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Tourism forecasting has garnered considerable interest. However, integrating tourism forecasting with volatility is significantly less typical. This study investigates the performance of both the single models and their combinations for forecasting the volatility of tourism demand. The seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average (SARIMA) model is used to construct the mean equation, and three single models, namely the generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) family models, the error-trend-seasonal exponential smoothing (ETS-ES) model, and the innovative smooth transition exponential smoothing (STES) model, are employed to estimate the volatility of monthly tourist arrivals into Malaysia. This study also assesses the accuracy of forecasts using simple average (SA), minimum variance (MV), and novel smooth transition (ST). STES performs the best of the single models for forecasting the out-of-sample of tourism demand volatility, followed closely by ETS-ES. In contrast, the ST combining method surpasses SA and MV. Interestingly, forecast combining methods do not always outperform the best single model, but they consistently outperform the worst single model. The MCS and DM tests confirm the aforementioned findings. This article merits consideration for future forecasting research on tourism demand volatility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though both symmetric and asymmetric conceptions of news impacts are well-established in the disciplines of economics and financial markets, the effects of combining multiple news shocks on the volatility of tourism demand have not yet been delved into or gauged in any tourist destination. This work hypothesises and verifies that the news impact curve (NIC), conditional heteroscedastic volatility models, and multiple news shocks are suitable for forecasting the volatility of the Malaysian tourist industry. Among them, three primarily volatility models (GARCH, EGARCH, and GJRGARCH) are used in conjunction with five financial news shocks (FFNSs), namely the Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI), the United States Dollar Index (DXY), the stock performance of 500 large companies listed on stock exchanges (S&P500), Crude Oil (CO), and Gold Price (GP). Among the most significant findings of this study are the demonstration of monthly seasonality using conditional mean equations, asymmetry effects in EGARCH-FFNSs, and GJRGARCH-FFNSs models in conditional variance equations and 50 NICs, and the GARCH-FFNSs model's evaluation of the persistence influence of news shocks on monthly visitor arrivals in Malaysia. The GJRGARCH-FFNSs model is the best model for Malaysian tourism demand volatility forecasting accuracy. Furthermore, KLCI and Gold Price have the most substantial impact on the number of tourists to Malaysia. In addition, it should be emphasised that the methodological framework utilised in this study can be a useful tool for creating and forecasting the performance of symmetry and asymmetry impacts on tourism demand volatility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the conservation of resources (COR) theory and congruence theory, this study aims to investigate the influence of psychological capital (PsyCap) and person-job fit (PJ fit) on work–family conflict (WFC), family–work conflict (FWC) and job performance (JP), especially the moderating effect of marital status on hypothesized relationships between two directions of conflicts in the work-family interface and JP. Utilizing a two-stage design, this study surveyed 312 flight attendants employed by two international airline companies in Malaysia and used the structural equation modeling technique to test the hypothesized relationships. Findings showed that PsyCap could significantly alleviate two directions of WFC simultaneously and promote employees' JP. PJ fit was also identified to be an effective mitigator of WFC and FWC; however, a significant association between PJ fit and JP has not been found in this study. The findings further suggested that both WFC and FWC could mediate the association between PsyCap and JP. In addition, the fact that marital status resulted in disparity in the formation of JP was also evidenced. Airline companies should pay more attention to the positive impact of individual psychological determinants, such as PsyCap and PJ fit, which can effectively alleviate various issues in the work–family interface, thereby improving employees' JP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Malaysia, travel activities become more intense during the festive seasons, whereby traffic volume on the roads on average increases about 30%. Consequently, this inevitably increases road traffic fatalities. An integrated enforcement program called the OPS Bersepadu has been carried out since 2011 to ensure high road safety performance. This study was carried out to develop a statistical model for predicting the seasonality of traffic fatalities. A Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (SARIMA) model was used to fit road fatalities data between 1980 and 2000 and forecast traffic fatalities from 2001 to 2019. The results showed that the SARIMA (1, 1, 2) (1, 1, 2)12 model fitted the data fairly well and suggest that the SARIMA model is a possible tool that provides an overview of the seasonal patterns of traffic fatalities in Malaysia. The forecasted traffic fatalities based on the SARIMA model were then compared with the actual traffic fatalities during the festive months to explore the effectiveness of the OPS Bersepadu programme to help enforcement authorities allocate optimal resources that could increase the efficiency of enforcement activities to reduce road traffic fatalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim/Purpose The aim of this paper is to examine the influences of KM-centred strategies on innovation capability among Malaysian R&D firms. It also deepens understanding of the pathways and conditions to improve the innovation capability by assessing the mediating role of both KM practices, i.e., knowledge exploration practices, and knowledge exploitation practices. Background Knowledge is the main organisational resource that is able to generate a competitive advantage through innovation. It is a critical success driver for both knowledge exploration and exploitation for firms to achieve sustainable competitive advantages. Methodology A total of 320 questionnaires were disseminated to Malaysian R&D firms and the response rate was 47 percent. The paper utilised structural equation modelling and cross-sectional design to test hypotheses in the proposed research model. Contribution This paper provides useful information and valuable initiatives in exploring the mediating role of knowledge exploration and knowledge exploitation in influencing innovation in Malaysian R&D firms. It helps R&D firms to frame their KM activities to drive the capability of creating and retaining a greater value onto their core business competencies. Findings The findings indicate that all three KM-centred strategies (leadership, HR practices, and culture) have a direct effect on innovation. In addition, KM exploration practices mediate HR practices on innovation while KM exploitation mediates both leadership and HR practices on innovation. Recommendations for Practitioners This paper serves as a guide for R&D managers to determine the gaps and appropriate actions to collectively achieve the desired R&D results and national innovation. It helps R&D firms frame their KM activities to enhance the capability of creating and retaining a greater value to their core business competencies. Recommendations for Researchers This paper contributes significantly to knowledge management and innovation research by establishing new associations among KM-centred strategies, i.e., leadership, HR practices, and culture, both KM practices (knowledge exploration and knowledge exploitation), and innovation. Impact on Society This paper highlights the important role of knowledge leaders and the practice of effective HR practices to help R&D firms to create a positive environment that facilitates both knowledge exploration and knowledge exploitation in enhancing innovation capabilities. Future Research Further research could use a longitudinal sample to examine relationships of causality, offering a more comprehensive view of the effect of KM factors on innovation over the long term. Future research should also try to incorporate information from new external sources, such as customers or suppliers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to identify the relationships between dimensions of internationalisation on balanced scorecard (BSC), among Malaysian small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Internationalisation covers the dimensions of knowledge, trust and commitment. Internationalisation can benefit the firm performance of SMEs in Malaysia which is measured using balanced scorecard, by increasing the involvement of SMEs in international business. A sample of 404 data was considered as the final sample size for this study. By using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), the dimensions of internationalisation were observed to test the hypotheses. The results indicate that internationalisation as a whole does not have a role in the results of BSC among Malaysian SMEs. However, this also indicates that internationalisation is useful to reach the firm performance mostly in larger organisations because they require more strategic internationalisation to be more triumphant over their rivals which the larger organisations have. Furthermore, most SMEs in Malaysia are relatively new and being mostly family enterprises, these SMEs in Malaysia are more knowledgeable to perform domestic business. Therefore, this research conveys an understanding to the owners and managers to quickly achieve BSC results. Finally, this study brings some conclusions to the policy makers and regulators as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Locally derived foods from the lens of restaurant settings play an important source of tourist attraction. Surprisingly, research into this sector is quite scarce. The aim of the paper is to develop and empirically examine a conceptual framework on tourist’s preferences in selecting local foods. The framework includes tourists’ satisfaction, quality of food, tourist’s perception, purchase intention and purchase behavior among tourist’s selection for local foods.Design/methodology/approach The research is designed as quantitative in nature. A sum of 280 usable questionnaires was used from 300 distributed instruments by using convenient sampling techniques.Findings The results show that the relationship of tourist satisfaction and behavior is mediated by purchase intention, whereas tourist’s satisfaction and perception have a positive and significant impact on the intention of purchasing local foods. There is also a significant relationship between tourist’s satisfaction and perceived quality toward the tourist’s perception of local foods. Moreover, a significant relationship exists between tourist’s intentions and tourist’s purchase behavior.Research limitations/implications The study derived the purchase behavior dimensions of local foods by the tourists through literature and verified the conceptual model through empirical testing. Based on these findings, managers of local food restaurants require maximizing the purchase behavior of the visitors by considering satisfaction and perceived quality. In summation, they also should consider perception and behavioral intention of tourists. The limitation of this research relates to the sample, where data were collected from the major city of a tourist-friendly country. Future research could investigate the perceived value and gender variance as moderating variables in and between purchase intention and purchase behavior.Practical implications Managers and policymakers may use the outcome of this research as a guideline to understand the depth of tourist’s behavior. By identifying the antecedents of the behavioral factors may assist the managers to strengthen the restaurant’s competitive position within the industry. Finally, policymakers may use the research to assess tourists’ perceptions of local foods acceptability in promoting the nation’s culture to other parts of the world.Originality/value This work adds to tourism behavior research by exploring the effect of satisfaction, perceived quality, perception and intention on behaviors associated with local foods purchase behavior. In particular, the study highlights the relationships between tourist’s perception, perceived quality of local foods and satisfaction of local foods to measure tourist’s behavior through purchase intention for local foods from the perspective of restaurant settings, which have received less research attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to understand how transformational leadership affects R&D culture in Malaysian universities. Purposive sampling was used and 128 questionnaire surveys were collected from six Malaysian universities that are ranked in the 200 Asian Universities in year 2009 by the QS Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd. Overall findings show that transformational leadership is positively related to all eight R&D culture variables, i.e., (i) risk taking; (ii) teamwork/group diversity; (iii) tolerance of mistakes/celebrating success; (iv) knowledge sharing; (v) autonomy; (vi) employee participation; (vii) open communication; (viii) social networks. The response rate was low (about 5%) and hence the result is difficult to be generalized. Furthermore, six measures that are suggested to have negative effect on R&D culture have to be discarded due to reliability issue. Despite these limitations, R&D managers in universities are recommended to focus on the proposed eight cultural variables in order to promote a conducive R&D culture in universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the knowledge-sharing patterns of undergraduate students in public and private universities. Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire survey was conducted on students of both the types of universities in Malaysia. Data were analyzed using SPSS. Findings – Seven important areas have been the focus of this study: the general attitude towards knowledge sharing; preferred sources for study-related tasks; perceived frequency of knowledge sharing for study-related tasks; types of information and knowledge shared; preferred channels for knowledge sharing; factors limiting knowledge sharing; and knowledge sharing motivators. The data collected from 423 undergraduate students suggest that there are differences between the students in the public and private universities when it comes to knowledge sharing patterns. Research limitations/implications – The paper serves more as a descriptive study on the knowledge sharing patterns rather than a correlational study to find the relationship among variables. Practical implications – The findings suggest that group activities should be structured in all curricula in order to encourage sharing among students. Academics are expected to play an important role to encourage their students to share by means of putting emphasis on collaborative learning to reduce competition among students. The management of universities can promote knowledge sharing by understanding the barriers and motivators of knowledge sharing. Originality/value – The paper is among the first to compare the knowledge sharing patterns among private and public undergraduate students in Malaysia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article attempts to assess the perceived importance and actual implementation of knowledge management (KM) strategies that include culture, leadership, information technology and measurement in the telecommunication industry in Malaysia. Using the paired t-test, results of the study show significant differences among all the KM strategies in terms of their importance and actual implementation. It also reveals that strategies such as technology, culture and leadership are moderately implemented , with measurement being the least implemented factor. Research limitations and its practical implications are keyed out.

• Customer reviews can serve an valuable data source to explore Airbnb service quality. • A novel technique used to extracts service quality attributes from online customer reviews. • Four service attributes that are not reported in the previous Airbnb studies are identified in the present study. • Malaysian and international Airbnb users are found to have different emphasis on service quality attributes. • A modified SERVQUAL questionnaire developed by Akbaba (2006) is cross-validated by using a different source of data. This study employs the structural topic model to extract service quality attributes from 242,020 Airbnb reviews in Malaysia. 22 service related topics were extracted from the corpus and four topics have not appeared in previous Airbnb studies. A widely used modified SERVQUAL questionnaire (MSQ) is cross-validated in this study by comparing its service quality attributes with the results of the topic modelling, which indicates that this MSQ can cover general Airbnb service quality attributes. This study also examines the different preferences of Malaysian and international Airbnb users and the changing patterns of the top six service quality attributes during a five-year period. The findings reveal that Malaysian Airbnb users care more about the appearance and location of the property, and international Airbnb users pay more attention to whether the property can accommodate a group of people. In addition, communication with the host is found to play an increasingly important role in Airbnb users' lodging experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores whether the Big Five Personality factors affect people's online knowledge sharing behaviors. Data used in the study was gathered from 255 students from two Malaysian universities. Results of the study provided support to the hypothesis that extraversion and neuroticism have positive relationships with knowledge sharing attitudes. Openness to experience was found to be inversely related to knowledge sharing attitudes, while subjective norm was found to be positively related.