Empirical Study on Recycling Used Paper Boxes from Online Shopping in China

Online shopping is the most popular transaction, where the estimated transaction online is approximately USD 1.9 Trillion with an average growth from 8 -12% every year. Online shopping leads to huge consumption of paper boxes. Since, when the buyers receive the goods, they normally destroyed the paper boxes, throwing them away into a dust bin, and some were kept for nothing. Those papers wasted cause environmental impacts, huge organizational costs, and unnecessary spaces are wasted. The study investigates on activities of returning the used paper boxes through online shopping among university students in China by underpinning the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA). The survey was conducted among 24 public universities in Guangxi, China, with 401 questionnaires accepted for analysis. The study employed regression analysis to test the hypotheses. Both independent variables have a significant relationship to return the paper wasted boxes from online shopping. This paper has its methodology contribution since a rare study focuses on all the bachelor degree students in public universities in Guangxi, China.

Determinants of Corporate Environmental Accounting Disclosure of Oil and Gas Firms in Nigeria

This study examines the cognitive factors that determine corporate environmental accounting disclosures (CEAD). The population consists of all the fourteen (14) listed oil and gas firms in Nigeria. Panel data were obtained from the annual reports and accounts of the firms for the period of 2010 to 2019. A correlational research design was used and the data were analyzed using the Generalized Least Square regression (random model). The study found that firm size; leverage and multi-national companies have positive significant influence on the CEAD of listed oil and gas firms in Nigeria. Whilst firm growth has a negative significant relationship with the CEAD of listed oil and gas firms in Nigeria. It is concluded that larger firms and multi-national companies in the Nigerian oil and gas sector have high likelihood of disclosing environmental accounting information. Thus, it is recommended that the management of listed oil and gas firms in Nigeria should expand their size by acquiring more assets, maintain a consistent growth by exploring more opportunities while improving their gearing ratio to ensure a stable balance between the proportion of debt and assets. It therefore, highlighted the need for Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to come up with enabling laws geared towards ensuring that listed oil and gas firms in Nigeria embrace CEAD. Furthermore, Global Environmental Disclosure Index (GEI) should be considered as the most acceptable yardstick for measuring environmental accounting by the listed oil and gas firms in Nigeria.

Does Entrepreneurial Career Choice Lessen the Graduate Unemployment Problem? The Case of Malaysian Graduates

Entrepreneurship has been long regarded as able to lessen the problem of graduate unemployment. This ability of entrepreneurship has been frequently quoted by numerous studies as a motivation of study to engage into the studies of graduate entrepreneurial career choice. Nevertheless, the relationship between the entrepreneurial career choice and graduate unemployment is yet to be explored. This paper aims to estimate the impact of entrepreneurial career choice on the Malaysian graduate unemployment. The targeted population of the present paper was the Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) and Universiti Malaysia Kelantan (UMK) graduates. A sample of 1,723 graduates was collected using self-administered questionnaires. The descriptive statistics, cross-tabulation tables and econometrics analysis are employed. Graduate entrepreneurial career choice is found to be unrelated to the chance of being unemployed and unable to reduce the probability of being unemployed among the low employability graduates. Thus, graduate entrepreneurial career choice does not lessen the graduate unemployment problem. However, there is some evidence that entrepreneurial career choice could reduce the unemployment duration and hinder the occurrence of long-term unemployed among the low employability graduates. The Malaysian government policy to combat the graduate unemployment problem could not rely mainly on the entrepreneurial career choice. The graduate entrepreneurial career choice, however, could be relied on reducing the occurrence of long-term unemployment. Future studies are suggested to use the sample of all graduates to validate the findings.

Examining Factors that Influence Harumanis Farmers’ Intention to Use Safe Pesticides

Harumanis demands delicate handling and farmers must know how to use safe pesticides. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine factors influencing the use of safe pesticide among Harumanis farmers in Mata Ayer, Perlis. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) was used to underpin this study. This study suggests that attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, knowledge and moral norm as the variables that influence the use of safe pesticides. Data were collected from 97 registered Harumanis farmers under Department of Agriculture (DOA) Malaysia through questionnaires. SmartPLS was used to test the hypotheses in this study. The results showed that attitude, moral norm and knowledge had positive effects on the intention to use safe pesticides. Moreover, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control exhibited insignificant effect on the dependent variable. The results provide helpful information to the stakeholders in the Harumanis industry, from which they could develop and improve appropriate strategies and provide essential assistance to the Harumanis farmers.

Different Approaches to Merchandise Trade Balance in Pakistan

The current study empirically examines the three major approaches to trade balance for Pakistan by utilizing the yearly data from 1972 to 2016. Monetary, elasticity, and absorption approaches were tested by developing a model that incorporates all three approaches. The significant contribution of the study is that it uses only the merchandise trade deficit account, which includes trade of only physical goods. The study used time-series data; therefore, variables have been tested for the stationarity, and it is found that there is a combination of I (0) and I (1) variables, so ARDL bounds testing approach to co-integration has been employed to find the short run and long run associations among the variables. The bound test results discovered that there is a presence of stable long-term association among the merchandise trade deficit account, real broad money supply, real effective exchange rate, and real domestic absorption. The results further revealed that merchandise trade discrepancy is determined purely by the real effective exchange rate, which specifies that the exchange rate's devaluation increases the deficit in the long run whereas in the short-run increase in domestic absorption decreases the merchandise trade deficit.

Chemical Warehouse Operations: Experience from SWIFT Integrated Logistics Sdn. Bhd

This article investigated the comprehensive risk management model practised at SWIFT Integrated Logistics chemical storage operations. The objective is to systematically illustrate the risk factors by identifying risks and mitigating them from the flow of the operation. By reducing or containing the risk factors, we are able to provide a conducive, safe, secure working environment with initiatives toward zero-incident reporting cases. A qualitative research method was applied in this study. Respondents selected for this study were at the managerial level at SWIFT Integrated Logistics with experience working in warehouse operations for more than five years. SWIFT Integrated Logistics management wanted to diversify its warehouse customer's portfolio and accepted new business opportunities in chemicals warehouse storage. The move contributed greatly to the business strategy and finance, but they faced serious risk management issues, which resulted in six (6) incidents and raised the level of anxiety and concern among the warehouse team on health & safety issues. Future studies may look into additional strategies to implement a better warehouse risk management model or plan for a chemical warehouse. This study suggested that regular or continuous training should be provided to the staff. Basic first aid kit training is an example of the mandatory training that should be part of the job standard operating procedure. This paper contributes to the limited existing study on chemical warehouse operations. Experience and measures taken by SWIFT management may provide some ideas to improve the management of chemical warehouse for other warehouse operators. Although chemical warehouse operation safety is important, there is scarce academic research that explores this issue.

Islamic Financing for Small Medium Enterprises: Challenges and Opportunities

This study attempts to discuss the challenges and opportunities of Islamic financing for Small Medium Enterprise (SMEs), as the Islamic finance industry's growth and SMEs are stimulated in this recent year. The government has introduced Islamic SME financing since 2012, and Malaysia has promoted it by granting a rebate for the participated parties, especially Islamic financial institutions. However, the government's opportunities are still in the slow mode to be grabbed by SMEs. With selected literature related to SMEs and Islamic financing, this study discussed SMEs and Islamic banks' practices in Malaysia. Based on the literature, several issues had to be highlighted, such as SMEs' readiness to have the opportunity with larger firms, SMEs' behaviours, and attitudes when dealing with external supports, as well as their awareness of business financing. Thus, this study highlights the challenges and real issues among SMEs and points out the opportunities for improvement that are expected to benefit SMEs and Islamic financial institutions in Malaysia.

Adaptation, Validation and Translation of the Women Personal Empowerment Scale

Pakistan ranks third in the list of the most hazardous countries for woman's survival. In this study, by using the quantitative approach, the scale adaptation process was conducted in three phases as integration of instruments, generation of items, and generalization of expert reviews. Back-to-Back translation on 40 women was done to determine the understanding of the Urdu language of personal empowerment scale. Sequentially, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was performed on the data collected from 360 respondents for the Construct Validity Method (CVM) on personal empowerment Scale-Urdu Version. The results confirmed the validity of the scale. Cross-language validity was also determined. The empirical findings also indicated that women's personal empowerment plays a significant role in improving their quality of life. Theorists and practitioners need to pay more attention to the generalization of the personal empower scale.

Online Customer Shopping Behaviour: The Mediating Role of Online Perceived Risk

The studies of online purchase intention have been done extensively throughout the world by testing many predictors. Due to the rapid growth of technological advances affecting internet users suggest other new predictors considered as an online purchase intention element. This study suggests customer review, online store image, and perceived online risk (an element of a mediating factor) as three main variables that drive customers to purchase online. A simple convenience sampling method was used to analyse the responses from online users via the online questionnaire web surveys. Multiple regressions and Sobel tests were used in this study to test the hypotheses. The result shows that online customer review and online store image have a positive relationship with the perceived risk online as well as perceived risk itself also has a positive relationship with online purchase intention. Consequently, in terms of mediating factors, perceived risk online is seen as a mediator for both online customer review and online store image with online purchase intention. Having said that, the study hopes that the findings would help boost the online retail industry as a contributor to the country's economic development.