and encourage poor households to perform entrepreneurial activities for better socio-economic conditions.

The purpose of this study is to explore the variables that affect Muslim consumers’ perception towards tax rebate over zakat on income in Malaysia.

A close-ended structured questionnaire was developed and a total number of 236 valid responses were collected through online survey from the Muslims residing in Malaysia.

This study found that halal-haram aspect of Islamic Shariah, legal consciousness and religiosity of Muslim consumers are positive significant factors for growing perceptions towards tax rebate over zakat on income in Malaysia.

This study will definitely play an important leading role for the policy-makers and academicians in understanding the perceptions of Muslim consumers.

This study can assist zakat and tax authorities in Malaysia for taking corrective actions to adapt or improve the current policy on the basis of its Muslim consumers’ perception.

The findings of this study can reduce the gap of understanding among Muslims in the society by letting other people’s perceptions towards tax rebate through zakat system in Malaysia.

As there are not enough studies in this area, this study will definitely play an important leading role for the countries or policy-makers or concerned zakat or tax institutions all over the world in capitalizing the practices which is highly and positively perceived by the Muslim consumers in Malaysia.

Hotel industry is witnessing a radical change as a result of technology interaction such as artificial intelligence (AI) in service tasks. As a result of this transformation, the pattern of service delivery based on human interaction has been changed to digital interaction. This brought opportunities to the hotels industry and consolidate its competitive advantage. However, the understanding gap still existed in both practical implementation and literature, especially in developing countries. Therefore, this paper aims to explore how hotels use AI to carry out services tasks.

The authors adopted the qualitative research method through Semi interviews. The sample was purposively selected from five 5-star hotels in the UAE, meanwhile, the managers were the targeted respondents.

Through content analysis, the authors find that the UAE hotels use AI in managing trip planning, reception service and room services. The authors also find that there are four key drivers that improve the performance of AI, which include AI infrastructure flexibility, strategic alignment, management and skills. Finally, the authors found four indicators of the impact of AI on hotels, which are quality, cost and market share and customers satisfaction.

This study is one of few studies that explored the use of AI in the hotels industry and discussed how AI influence several aspects of hotels performance and helped them to attain their competitive advantage. This study is also one of few studies and the first study in UAE to explore the key drivers of AI performance in UAE hotels.