Azlan Amran

Universiti Sains Malaysia | USM · Graduate School of Business

Social enterprise movement has emerged as a forceful social innovation paths to eliminate or address social problems. Aligned with the 11th Malaysia Plan and Transformasi Nasional 2050, Malaysia is committed to building a sustainable and equitable people-centric economy. To achieve the goal, the Malaysian government had set up Malaysian Global Inno...

Although Industry 4.0 was believed to promote sustainable development, it has ignored or misunderstood many prevailing sustainability concerns, which led to the emergence of the Industry 5.0 agenda. While the desirable sustainability values of Industry 5.0 are widely acknowledged, the knowledge of how this agenda can deliver sustainable transformat...

This study aims to examine a set of institutional isomorphic influences toward integrated reporting quality (IRQ) and the role of board independence in moderating such influences. The results from a cross‐sectional sample of 200 international companies indicated that both coercive (regulatory quality) and normative isomorphism (press freedom, CEO w...

Research aims: This study explores the institutional pressure and motivation that drives Malaysian palm oil companies to embark on sustainability practices, and uncovers the impediments of substantive change in producing truly sustainable palm oil. Design/Methodology/Approach: A case study methodology was employed, gathering primary and secondary d...

This paper examines the relationship between board capital attributes and corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) quality and how CEO power moderates the association between board capital attributes and CSRD quality. Using a cross‐sectional sample of 114 firms, we find that directors' experience and directors' interlocking have positive i...

Purpose The present study offers a holistic but detailed understanding of the factors that might affect small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies to empower smaller businesses to embrace Industry 4.0. Design/methodology/approach The study conducted a systematic review of the literature and drew on the technolo...

Disclosure of CSR practices in public listed companies in Malaysia was made compulsory recently. Hence, its contribution to the firm performance based on financial and market indicators has often been questioned. This study explores using partial least square – structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), the predictive accuracy and relevancy of CSR pr...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the determinants and outcomes of Green Banking adoption and the moderating influence of top management commitment under the corporate environmental ethics ideology. External stakeholder pressures are analyzed as determinants of Green Banking adoption. Brand image and operational efficiency...

Purpose This paper aims to explore how a Malaysian palm oil company responded to the pressure for change towards sustainability in their sustainability reporting of negative incidents and in actual sustainability practices. Design/methodology/approach The study used qualitative methodology through an interpretive case study of a palm company. The...

Despite the growing interest towards big data within higher education institutions (HEI), research on big data analytics capability within the HEI context is rather limited. The main objective of this study is to have a better understanding of the utilization of big data analytics capability for data-driven decision making in order to achieve bette...

Research aims: This paper aims to examine the determinants that influence companies to report material sustainability information in their corporate annual reports. Design/Methodology/Approach: To validate the determinants influencing materiality disclosure, content analysis was conducted on the annual reports of the top 113 Malaysian public listed...

Climate change, due to its significant global impact, has been the focus of many recent researches. Many businesses adapt their activities to be more compliant with climate change control, and these efforts are disclosed to the stakeholders and society at large. This research is conducted on leading companies in the Asia-Pacific (APEC) region from...

Due to the importance of cross-sector partnerships (CSPs) in today's world on the one hand and the diversity of the research done in this field, a need for comprehensive frameworks about this practical phenomenon is felt. The main purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive view about drivers of cross-sector partnership to help all actors f...

The technology sector has been an ever-growing and attractive investment destination compared to many other industries in recent years. Contemporary, sustainable innovation strategies in business operations have become the essential competitive ingredients for viable business performance. Hence, this empirical research covered 109 local and foreign...

Purpose This study aims to explain how board and hotel characteristics affect biodiversity reporting and to test the moderating effect of market diversification. Design/methodology/approach The annual reports of 105 hotels were examined for the period between 2016 and 2017 to analyse these hotels’ biodiversity reporting using content analysis. The...

The aim of this study is to explain how corporate governance affects environmental reporting through the mediating effect of strategic position. The data were collected from chief executive managers and chief financial managers of 197 large companies in Malaysia. The partial least squares technique was used to test the proposed relationships. The r...

The purpose of current study is to be participated in such trends throughout testing the Index of legitimacy in the presence of shariah risks in Shariah reports. Furthermore, it aims to investigate and detect the influence of Shariah risks on legitimacy of Sukuk. Theoretical model is developed by the present study and analyzed data of 82 Sukuk's in...

This paper attempts to deepen a better understanding of corporate governance research, specifically board diversity among the top listed companies due to the inconclusive results occurring in the past studies. Therefore, the board diversity influences financial excellence through the moderating effect of risk management committee (RMC) was investig...

Big Data Analytics Capability for Improved Performance of Higher Education Institutions in the Era of IR 4.0: A Proposed Conceptual Framework International Journal of Innovation, Creativity and Change. www.ijicc.net Volume 13, Issue 8, 2020

Management engages in earnings manipulation for different reasons. This article argues that low-growth firms with high free cash flow will opt for income-increasing earnings management in order to obscure the low profits derived from their investments in negative net present value (NPV) projects. On the other hand, we argue that the listed companie...

In the era of big data, many organizations are aiming to become more data-driven and increase their decision-making efficiency. Nevertheless, there is an insufficient investigation that explores the antecedents of data-driven decision making (DDDM) in the context of Malaysian Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Therefore, the study examines exist...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to propose Green Banking best practices for the adoption of this business construct based on the dimensions of environment, social and governance (ESG). This paper proposes a number of green practices under the ESG dimensions that can be adopted by individual banks at any stage of Green Banking adoption. It prov...

We know that saving lives of people is the most important issue during COVID-19 crisis, but we should not forget that due to this crisis, the quality of life for many people will change and new social needs will appear and we must be prepared for that. The main purpose of this research is to find out the areas, which are the most affected ones by t...

This study aims to determine the influence of social capital on the effectiveness of the farmer's development programme established by a MNC in Malaysia for business-community relations as part of the company's CSR endeavours. The sampling technique employed in this study was census sampling with all of the 400 respondents being included in the stu...

This paper examines the effect of human values on consumer CSR perception towards cosmetic companies. Since consumer skepticism is on the rise, its moderating effects are also investigated in this paper. Questionnaires were collected from 479 consumers of seven cosmetic companies which were subsequently analyzed via structural equation modelling. F...

The current research aims at providing evidence concerning the influence of surplus free cash flow (SFCF) and stock market segmentations (SMS) on income-increasing earnings management practices in Jordan. The results, based on a sample of all non-financial companies that were listed on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) from 2013 to 2017, confirm the r...

Green Banking adoption has gained momentum in the past few decades in both the developed and developing economies. The green movement in the banking sector has been triggered due to its potentially adverse role in global natural environmental degradation and natural resource depletion. A number of banking operations have the potential to harm the n...

Highlights: 1. External supports on social enterprises will not have any impact if the initiatives do not link closely with their business planning and routine operations. 2. The result challenges the conventional knowledge that common business practices of profit driven companies are not suitable to the mission driven organisations. 3. The moderat...

Purpose This study aims to explain how institutional, cultural and corporate factors affect the sustainability reporting quality (SRQ) of financial institutions and to test the moderating effect of equator principles (EP). Design/methodology/approach The annual reports of 100 financial institutions were examined for the year 2016 using content ana...

All around the world, Green Banking has gained a tremendous moment in the last few decades. The green movement in the banking sector was triggered due to the escalating global climate change being caused by environmental degradation. Mostly attributed to the manufacturing sector, it has now been realized that banks are one of the major causes of th...

Highlights 1.Financial performance of social enterprises depends largely on entrepreneurial orientation. 2.Social salience provides substantial influence on their social performance. 3.The results challenge assessing their performance using single or consolidated dimensions. 4.The negative impact of social salience on financial performance becomes...

There are disagreements surrounding the role of government and non-government organizations (NGOs) on the micro-entrepreneurship business success particularly in the developing countries. Thus, this article aims to delve into the role of government and NGO in ensuring entrepreneurial business success. In addition, the study attempts to explore the...

Climate change is among the most critical challenges facing the world as it affects human well-being and economic growth. As a non-annex I country, Malaysia has no quantitative commitments to reduce GHG emissions. Nevertheless, as part of the global community, Malaysia consciously pledges to share the load of global challenges. As the most powerful...

This paper aims to investigate and detect the influence of Shariah documentation on legitimacy of sukuk. In addition, to determine the potential moderating effects of a Shariah Supervisory Board (SSB) on Shariah documentation in relation to sukuk legitimacy. A conceptual model is developed and tested using the data from 82 Sukuk"s listed in the Bur...

The hotel industry is growing rapidly in developing countries due to an increase in the tourism industry; however, on the other hand, the hotel industry is one of the sectors largely increasing the burden on the environment. Therefore, due to the massive number of environmental issues that hotel industry has encountered, there is an increasing forc...

Sustainability reporting is one of the most important types of reporting in relation to company sustainability. An in-depth assessment of materiality disclosure in sustainability reporting is necessary to enhance the level of sustainability reporting in terms of transparency and accountability to meet the demands of stakeholders. The purpose of thi...

Malaysian companies have dramatically increased their corporate environmental reporting (CER) practices in response to institutional pressures related to concerns about climate change. Based on a content analysis of annual reports, sustainability reports, and websites of 209 Malaysian environmentally sensitive public listed companies (ESPLCs), we d...

This research offers a better understanding of the green technology financing in Malaysia through investigation of major issues, challenges, and initiatives of a green technology financing scheme, as well as the perceived motivations and benefits of the scheme from the perspective of Malaysian banks. The method of analysis included qualitative appr...

This study examines the corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure practices of Islamic banks in a developing economy, i.e., Malaysia. Specifically, the study focuses on all three full-fledged Islamic commercial banks over the years 2004–2010 and constructs a CSR Disclosure Index to score the disclosure level of the banks. The findings reveal...

The Paris Agreement 2015 marked a historical moment for climate change mitigation efforts. With the put forth plans to cut GHG emissions, there are increasing demand for transparency of corporate carbon footprint reductions. This paper describes the development of a Malaysian context climate change reporting index. Drawing from the national policy...

Business organisations employ a range of communication channels to inform and interact with their stakeholders on their corporate social responsibility and sustainability concerns. Over the years, with the proliferation of the internet, online and web-based communications have become the most widely used medium. However, comparatively little is kno...

Purpose: The current paper aims at elaborating a theoretical approach of responsibility of shariah board with Indebtedness theory in terms of a covenant, which establishes certain rights and obligations towards compliance of financial instruments with shariah rules. Design/methodology/approach: The paper explored issues related to the theoretical a...

Purpose This paper aims to explore social responsibility reporting of full-fledged Islamic banks in two developing countries, namely, Indonesia and Malaysia. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become an important aspect of business society. As such, companies have shown a growing interest in reporting their social and environmental initiativ...

Given the increasing importance of the role played by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) within the developing economy, this paper intends to provide further insight into corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices among SMEs. Within this context, the purpose is to propose the role of non-audit services (NAS), which contribute to the pos...

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) enables transferring technology from developed countries to developing countries, such as Malaysia, and simultaneously promotes sustainable growth. Although this has been proven, the contribution of Malaysian companies in CDM projects is low. Therefore, this study has been aimed at investigating the determinant...

Purpose: This study investigates the effects of national culture, corporate governance and CSR governance on corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure quality based on stakeholder, legitimacy and agency theories in the Asia-Pacific context. Design/methodology/approach: Content analysis was applied to examine the annual and stand-alone CSR re...

Purpose This study aims to investigate whether organizations can leverage on their sustainable business practices to attract valuable talents to gain competitive advantage over their competitors. Design/methodology/approach Using factorial design, the authors conducted an experiment to assess the attractiveness of an organization in line with the...

Purpose The purpose of the study is to delve the influencing factors of sustainable entrepreneurship among SMEs in Malaysia. The heightened awareness in sustainable development coupled with globalisation has created immense aspiration, enthusiasm and interest in the trajectory of sustainable entrepreneurship. With this set of circumstances, the obj...

This paper examines whether strategic orientation toward corporate social responsibility (CSR) is instrumental in shaping small firms’ social responsibility practices leading to their enhanced financial performance and reputation. Data were collected from 182 small businesses operating in Malaysia based on random sampling technique and analyzed usi...

The main objective of this paper is to determine the factors that influence sustainability reporting on the websites of local authorities in Malaysia. Specifically, this study aims to examine the role of the vision/mission statement, categories of local authorities, system star rating, and Local Agenda 21 on the sustainability web-reporting of Mala...

This study examines the relationship between base of the pyramid (BoP) entrepreneurship success and wellbeing. The major contention is that the success of the BoP entrepreneurs is influenced by information and training support provided by large private organizations. A total of 134 BoP entrepreneurs, who run community information centres in remote...

Despite the availability of extensive research on a wide range of consumer-related areas, some socially sensitive consumer issues have still remained relatively unexplored. Since literature review revealed a gap in the conceptualization of consumer social responsibilities, this paper conceptualized, developed and validated a measurement scale for c...

While earlier studies have shown the role of family affiliation on increased social responsibility of firms, there is a dearth of literature on how family group affiliation moderates the link between company's characteristics and social responsibility disclosure. This study aimed to investigate this moderating effect through performing a moderated...

Takaful relates to a system of Islamic insurance and takaful organisations were established with the desire to offer insurance protection based on the values and principles of Shariah. The aim of this study is to explore the CSR practices of takaful organisations in Malaysia, benchmarked against an Islamic CSR framework. A content analysis of the a...

This study examines the role of country of origin on the relationship between corporate governance and sustainability practices in Islamic Financial Institutions (IFIs). Different from conventional financial institutions, the IFIs has a group of Shariah Supervisory Board (SSB) to act as the governance decision maker and a gate keeper to the institu...

Passage of President Kennedy's four-point Consumer Bill of Rights (i.e., right to safety, right to know, right to be heard, and right to choose) by the US Congress in 1962 and the subsequent addition of four more rights (i.e., right to redress, right to consumer education, right to basic needs, and right to healthy environment) by the International...

Purpose- Large private organisations creating entrepreneurship opportunities for people at the base of the economic pyramid (BoP) is a thought-provoking issue for researchers. The main purpose of this paper is to empirically explore the influence of support from large private organisations on entrepreneurship business success among the BoP segment...

Business operations have been severely impacted by the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather conditions affecting economic development. Consequently, public pressure has been directed at businesses to build resilient and sustainable operations, especially in ASEAN countries, whose fragile natural environments make them among the mos...

Companies around the world have had mixed results in their efforts to reach customers at the base of the economic pyramid (BoP). GrameenPhone, the leading telecommunications firm in Bangladesh, has expanded its market reach while reducing poverty through an initiative that empowers the rural poor with access to the information and resources they ne...

In accordance with companies' efforts to position themselves as socially responsible firms, the application of Cause-Related Marketing (CRM) has been growing as a helpful marketing tool. Nonetheless, there is a dearth of significant prior studies in understanding what factors influence the success of such prosocial marketing campaigns and their imp...

The advent of entrepreneurship for the people at the base of the economic pyramid (BoP) to ensure wellbeing has become a stimulating issue among the researchers. It is expected that vulnerable group of the society such as the BoP entrepreneurs must also possess certain entrepreneurial competencies to achieve financial and nonfinancial performance i...

This paper empirically investigates the influence of stakeholders on socially responsible practices leading to financial performance of SMEs in an advanced transitional economy, Malaysia. Since there is limited research addressing the above issue in the extant literature, this paper strives to fill this research gap. Data for the study was collecte...

Purpose – Given the uprising interest in the environmental responsibility issues among small businesses, the purpose of this paper is to design to probe into the relationship between stakeholders’ influence and environmental responsibility of Micro, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (MSMEs), and its consequent outcomes in an emerging economy. Des...

This article described the level of hotel participation in environmental management practices (EMPs) in Malaysia. It aimed to identify the level of stakeholder influence on EMP participation and whether EMPs contribute to overall hotel performance. To achieve these objectives, stakeholder theory was selected as the theoretical basis to explicate th...

Stakeholder theory portrays the responsibility of a business towards its stakeholders. This paper studies the association between the pressure of financial stakeholder of palm oil companies and the stakeholder integration on the basis of stakeholder theory. For this study, 80 companies were selected from the roundtable on sustainable palm oil (RSPO...

Companies around the world have had mixed results in their efforts to reach customers at the base of the economic pyramid (BoP). GrameenPhone, the leading telecommunications firm in Bangladesh, has expanded its market reach while reducing poverty through an initiative that empowers the rural poor with access to the information and resources they ne...