CONNECTING COMPETENCY IN INTERNAL AUDIT WITH TAX ADMINISTRATION PERFORMANCE: A CASE STUDY OF THE NIGERIAN TAX AUTHORITY

The aim of this study is to identify and analyse internal audit competency requirement for effective auditing performance in tax administration. To achieve this, a case study methodology was employed to carry out a face-to-face interview with 9 internal auditors of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) Nigeria. The collected data was analysed using Nvivo qualitative software. The findings of the study show that qualification, knowledge and skills are the three major indicators of internal auditors’ competency in performing effective auditing functions in tax administration. This study implies that to achieve a successful performance of internal auditing in the FIRS, competent internal audit staffs are highly needed for effective internal auditing performance.

THE CHANGING INTENTION TO PRACTICE HEALTHY EATING BEHAVIOUR AMONG LATE ADOLESCENTS DURING COVID-19

The Covid-19 pandemic has generated intention among late adolescents to practice healthy eatingbehaviour. Although it is not new, there islimited research on this topic. To date, the pandemic has changed the behaviour of late adolescents to practice healthy eating behaviour. As such, it has tremendously grabbed the attention of scholars amid the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition, the development process from adolescence to late adolescence stage has become a serious health-related issue worldwide. However, most research are focused on adolescents instead of late adolescents. Late adolescence is a special group of the population who has specific health concerns. To discover more about healthy eating behaviours among late adolescence aged between 18-24 years in Malaysia, this study aims to examine the determinants that contribute to the eating behaviour in this population. Based on past and current literature reviews, a proposed research framework was developed, along with some untested assumptions which were formulated for the research purpose.

THE ROLE OF COMMITMENT AND TRUST TOWARDS ONLINE LOYALTY IN THE BANKING INDUSTRY

The purpose of this paper is to determine the influence of online commitment and trust on online loyalty among internet banking users in Malaysia. An intercept survey was conducted among the major banks in the Northern region in Malaysia. A total number of 100 questionnaires were completed and further analyzed. A Partial Least Square (PLS) analysis was performed on the data using the SmartPLS software version 3. SmartPLS is commonly used in marketing and social science studies; thus, the software was employed in this study to predict the relationship among all tested variables as well as analyze their reliability and validity. The results of all the relationships were predicted through hypotheses testing. The result revealed that both commitment and trust have a positive and significant influence on online loyalty. This study provides some practical implications that may be relevant, not only to the banking industry, but also to the financial industry.

A REVIEW OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION OF EDUCATION IN OMAN

This article reviewed the digital transformation of education in Oman. There are many problems facing regular education in Oman. In this study, the issue of digital transformation in Omani education is mainly discussed. The aim of this study is to review the impact of the environment, human and financial resources, and educational knowledge on the speed of digital transformation of education, as the speed of digital transformation leads to the development of digital transformation performance in the Sultanate of Oman. The results indicated that the environment, human resources, finance and knowledge have a significant impact on the performance of digital transformation. The inclusion of digital transformation revealed the conceptual model for the effect of complementary mediation on the relationship between digital knowledge and digital transformation as well as the performance of technology as a whole. This study demonstrates the importance of digital transformation along with e-learning and meeting user expectations. The Secondary Research Approach method was used by reviewing many articles from various sources such as websites, books, journals, and scholarly research, from July to November 2020.The results contributes significantly to both theory and practice by promoting the use of digital transformation.

DEMOGRAPHICS, KNOWLEDGE AND SMOKING: AN INSTRUMENTAL VARIABLE APPROACH

Smoking is one of the main factors that causes various diseases. The objective of the present study is to investigate factors determining smoking behaviour among adults. The present study used instrumental variable (IV) regressions to estimate the effects of demographic and knowledge factors on participation decision and amount decision of smoking. Nationally representative data of a developing country (Malaysia) was used. Contrary to popular belief, knowledge was found to be positively associated with the propensity to smoke, as well as the amount of smoking. Age, gender, wealth index, educational level, ethnicity, marital status and house locality were significantly associated with smoking. Males were more likely to smoke and smoked more than females. Educational level reduced the likelihood and amount of smoking. Malays and married individuals were less likely to smoke than non-Malays and unmarried individuals. Urban dwellers smoked more cigarette relative to rural dwellers. In terms of policy implication, it is suggested that intervention measures directed toward reducing the prevalence of smoking should not pay too much attention to improving the knowledge of health effects of smoking among Malaysian adults. Anti-smoking policies must be designed carefully by taking into account of the demographic factors which are correlated with the likelihood and amount of smoking. The present study is the first of its kind that includes knowledge as a separate variable for analyses and uses IV regressions to analyse participation decision and amount decision of smoking.

BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF PUBLISHED LITERATURE ON TAXATION IN MALAYSIA, BASED ON SCOPUS DATABASE

Taxation research has received considerable attention from many scholars, practitioners and policymakers across the globe. Many scholars have also conducted research on taxation in the Malaysian context. However, papers that track the trends of such research are scanty in the existing literature. The aim of this study is to review the trend and frequencies of published literature on taxation in Malaysia based on the Scopus database using the search term “Malaysia and tax”. The design of the study is bibliometric analysis. As of 23rd September 2020, a total of 88 documents were retrieved and analysed using Excel, Hazing’s Publish or Perish and VOSviewer software. Based on the standard bibliometric indicators, this paper reports the research papers and source types, years and language of publications, subject area, most active institutions, most active sources’ titles, keywords, authorship, abstract, title analysis and citation analysis. Findings revealed that there is an increase in growth rate of literature on studies related to taxation in the Malaysian context from 1977 to 2020 published in the Scopos database. The publications reached an all-time peak in 2016 to 2017 but significantly dropped in 2018 and 2019 based on the data retrieved from the Scopus database. The findings further show that Universiti Teknologi MARA is the most influential institution with 18.18% of the total documents retrieved, followed by Universiti Utara Malaysia with 9.1% respectively. Additional findings of the study show that Advance Science Letters is the highest source title with 14.71% of the published documents. The finding also indicates that Adhikari, Derashid and Zhang (2006) are the most influential authors with 187 citations as at 23rd September 2020. The research is limited to the literatures published in Scopus database, other database were not covered in this study. Malaysian policymakers should provide more research grants to tax practitioners and academicians to increase the level of publications in this field.

MALAYSIAN PUBLIC SECTOR SIZE: A COMPARISON WITH OTHER ASEAN COUNTRIES

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the size of the public sector (based on percentage of public sector expenditures to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and percentage of public sector revenues to GDP) of Malaysia and compare it with other Associations of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries. This study utilised a descriptive approach to compare the size of Malaysian public sector with other ASEAN countries (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam). The data were retrieved from 2000 to 2014 (15 years) that involved examination of documents from Key Indicators of Developing Asian and Pacific Countries Reports. Findings revealed that Malaysia ranks number three in terms of the size of public sector among ASEAN countries. Findings also indicated that the Malaysian percentage of public sector expenditure to GDP is around 20% to 30% which is considered as optimal size for the public sector. Malaysia also shows a deficit budget for 2000 to 2014, and similar trends were reported for other ASEAN countries. Meanwhile, the limitations of this study are that it is descriptive in nature and does not test any relationships between variables. Hence, future research may take into account other factors such as economic growth and government efficiency, and test relationships with the size of the public sector.

FAKTOR-FAKTOR MEMPENGARUHI PRESTASI PEKERJA MENGIKUT PERSPEKTIF PEKERJA

Prestasi organisasi bergantung sepenuhnya kepada prestasi kerja yang ditonjolkan oleh pekerja. Kegagalan organisasi untuk mengekalkan prestasi kerja yang baik membawa kepada masalah isu kadar pusing ganti pekerja yang tinggi yang seterusnya menjejaskan produktiviti syarikat dan ekonomi negara. Objektif kajian ini adalah untuk mengenal pasti faktor-faktor yang mempengaruhi prestasi kerja dalam kalangan penjawat awam dan swasta di kawasan sekitar Lembah Klang. Data primer diperoleh melalui soal selidik dengan sejumlah 139 responden yang terlibat dalam kajian ini. Analisis faktor digunakan untuk menganalisis data yang sekadar diperoleh. Hasil kajian mendapati pekerja berpendapat bahawa ketiga-tiga faktor, iaitu motivasi, persekitaran tempat kerja serta latihan dan pembangunan mempengaruhi prestasi kerja. Pihak organisasi perlu mengutamakan keperluan motivasi intrinsik kepada pekerja dan menetapkan matlamat latihan yang dijalankan dengan jelas untuk meningkatkan prestasi kerja.

BREACH OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTRACTS AND DISCRETIONARY BEHAVIOUR IN NIGERIAN ACADEMICS

This study explored the breach of psychological contracts and discretionary behaviour by Nigerian academics. A survey was employed to elicit information from 378 academics that were randomly selected from 7,131 academics in federal universities in the North-Central Nigeria. The results from the hypotheses testing revealed that most of the universities in the North-Central zone did not comply with the psychological contract (as supported by the negative results from statistical estimates and Levene’s t-values). There was a positive correlation between breach of psychological contract and organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) as well as positive relationship between breach of psychological contract and deviant workplace behaviour (DWB) (r=0.196; p<0.05 and r=0.126; p<0.05, respectively). The breach of psychological contract has influenced academics in different ways showing a tendency for OCB and DWB. Unfortunately, the tendency for DWB outweigh that of OCB. Therefore, academics who uphold OCB despite the perceived BPC should be encouraged to sustain their good behaviour.