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The purpose of this paper is to measure the long-run housing affordability of Malaysia over time for households at various income levels and to demonstrate how short- and long-run affordability measures can reach contradicting conclusions.

In this study, a long-run housing affordability index (HAI) for Malaysia was constructed for the sample period 1995 to 2014, using data from house prices and household incomes. The HAI was also modified to compute a mortgage affordability index (MAI) to account for intergenerational transfers.

The results show that households at the 25th income percentile cannot afford any of the four dwelling types in Malaysia. For households at the 40th income percentile and the median income levels, high-rise and terrace housing are affordable. However, significant downward trends in HAI and MAI are documented beginning 2009, which indicates increasing housing stress for households at or below the median income. The short-run affordability measure represented by the median multiple (MM) indicator showed bleaker conclusion for housing affordability, with all dwelling types considered unaffordable over the entire sample period

On the basis of the empirical results, this paper provided several long-term proposals to ameliorate the housing affordability problem in Malaysia.

With the MM ratio being the official affordability measure reported for Malaysia, this study introduces the nation’s first long-run housing affordability measure. It is hoped that this long-run measure will achieve widespread adoption in Malaysia. Given the deteriorating long-term affordability, this study offers several possible long-term solutions.

Amidst escalating sustainability challenges, product and brand managers face a pressing need to foster responsible consumption and marketing strategies. Guided by the theory of planned behavior, this paper aims to explore consumers’ motivation to purchase second-hand clothing, a type of product that contributes to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12 on Responsible Consumption and Production by democratizing the brand, extending the life-cycle of the product, promoting a circular economy, while reducing economic costs for consumers and environmental costs for companies.

A two-stage study was conducted: 20 consumers were initially interviewed to identify the salient beliefs about second-hand clothing, and following that, a survey was conducted with 449 consumers to statistically analyze consumers’ motivation to purchase second-hand clothing. The data were analyzed using partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and necessary condition analysis (NCA).

From a “should-have” perspective (PLS-SEM), the study reveals that behavioral beliefs, injunctive normative beliefs, descriptive normative beliefs and control beliefs positively shape attitudes, injunctive norms, descriptive norms and perceived behavioral control toward second-hand clothing, whereas attitudes, injunctive norms, moral norms and perceived behavioral control positively influence consumers’ purchases of second-hand clothing. From a “must-have” perspective (NCA), the study shows that behavioral beliefs, injunctive normative beliefs and descriptive normative beliefs are necessary conditions to positively shape attitudes, injunctive norms and descriptive norms toward second-hand clothing, whereas attitudes, injunctive norms and perceived behavioral control are necessary conditions to stimulate second-hand clothing purchases.

The study offers a deep dive into consumers’ motivation to purchase second-hand clothing using a multimethod approach that enables not only the elicitation of salient beliefs (through interviews) but also the empirical examination of these beliefs alongside varying subjective norms in motivating consumers to purchase second-hand clothing (via survey). Given that beliefs are deeply rooted, the rigorous unfolding and validation of consumers’ beliefs about second-hand clothing, including the “should-haves” versus the “must-haves,” provide finer-grained insights that product and brand managers can strategically use to encourage consumers to purchase second-hand clothing.

This paper aims to examine the non-linear impact of inflation on financial development, and the moderating role of GDP in the relationship between inflation and financial development in a panel of 125 countries.

It employs the dynamic common correlated effects (CCE) that can control for heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence. This technique enables us to conduct both panel and country-specific analyses.

Though there is no significant evidence that inflation has a non-linear impact on financial development in the panel, the country-specific estimations reveal that inflation has a non-linear impact on financial development in 66 countries. The results also show that GDP mitigates the detrimental effect of inflation on financial development in 45 countries. An insight into the non-linear relationship between inflation and financial development is crucial for policy decision-making. Besides, knowledge of the moderating role of GDP in the relationship between financial development and inflation is fundamental for policy formulations.

Although the extant literature has shown that the inflation rate plays a negative role in financial development, the literature overlooked the non-linear relationship between the two variables. Besides, the studies have not considered the role of GDP in moderating the impact of the inflation rate on financial development. This study fills these gaps in the existing body of finance literature.

This study aims to explore the impact of social media influencers' (SMIs) intimate self-disclosure on consumers' purchase intentions, with a focus on the role of parasocial relationships and congruence among the influencer, product and consumer. The study finds its theoretical foundation in parasocial theory and self-congruency theory.

This study employs a quantitative approach, utilizing a sample of 232 collected survey responses. The proposed hypotheses are evaluated using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

Contrary to initial assumptions, the study reveals that parasocial relationships do not mediate the link between SMIs' intimate self-disclosure and purchase intentions. However, an interesting moderating effect was discovered: the congruence between the consumer and the influencer influences the relationship between SMIs' intimate self-disclosure and parasocial relationships, and subsequently, between parasocial relationships and purchase intentions.

This study brings fresh insights by pinpointing a boundary condition that dictates the influence of SMIs' intimate self-disclosure on purchase intentions via parasocial relationships. In doing so, this study provides a novel perspective in understanding the dynamics between SMIs and consumers in the rapidly evolving marketing landscape.

The purpose of this study is to use a lifetime income measure to evaluate the long-run housing affordability for an understudied cohort of households in the literature – the millennials. The authors do this in the context of Malaysia, measuring long-run affordability for four housing types across geographic locations and income distributions.

This study calculates a long-run housing affordability index (HAI) using data on house prices and household incomes. Essentially a ratio of predicted lifetime incomes to house prices, the HAI is computed for four common housing types in Malaysia from 2005 to 2016 and for six states in the country. The HAI is also compared across four income percentiles.

The analysis reveals varying patterns of housing affordability among different states in Malaysia. Housing affordability has declined since 2010, with most housing types being unaffordable for millennial-led households with the lowest income. Housing is most affordable for those in the highest income bracket, although even here, there are pockets of unaffordable housing as well.

Based on the findings, this study proposes three targeted interventions to improve housing affordability for Malaysian millennials.

This study fills a gap in the literature by examining the long-run housing affordability of Malaysian millennial-led households based on both geographic location and income distribution. The millennial population is understudied in the housing affordability literature, making this study a valuable contribution to the field.

Online learning has become more popular than ever in higher education owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this has also intensified students' propensity to engage in cyberslacking behaviour during online classes without the physical presence of instructors to monitor their behaviour. Hence, this research aims to investigate the association of the Big Five personality traits and situational factors with students' cyberslacking behaviour during online classes.

A self-administered survey questionnaire was distributed to current university students undertaking online modules this semester. In all, 194 completed surveys were obtained for further analysis.

The results reveal that extraversion, conscientiousness, neuroticism and apathy towards course material have a significant association with at least one of the cyberslacking dimensions (sharing, shopping, real-time updating, accessing online content and gaming/gambling). However, agreeableness, intellect/imagination and class engagement are found to have no significant association with all the dimensions of students' cyberslacking behaviour during online classes.

This study fills the research gaps by empirically testing the association of the Big Five personality traits and situational factors with students' cyberslacking behaviour in e-learning environments. Several limitations and future research are also discussed.

This paper aims to examine the factors that measure different satisfaction levels between the Asian and Western travellers during their stay in hotels in Malaysia. The paper also seeks to analyse the importance of the tangible and intangible factors in the hotel industry.

The research questions are utilised to measure the differences between Asian and Western perception of hotel attributes. A questionnaire with five‐point Likert scale is applied to measure customer satisfaction. Data is analysed using SPSS software by employing factor analysis, multiple regression, and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA).

Results indicate that there are significant differences between Asian and Western evaluations of hotel quality, with clear indication that satisfaction levels Malaysian hotels were higher among Western travellers than the Asian travellers. Both Asian and Western travellers perceive hospitality as an influential factor in determining the overall satisfaction level.

The limitation of the study is that the sample is taken only from travellers who are leaving Malaysia by plane. Future research can be carried out on the travellers arriving at and depart from Malaysia using different mode of transportations.

For practitioners, it is worth noting that Asian travellers are exclusively concerned with the value for money services, while Western travellers regard security and safety, and food and beverage as important factors for them to stay in the hotels or revisit the country.

Malaysia is an emerging market for tourism industry and the information obtained from the travellers can be utilised to enhance a much more efficient marketing strategy in the hotel industry. This paper contains material relevant to education as well as to the tourism industry, and implementable solutions are sufficiently well suggested.

The advance of online technology and instructional delivery such as Web‐based learning (WBL) has heralded new changes in education. Students using the WBL environment in various courses at eight universities in Malaysia were surveyed. Results showed that five main factors influence the effectiveness of the online learning process: students' behavior, characteristics of lecturers, interactive application, technology or system, and the institutions. Results indicated that students' grades are highly correlated with student perception, self‐efficacy and interactivity. The WBL learners do not outperform traditional learners. There is also a need to improve the quality of WBL due to differences in adaptation styles of learners in the process.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the determinants of users' adoption momentum of e‐banking in Malaysia.

A questionnaire with four‐point Likert scale is applied to 324 usable responses. Ten attributes are tested, namely convenience of usage, accessibility, features availability, bank management and image, security, privacy, design, content, speed, and fees and charges.

Results indicate that all elements for ten identified factors are significant with respect to the users' adoption of e‐banking services. Privacy and security are the major sources of dissatisfaction, which have momentously impacted users' satisfaction. Meanwhile, accessibility, convenience, design and content are sources of satisfaction. Besides, the speed, product features availability, and reasonable service fees and charges, as well as the bank's operations management factor are critical to the success of the e‐banks. WAP, GPRS and 3G features from mobile devices are of no significance or influence in the adoption of e‐banking services in this study. Results also reveal that privacy, security and convenience factors play an important role in determining the users' acceptance of e‐banking services with respect to different segmentation of age group, education level and income level.

The use of convenience sampling in this study weakens research objectivity. This study excludes the voice of non‐users and non‐users' views should be taken into account in future study.

The results are expected to provide a practical contribution in the area of retail banking and in understanding consumer behavior in the Malaysian business‐to‐business financial services industry.

This paper is the extension of an earlier study by Suganthi et al. which identified seven factors affecting the adoption of internet banking, with 17 elements. This study examines a wider scope of factors that consist of ten attributes with 78 elements based on the extant literature.