A value chain plays a crucial role in increasing production efficiency due to business uncertainty and high competition between business entities. Of these, the business must carry out the activities effectively and efficiently to achieve maximum profit. However, the study that focuses on the moderating role of the value chain in its relationship to firm performance is still limited. Thus, the present study aims to examine the effect of intellectual capital and environmental uncertainty toward firm performance and the mediating role of the value chain in the relationship between intellectual capital and environmental uncertainty to firm performance. This study was designed using a quantitative approach through an online survey. A total of 207 staff from non-financial state-owned enterprises consists of 10 clusters and 76 companies. The data were analyzed using the Structural Equation Modeling with Partial Least Square method (SEM-PLS) and assisted by statistical software, namely SmartPLS 3.3.3. The result indicated that intellectual capital and environmental uncertainty have a significant effect on firm performance. Also, this study found that a value chain moderates the relationship of intellectual capital and environmental uncertainty toward firm performance. In conclusion, this study has successfully examined the effect of intellectual capital and environmental uncertainty on firm performance—also, the role of a value chain in the relationship of studied variables. In addition, the findings of this study showed that a value chain is an important tool for companies to improve their business performance.

Based on paralyzed and death time, zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles (NPs) were preliminarily investigated for possible biological effectiveness of anthelmintic activity on Pheretima Posthuma. After synthesizing ZnO NPs by low-temperature precipitation method with slight modification, size, morphology, and shape evaluation of these nanoparticles were characterized by scanning electron microscopy and annealing temperature in the range 400-700C. In this anthelmintic assay, the paralyzed time (PT) was gradually shorter with the increase of the sample concentration, for instance, when high concentration (40mg/ml) sample was applied on adult worms the paralyzed time was 35.6 minutes only. The death time (DT) was 450 and 80 minutes when the sample concentration was 20 and 40 mg/ml respectively. These results were compared with albendazole as a reference showed PT and DT 378.6 and 402.3 minutes respectively, and showed maximum dose-dependent anthelmintic activity. Finally, at higher concentration paralytic effect (PE) was showed much earlier and subsequently, it is important to note that the time taken for death observation was shorter.

Demand for eco-friendly materials increases each year due to their excellent properties, which has proved to contribute to developing a sustainable environment. One of the promising raw materials in producing Glass is rice husk, a waste product from paddy harvesting, containing about 90% of silica. Rice husks are usually burnt in an open area and contribute to severe air pollution problems. In this research, Soda-Lime-Silica Rice Husk Ash (SLRHA) glass which is a new combination of soda-lime silicate (SLS) glass and rice husk ash (RHA), was developed for building glass and window application. The hardness properties of the developed SLS-RHA glass system are presented in this paper. These glasses were investigated to determine the effect of RHA addition on the physical properties of SLS glass. The experimental works using RSM have successfully identified the significant factors and optimized the responses. Based on the Rockwell hardness test, the outcomes demonstrated that the glass sample contained 29.84% weight SLS and 0.06% weight RHA. The result indicated that crack propagation was increased with the increasing addition of RHA, which causes an increase in cracks and voids due to the creation of more debonding.

Stainless steel (SS) and Titanium alloy (Ti) are the most commonly used materials in many industrial fields such as the automotive and aerospace industry. Stainless steel has good corrosion resistance and titanium alloy has an extremely lightweight characteristic. The combination of both materials has become a tremendous innovation in the industrial sector. Resistance spot welding which has commonly applied in many industrial fields is a good consideration to join these two dissimilar materials due to the high efficiency that could be achieved by using this method. However, the way of joining these dissimilar materials should be carefully considered due to the significant difference in mechanical properties between SS and Ti. In the present study, 3 mm of SS316L and Ti6Al4V sheets were joint under the resistance spot welding method with an aluminum interlayer. The optimized welding parameters were provided under the Taguchi method L9 orthogonal array along with the mechanical properties’ investigation. The optimum welding parameters were 11 kA of weld current, 30 Cycles of welding time, and 5 kN of electrode force which produced 8.83 kN tensile-shear load of the joint. The mechanical structure analysis shows the different morphology between stainless steel and titanium interfaces and the intermetallic compound layer was formed on the SS/Al and Al/Ti interfaces. The EDX analysis shows the atomic diffusion-reaction on the application of aluminum as an interlayer on the SS/Ti joint.

As a country surrounded by the ocean, Indonesia is categorized as a country that has marine potential. The fishermen communities’ economy depends on ocean. However, the fishermen communities live below the poverty line and their average income is less than regional minimum wage. In conjunction with the issue, this study seeks to investigate the factors affecting the income of fishermen communities and right decision to fishermen in covering with welfare insurance in Cirebon, Indonesia. The quantitative study is designed using cross-sectional approach. The data collected by applying random sampling with open-ended questions and interview. A total of 100 fishermen’s have participated in this study. The study used some factors in measuring the fishermen community income, namely coastal environment condition, fish catching technology and location, operational capital, climate (season) condition, fishermen’s age, fishermen’s education, and fishing experience. The data are analyzed using the multinomial logistic regression model by assisting the statistical software, i.e., SPSS-23. The results show that coastal environment condition, fish catching technology and location, operational capital, climate (season) condition, fishermen’s age, fishermen’s education, and fishing experience have significant effects on fishermen income. Interestingly, the factor of coastal environment condition and climate (season) condition have significant negative effects on fishermen income. In conclusion, this study identified that two important factors reduced the welfare level of fishermen (via income). Also, in line with that things, the right decision which can provide to support and assist the fishermen community was by providing the welfare insurance. It is purposely to give them the protection from various risks faced by fishermen.

In a decision-making environment related to risk, there are four basic circumstances, namely certainty, risk, uncertainty and conflict. The dynamics of the strategic environment in Southeast Asia cannot be separated from the movement of the development of the Islamic State (IS). The terror threat in Southeast Asia is currently divided into different generations of terror, namely the threat of the Al-Qaeda terror network and the threat of the ISIS terror network. This study aims to analyze and identify the risk value of the development of the Islamic State network in Southeast Asia using the Borda and TOPSIS methods. The Borda method is used to give weight to the criteria related to risk analysis. The TOPSIS method is used to provide a criteria-based risk score. This research is limited to the Southeast Asia region with 4 (four) major countries, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines. This research is expected to contribute to control the development of Islamic state networks in the Southeast Asian region. Based on the results of the overall risk analysis, it was found that the Philippines has the highest risk factor value for Islamic State (IS) with a value of 0.550 at level 4 in the High category. Indonesia maintains a risk factor value of 0.307. Thailand has a risk factor value of 0.427. Indonesia and Thailand are at level 3 with the Medium category. Meanwhile, Malaysia has a risk factor value of 0.203 at level 2 in the Low category.

This study addresses the issue of rising turnover intention in Pakistan’s aviation industry and provides a theoretical foundation for lowering the turnover intention with the help of consumer citizenship behavior (CCB) and consumer-based brand equity by using the S-O-R theory. The data is collected with the help of structured personally administered questions following the intercept approach. Three most frequently used international airports which are located at Lahore, Karachi and Peshawar are targeted for data collection and total of 388 Pakistani flyers who traveled to international destinations participate in the survey. In addition, this study uses SmartPLS 3.2.7 for data analysis with the help of a two-stage approach. The results state that CBBE had a significant effect on CCB and CCB had a significant impact on turnover intentions. Furthermore, CCB plays the role of an important mediator for the effect of customer based brand equity (CBBE) on turnover intention. These results enhance existing literature about lowering the turnover intention with the help of CCB and CBBE in aviation industry of Pakistan. The study also highlights that managers and practitioners should improve customer engagement for exhibiting CCB to reduce customer turnover intentions in the aviation industry.

Kuwait’s SMEs contribute to the economic growth of the country by creating productive jobs for Kuwaiti youth and professionals and improving income diversification. SMEs in Kuwait are faced with numerous challenges and these problems must be addressed to achieve and ensure longer-term success and better performance. This paper seeks to examine the relationship between the determinants of organizational performance such as entrepreneurial leadership (EL), learning orientation (LO), and innovation capacity (IC) of Kuwaiti's Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The study used a quantitative method. A survey questionnaire was administered to gather the data, where the useable data was obtained from 384 of the 500 SME owners and CEOs in Kuwait. The outcomes of this study indicate that entrepreneurial leadership and learning orientation had positive and significant implication on organizational performance. Moreover, the innovation capacity is also found to be a significant mediator in the relationships.

The main objective of this research paper is to examine the mediating roles of place attachment and tourist satisfaction on destination attractiveness and loyalty relationship using the phantom approach among foreign tourists visiting Langkawi Island, Malaysia. Tourists from three countries listed in the top 20 international markets visiting Malaysia were chosen as the target population. The survey was conducted at the departure hall of Langkawi International Airport using a simple random sampling method. A total of 365 useful ques-tionnaires were returned and analyzed using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). The findings of the study have empirically demonstrated that destination attractiveness had no significant direct influence on destination loyalty. However, the study discovered that tourist satisfaction and place attachment fully mediated the relationship between destination attractiveness and destination loyalty. Destination attractiveness has an indirect effect on destination loyalty. The study also illustrated that the tourist satisfaction factor had a stronger mediator effect than place attachment factor in the destination loyalty relationship model. The study suggested several insightful recommendations to the destination management office in maximizing tourist’s experience with cultural attractiveness and adequate infrastructure, thereby, enhancing the visitation of international tourists to Langkawi Island.

Nowadays, global technologies, especially digital things, have become an important tool for businesses to maintain feasible partnerships and build a great value connection with other companies. New digital technologies that are emerging every day are on their way to affect nearly all business processes and activities. This study investigates the effect of the digital supply chain on the supply chain and organization performance in the Malaysia manufacturing industry. This paper also further assesses the mediating effect of supply chain performance in the relationship between the digital supply chain and the organizational performance in the Malaysia manufacturing industry. The objectives are achieved via quantitative research design. The researchers emailed the online survey questionnaire to 1160 manufacturing companies listed in the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) directory via stratified sampling technique and received 63 responses. 7 incomplete responses have been deleted and 56 usable responses representing 5.43% of the response rate used for data analysis. The data was analyzed by using the Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). Three hypotheses are not supported and seven hypotheses are supported, which includes all the hypotheses of moderating effect. The manufacturing companies in Malaysia can consider adopting the DSC in the business process to remain reliable in the competitive market by providing good supply chain performance and best organizational performance as a whole. The implication of the study is given to academics and practitioners, specifically manufacturing companies. The limitations and the recommendation for future study have been highlighted.