Melati Nungsari

Massachusetts Institute of Technology | MIT

Adopting an institutional view of entrepreneurship, this study aims to explore the potential mediating role of entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) in the relationship between subjective norms and the entrepreneurial intentions of Malaysian students. Additionally, social role theory (SRT) was used to examine whether gender acts as a boundary conditi...

Universities are increasingly looking at new ways to support their students' entrepreneurial career choices. Prior research suggests that university support for entrepreneurship serves as an important means through which students can develop entrepreneurial intentions. However, more scholarly work is needed to better understand the relationships be...

Youth’s aspirations are a key influence on their decision-making process but may perpetuate poverty traps among marginalised and socioeconomically disadvantaged groups. We aim to examine the complex formation of female youth aspirations and geographical demographic differences. We recruited 56 16-year-old Malaysian female students from one urban (...

Social research begins, fundamentally, with human participants. In many advanced economies, data are readily available on individuals, their lives, and a variety of socioeconomic variables that a researcher may be interested in. However, this generally is not true for both emerging and developing economies, as well as vulnerable populations in most...

Statelessness is a global human rights problem that affects millions of people. The absence of a nationality makes it difficult for stateless persons to access education, healthcare, employment, and social security benefits. In Malaysia, there is an alarming number of stateless persons despite attempts to reduce statelessness through litigation and...

High vaccination rates are integral to reducing infection and severity rates of COVID-19 infections within a community. We examine the role of social expectations in COVID-19 vaccination take-ups and its interaction with potential government actions in Malaysia. We find that individuals’ expectations of others in their social groups towards vaccina...

Purpose This paper aims to provide an in-depth conceptualization of service exclusion by drawing on our exploratory research as well as thick and rich insights from the authors’ qualitative data. Design/methodology/approach Qualitative research was used to explore service exclusion practices against customers experiencing vulnerabilities. A total...

This paper examines the experiences of refugees in a developing country during its first COVID-19 lockdown by utilizing a two-stage qualitative data analysis of 39 interviews with refugees and asylum-seekers. We find that their experiences during the lockdown are shaped by identity, trauma and help from external parties–such as community leaders an...

Purpose Entrepreneurship studies have established various antecedents leading to eventual entrepreneurship by measuring entrepreneurial intention (EI). However, evidence has shown that intention does not necessarily translate into behaviour, especially for complex behaviours such as creating a business venture. Hence, this paper aims to examine how...

Coronavirus-2019 (COVID-19) restrictions significantly influenced the learning and delivery of educational programs, especially traditionally hands-on educational programs. Entrepreneurship education and training (EET) studies on learners’ perceptions have so far focused on formal EET in university settings or Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). T...

In developing countries with limited resources available for aid distribution, community-based organizations have been pivotal in providing emergency relief to marginalized groups during the COVID-19 pandemic and its subsequent lockdown(s). Using the theory of power–dependence relations and resource dependency theory, this paper explores the realit...

Does exposure to an unfamiliar migrant community change implicit biases? We conducted an experimental study by exposing Malaysians them to a few hours of volunteering with Rohingya refugees, and we examined the effect of this treatment on their attitudes through a textual analysis. We measured changes in attitude through pure valence and multiple m...

Background: Given the urgent need for help amongst vulnerable populations throughout the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, civil society organizations (CSOs) and members have stepped up to provide support for impacted communities. The process of responding to these urgent needs reflects the agency and resilience of civil society members...

Background: Globally, vulnerable populations have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent responses, such as lockdown measures and mass vaccinations. Numerous ethical challenges have arisen at different levels, be it at the policy-making level or on the ground. For example, policymakers have to contain a highly cont...

Purpose Youth entrepreneurship has been identified as a key driver in overcoming the economic crisis spurred by youth unemployment. However, the understanding of youth entrepreneurship is largely based on research in high-income countries. Furthermore, entrepreneurship studies to date are largely limited to the independent effects of individual tra...

Background: Given the urgent need for help amongst vulnerable populations throughout the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, civil society organizations (CSOs) and members have stepped up to provide support for impacted communities. The process of responding to these urgent needs reflects the agency and resilience of civil society members...

Background: Globally, vulnerable populations have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent responses, such as lockdown measures and mass vaccinations. Numerous ethical challenges have arisen at different levels, be it at the policy-making level or on the ground. For example, policymakers have to contain a highly cont...

This report summarizes preliminary findings from a survey experiment with 1307 Malaysian respondents. We study 1) trust levels in institutions and norms surrounding the choice to get vaccinated in this country, 2) perceptions on state “carrots” versus “sticks” in incentivizing vaccinations, and 3) whether a cash lottery of RM 500 is an effective in...

The sharing economy has grown significantly in recent years and is expected to expand further in the future. While many proponents suggest that it will lead to inclusive and sustainable development, some sceptics are critical about its promise of inclusivity, particularly for marginalised populations at the base of the pyramid (BoP). In this chapte...

This was a policy brief published by the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research (MIER) on Migrant Labour in Malaysia. To cite, please use: Nungsari, M. February 2021. "Migrant Labour in Malaysia: Challenges Amplified by COVID-19." MIER Policy Brief No. 8.

How do refugees economically cope in host countries where they have no legal right to work? Most Southeast Asian countries have not ratified the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention. This implies that many refugees in this region do not enjoy any protection from the law, do not possess the legal right to work, and often resort to participation in...

Market design uses various economic tools, such as game theory and experimental analysis, to aid in the design, implementation, and the fixing of broken markets whenever needed. One application of market design is to study two-sided matching markets, such as marriage and labor markets. Market design and matching theory also relate to the study of p...

Practitioners’ experiences and perspectives on social interventions with refugees are underexplored in Southeast Asia. This gap limits the ability to create impactful public policy in the region. In this report, we present findings from an interdisciplinary research workshop held in Kuala Lumpur in 2018. The workshop included sixty individuals from...

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a global crisis, and, while Malaysia has controlled the infection more than most countries with early exposure to the virus, the Movement Control Order (MCO) has required major economic sacrifices. This, in addition to a COVID-19-caused global economic slowdown, threatens a budget crisis for Malaysian households. Ma...

We study the effects of different pricing schemes on the overall surplus in a privately managed retirement system with multiple service providers and switching costs. We develop a theoretical model based on the Chilean retirement system and consider a repeated auction for monopoly rights over new enrollees. We consider a dynamic model solved by pen...

The is a comprehensive report based on qualitative and quantitative data from 288 Rohingya construction workers in Peninsular Malaysia, collected from May to August 2018. This report covers all aspects of refugee life and work in the construction industry – this includes data and ethnography on the demographics, language, family structure, and fina...

Interdisciplinary teaching has been advocated as a means to foster cooperation between traditionally separate fields and broaden students’ perspectives in the classroom. We explored the pedagogical difficulties of interdisciplinary team teaching through a first-year seminar in magic, religion, and the origins of science. Although many accounts in t...