The objective of this study is to examine the impact of client, consultant and contractor related fac-tors on mismanagement in public and private contracts in the region of Indonesia. A structural questionnaire is developed for the selected items after detailed investigation of present literature. A final sample of 137 respondents associated with various contracts in the region of Indonesia is collected with demographic details and regression analysis. It is observed that factors like lack of strategy, failure to compile the documentary requirements, poor planning, delay in decision making, financial issues, late payments, difficulty in getting work permits and lack of management expertise are core issues, creating mismanagement in public and private contracts. In consultant related factors, role of inexperienced consultant, poor planning, late of instructions from architects, poor contract management, and poor-quality assurance are the key determinants of mismanagement in contracts. While contractor related factors like poor planning and scheduling, late or improper submission of con-tract, inadequate site supervision and inspection, poor construction methods, weak leadership, and lack of communication between the parties are the key indicators of mismanagement in contracts. As per significance, this study is found to be a reasonable addition in the present literature from the context of contract management. Originality of the study covers the significant findings for the policy makers in the field of public and private contracts. Study can be reworked in future through better sampling, and addition of more factors related to materials, equipment and labor causing for the poor delivery of the contracts.

The tourism sector has developed over the years as one of the main contributors to the nation’s socio-economy. However, tourism has also said to be the cause of the depletion of the natural environment especially the marine ecosystem due to the irresponsible behavior of tourists. There is a growing interest in understanding the impact of tourism towards the sustainability of a particular ecotourism destination, thus this study aims to examine the drivers of tourists’ intention to behave in an environmentally responsible manner specifically in marine parks. This study utilizes the responsible environmental behavior model with the addition of consumption values theory and destination image in hope to provide a more comprehensive explanation. A researcher-administered face-to-face survey was conducted among 103 tourists and analysed using partial least squares technique. The results empirically revealed that environmental knowledge and destination image significantly influenced the tourists’ intention to behave in an environmentally responsible manner. Thus, in fostering a more responsible behavior among tourists, more emphasis can be placed on enhancing their knowledge while capitalizing on the destination’s image.

This study is motivated by the high frequency of loss occurrence since late 1990s among Malaysian public listed firms, and the conflicting findings of the impact of the macroeconomic conditions and firm-specific attributes on different measures of earnings quality. In addition, this study examines the impact of firms’ specific attributes on earnings quality using a better established theory, known as the life-cycle hypothesis. The objectives of this study are; (1) to examine the relationship between firms’ loss condition on conservatism as an earnings quality measure as well as the moderation of macroeconomic condition on the relationship and (2) to examine the relationship between life-cycle stages and conditional conservatism. Samples for the study are companies listed on Bursa Malaysia from 1995 to 2010. Using the C_Score measure of conservatism as the dependent variable, firms with loss condition, have been found to be significantly more conservative than profit firms. In addition, macroeconomic condition, strengthen the relationship between loss and conservatism when the results indicate that loss firms undergoing economic crisis are significantly more conservative than loss firms under normal economic condition. Incorporating the firms’ life-cycle stages, the study found that growth firms signal fewer losses than mature firms, thus accepting the set hypothesis. Implication of this study is that ignorance of these issues could lead to significantly misleading interpretation of earnings quality.

Automotive industry in Malaysia started in 1985 with the launch of the first national car. However after thirty years, overall performance of the industry is still far behind the neighboring countries like Thailand and Indonesia which ranked first and second top producers in the automotive industry. In order for the automotive players in Malaysia to be globally competitive, innovation is an important element to drive competitiveness. Thus, the aim of this study is to determine the relationship between NAP strategies and innovation performance in the Malaysian automotive component industry. NAP was launched in 2006 with six main directions and strategies. Study is focused on local automotive vendor and a completed survey was completed with 300 respondents. Data was ana-lyzed through structural equation modelling (SEM) using SmartPLS 3.0. Empirical evidence shows that NAP supports all types of innovation among automotive vendors in Malaysia. The study also found innovation mediates between National Automotive Policy (NAP) and vendor’s performance except in the process innovation. This supported previous research in this area where government policy partially mediates on firm competitiveness. The finding of the study suggests NAP is still relevant for the automotive vendors in Malaysia in improving innovation and performance.

A noteworthy feature in the monetary policy decision making is that interest rate can play a significant role in addressing economic uncertainty. Although the empirical studies on monetary policy reaction function routinely include the output gap and the inflation, not many studies take into account the exchange rate uncertainty and terms of trade uncertainty. To overcome this shortcoming, this paper examines the monetary policy reaction function by including the external economic uncertainty. Based on 30 selected countries, the estimation is relaxed by using the panel heterogeneous cointegration technique. The findings suggest that (i) the interest rate can serve as an important instrument for the central bank policy decision making to combat the economic uncertainty arising from output, inflation, exchange rate and terms of trade (TOT), and (ii) the economic uncertainty (i.e., output uncertainty, inflation uncertainty, exchange rate uncertainty and TOT uncertainty) can serve as a useful information for monetary policy action to avoid and/or mitigate a negative impact of uncertainty.

This study intends to cover the relationship between contract management and performance characteristics from the context of Indonesia. To address this objective, contract management is observed as the main independent variable while performance through nine items is considered as dependent variable. A questionnaire is developed through some selected factors and distributed among various respondents, dealing directly or indirectly with the projects. A sample of 70 respondents is finalized with no missing values. Empirical findings suggest that for the firm performance different variables such as nature of the solution, cost & benefit analysis are significantly associated with the contract length. While project delivery and project quality are negatively associated with the contract length. Findings of the study are highly recommended for the contract managers and similar individuals, responsible for the smooth business performance. However, future studies can be conducted with the addition of more explanatory factors for contract management with better sample size. Manage-rial implication of the study defines that Government and construction companies should reconsider the stated factors for the improved results through resolution of the conflict with the customers, cost benefit analysis and timely delivery of the project with budgetary compliance.

This study aims at discovering the relationship between the improvement in the capacity of tax authorities and its effect on the transfer pricing activities of foreign direct investment (FDI) enterprises in four provinces/cities of Vietnam: Ha Noi, Ho Chi Minh, Dong Nai, and Binh Duong province. These are the first localities in Vietnam to establish the Division of Transfer Pricing Inspectorate in local Tax Department, under the direction of General Department of Taxation of Vietnam. The paper then proposes a further study on how the tax authorities of Vietnam should improve their capacities to make FDI enterprises more compliant with the transfer pricing regulations in Vietnam. The authors deploy the method of quantitative research through collecting self-administered closed format questionnaires from people in charge of finance/accounting/transfer pricing of FDI enterprises operating in Ha Noi, Ho Chi Minh, Dong Nai, and Binh Duong province of Vietnam. The findings suggest that there was a strong probability that the capacity of tax authorities would impact on the transfer pricing activities of FDI enterprises in Ha Noi, Ho Chi Minh, Dong Nai, and Binh Duong of Vietnam. Vietnamese Government should enhance the capacity of the tax authorities; establish Transfer Pricing Inspectorate Division in all local Tax Departments of Vietnam. The authors believe that the improvement of tax officials’ capacity especially those in charge of transfer pricing auditing will prevent the FDI enterprises from transfer pricing manipulation, hence these enterprises will be more compliant to transfer pricing regulations of Vietnam. The most significant value of the study is to support Vietnamese policymakers, especially those in the field of Finance (Ministry of Finance, General Department of Taxation) to improve their capacity when carrying out transfer pricing audit in FDI enterprises. The more transparent and aggressive the tax officials are, the better these enterprises follow the regulations.

Nowadays, there are many uncertainties and risks prevailed in environment especially for information technology (IT) projects in Pakistan context. Behavioural aspects of project management play important role to attain success. Soft dimension of project implementation profile consists of critical success factors like top management support and client acceptance. The proposed study of this paper designs a questionnaire and examines the relationship between behavioural factors and project success. There were 223 respondents from the population of Pakistan software board directory. The results indicate that client acceptance had a positive and significant relationship with project success. Moderation was performed categorical of leadership style; transactional and transformational leadership style.

Most previous studies of employee engagement and performance have been rooted in either Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) or the Social Exchange Theory (SET), giving often inconclusive outcomes. In fact, there are only a few researchers in social science focusing on the level of high po-tential employee’s engagement towards individual work performance through human resource management practices. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between employee engagement and individual work performance with mediation role of human resource management (HRM) practices for selected manufacturing organizations in Malaysia. Two hundred and fifty-two usable questionnaires are collected to empirically test the hypotheses using IBM SPSS software and Smart Partial Least Square (SmartPLS) version 3. The results suggest that high potential employee engagement positively and significantly influence on individuals’ work performance. Additionally, human resource management practices play significant role in mediating the relationship between employee engagement and individual work performance among high potential employees. There-fore, these results should provide insight towards managing high potential employees, especially in the manufacturing sector.

Saudi Ports, is one of the busiest seaports in the world and the biggest ports in the Middle East, which is facing challenges from different ports such as Salalah and Dubai ports especially in the cargo section, which can release their cargoes and goods in a short time without any congestion of stock. The current challenges of Saudi Ports Authority are the overstock of cargo which is the result of low performance of workers at cargo field. This paper investigated the root of this problem based on the role of the human resource practices such as training and development, reward, job analysis, social support, recruitment and selection, employee relationship and empowerment, employee satisfaction into employee performance. In other words, the current study explored to know whether HRM practices offer direct impact on the employee performance or through employees’ job satisfaction on employee performance to solve the said problem. The study analysed the 367 Saudi port authority employees’ data and found a positive significant relationship between HRM practices and employee performance. Furthermore, the current study revealed a positive relationship between employee job satisfaction and employee performance. Moreover, the present study found the insignificant relationship between HRM practices and employee job satisfaction but reported no significant mediating role of employee job satisfaction between HRM practices and employee performance.