Corporate governance has grown in importance due to the poor financial state of affairs of many companies in the past decade. Good corporate governance is perceived to increase firm value because it may help to reduce agency problems and build investors‘ confidence. Moreover, it is perceived that good corporate governance not only reduces the risk of fraud and corporate collapse, but also creates wealth by improving the financial performance. However, despite many studies on corporate governance founding a positive relationship between corporate governance and corporate performance, none has studied the impacts of the following three elements of corporate governance: risk management, internal control and corporate reputation on firm value in an integrated way. This research examines the impacts of these elements of corporate governance such as: risk management, internal control and corporate reputation on firm performance. Therefore, the objective of this paper in to investigate (1) the relationships between risk management, internal control, corporate reputation and firm performance collectively in an investigated model and (2) the relationships between this three elements of corporate governance and firm performance separately for each element in a separate model ( such as the relationship between (a) risk management and firm performance , (b) internal control and firm performance, (c) corporate reputation and firm performance .Data analysis adopts the econometric model presented in the STATA program using secondary data resources. Overall results show that all three elements of corporate governance positively impact firm performance. This finding has significant corporate policy and strategy implications.

Consequential to countries‘ aim for development, is the ability to efficiently sustain their resources.In particular, the energy sector, one of the sectors that play the most significant role in the economy, has been extensively analysed to help promote sustainability. Hence, this paper aims to add to literature the welfare analysis of the three energy policy instruments: (i) taxation of carbon emissions in the nonrenewable energy sector, mainly in coal; (ii) subsidy and (iii) Feed-in tariff (FIT) system in the renewable energy sector mainly in—wind and solar, where the undistorted market, where no instrument is present, is used as the benchmark case. Using the figures in the Philippines from 1991 to 2010, two particular cases were investigated: the effect of the energy policies on the total quantity demanded and on the country‘s residential consumption. Results show that the most efficient to implement in the country, hence the first-best policy, is the imposition of tax in the carbon emissions of coal, followed by FIT in the renewable energy sector, making it the second-best policy, and subsidy as the least efficient. Losses incurred in subsidy are the highest among the three, and tax incurs the least. This therefore suggests that imposition of tax on carbon emissions would yield a more efficient Philippine energy sector and more effectively target the reduction of the carbon emissions, than the implementation of FIT, the country‘s existing policy.

This research is attempted to identify relative importance of underlying motives of managers‟ in Sri Lankan business organizations regarding the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Research is considered the managers of companies listed in Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE). Hence the present study is selected only four sectors in CSE namely manufacturing, banking finance and insurance, plantation and beverage food and tobacco. Study was based on the primary data. Primary data was collected through questionnaire and it was constructed to reflect key motives of CSR suggested in the literature and to examine whether it has been changed according to the business and personal profile of the manager. Descriptive analysis, independent sample t-test and One-way ANOVA occupied for the analysis. According to the results in descriptive analysis CSR is a more intrinsically driven concept in Sri Lanka. But managers are not rejecting the extrinsic motive as well. Further managers are more focus on the sustainability perspective of the society when engage in the CSR activities. That is the major concern about the CSR in the global arena in today‟s context. Analysis of the data reveals that managers perceived that long term sustainability must be the focus of CSR activities of the company and it should be should link with the national development policies of the country. This implies that readiness of corporate world for the engaged in national development activities. Therefore this study pave the path for government and all the other responsible authorizes to stimulate the CSR in Sri Lanka. Policy makers should initiate social and
environmental projects that could easily be implemented by the private sector to assist in sustainable development of the country.

 

The customer satisfaction is the fundamental of effective service deliveries. However, the overall service quality needs and on what of the factors affected are, in facts, asymmetric to the attribute level performance and overall satisfaction. Therefore, the focus of this study is to examine what the extent of services performance and facilities offered to their customers. This study conducts the survey through the distribution of questionnaires developed using Kano method and Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) approach towards SERVQUAL factors applied in the company of courier service delivery and Post Office in Melaka. Through the 25 questions that represented 5 factors of SERVQUAL asked to 200 respondents, the results show that the factors of ‘skilled/ knowledgeable’ of workers (K17) and ‘confident and trust’ (K19) are the improvement priorities required by a courier service company and post office to satisfy their customers. This study also proposed the method on how to justify the finding of quality attributes based on the Kano method (for consistencies and Cartesian state) as well as the combination of Kano method with IPA for measuring the customer satisfaction into a graph..

Small and mass medium enterprises (SMEs) have been the stableness of economic growth and development in many countries SMEs in Malaysia contribute to economic development by virtue of their sheer numbers and increasing share in employment and Gross Domestic Product. Tourism is one of the most important and growing industry in Malaysia , Malaysia’s tourism industry performed above expectations in 2013, with tourist receipts of RM65.44 billion exceeding the initial target of RM65 billion. Through technology adoption and internet use growth in the Malaysian SME’s companies could increasing a performance companies and economics growth. In the recent decade, ITs become instrumental in the development and prosperity of regions, as they determine their competitiveness in the global market.At the microeconomic level, ITs permeate all functions of strategic and operational management and impel the competitiveness of enterprises (Buhalis, 1998). Current study was done to evaluate the effect of perception of Internet usage and SEM activity and size on organizational performance in tourist SME in Malaysia, Total 77 SME’s related to tourism industry were randomly selected in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor, Malaysia. Data were collected through a self-administrated questionnaire among active tourism companies in these two area, Data were cleaned and analyzed based on structural equation modeling (SEM) using SMART-PLS the results showed that the level of perception of Internet usage and internet use and SME’s level of activity were more than moderate level , The results of SEM indicated that perception of Internet usage had a positive and significant direct effect on organizational performance among tourism SMEs.

Islam permits polygamy to preserve women‟s dignity and to safeguard the social, moral and economic well-being of wives and their children. Unfortunately, a number of polygamous marriages among Muslims in Malaysia registered at the local „Shariah Courts‟ are problematic and “misleading” as they do not reflect the teachings of Islam and its Sharīʿah intents on polygamy. As a consequence, polygamy has become a very controversial issue among its critics and supporters. It has invited serious criticisms on the credibility of the legal provision namely Islamic Family Law Act 1984 (IFLA) in curbing the abuse of polygamy. As a short term measure to overcome the problem, it has been suggested that IFLA should be reformed in order to address the current problems faced by Muslims. The IFLA has been amended twice, in 1994 and 2005, and yet the Act has not been gazetted, as some states in Malaysia are not ready to enforce the new enactment due to certain restricting provisions, which according to them are not fully compliant with the true intents of polygamy as stated in the Qurʾān and Sunnah. This paper seeks to examine the efficiency of the current provision, and the compatibility between the law of polygamy in the Islamic Family Law Act 1984 with the revelation of Allah (SWT) in the Qurʾān and Sunnah of the Prophet (PBUH. It will focus its analysis on the textual sources (nuṣūṣ) of IFLA provisions on polygamy, as well as the effectiveness and the compatibility of the provisions with the sources. The paper comes with recommendations to improve the current provisions on polygamy so that it may not be abused or misused for objectives contrary to its original Sharīʿah intents.

The main objective of this study is to explore the quality of religious understanding between Muslims and Buddhists in Kampung Tendong. The researcher prepared some relevant indicators to measure the quality. These indicators include intra-religious understandings and inter-religious understandings. Using a convenience sampling technique, a total of one hundred and forty (140) respondents were drawn from Muslims and Buddhists of Kampong Tendong, Pasir Mas, Kelantan. The sample size together with the above-mentioned indicators showed that the quality of interaction based on frequency is below average (i.e., 42.59%). The results show universal values of the two religions, namely Islam and Buddhism that bind people together. On the other hand, the discouraging factor of interaction among the residents of Kampung Tendong was that trivial issues of religious differences. Therefore, the significance of the study lies mainly in showing the level of religious understanding between Muslims and Buddhists in Kampung Tendong. This result is essential to the policy-makers to develop a better pattern of inter-racial interaction in a remote area of Peninsular Malaysia. The study finally discusses the need for broader and more comprehensive research in this area.

One of the most competitive construction methods for bridges is incremental launching method. During the process of such construction method, significant variation on geometry, material properties and support conditions may take place. These variations directly or indirectly influence stress, strain and displacement of the structure. Since creep and shrinkage is a time dependent deformation and creep is greatly influenced by stresses, it is important for the structural designers to have good understanding of the way creep and shrinkage influences such structures. Mispredictions of creep and shrinkage may contribute to loss of prestress, excessive deflections, cambers and cracking. However, realistic prediction is still a difficult problem because creep and shrinkage phenomena are a result of several interacting physical mechanisms. In addition, they are also influenced by variable environmental factors such as humidity and temperature. To gain better understanding of how creep and shrinkage deforms the prestressed concrete structures, Tauranga Harbour Link (THL) in New Zealand was instrumented with Vibrating Wire Strain Gauges (VWSGs) and Linear Variable Displacement Transducers (LVDTs) at several places to measure strains and deflections respectively. Each strain gauge is equipped with thermistor to provide also temperature reading. The monitoring program was initiated at the time of construction and was carried out to measure the total strain deformations and displacements of the bridge during and after construction. This paper provides project description, monitoring system and strain development in one of the instrumented segments which shows variation of strain during incremental launching. This study concludes that the recorded total strain increases as concrete ages as a result of creep and shrinkage effects.

Because of alarming level of green house gases (GHG) in the environment, fast depleting natural resources such as water, petroleum products and increasing level of industrial effluents, every single manufacturing activity has come under the scrutiny of sustainability. Textile materials form a large chunk of human consumption and as the standard of life is improving globally the per capita consumption of textiles and apparels is also increasing. In this backdrop, the affluent segment of the society is adopting “make-use-and-throw” approach, which is giving rise to large scale manufacturing on one hand and the pressure of disposing of the used clothing on the other. The researchers in the field of sustainability are thus talking about responsible consumption and recycling of used materials. By refurbishing of such used apparels by involving minimum processing and value addition technique, it is possible that once again, such products can be put into useful purpose. The present research work addresses this issue of converting once used clothing by refurbishing and value addition. In developing countries a large chunk of food grains are spoiled and left to germinate due to improper storage conditions and their dampening. Hence in another piece of research explores the possibility of extracting of the starches from the waste products such as germinated food grains and investigates its applicability as a thickener in textile printing. This attempt has dual purpose of waste utilization on one hand and value addition to the once used textile garments. Hence, this attempt also advocates sustainability in manufacturing by reducing considerably the overall carbon foot prints.

Submerged entry nozzle, SEN, is a kind of ceramic or composite tube. This tube in continuous casting machine is installed between a reservoir (tundish) and copper mold. The main function of this tube is not only deliver and control the flow direction of liquid steel into the mold but also to protect reoxidation of liquid steel during transfer from tundish into mold. In general, SEN should be durable or stable at high temperature during long sequence casting. One important factor on life time of SEN during operation is preheating of SEN itself. In this research, effects of preheating temperature and time of different commercial SEN grade are taken into consideration. To observe the corrosion behavior and life time of SEN during casting, each preheated SEN is installed in a real plant during casting of various liquid steel grade. Results of this study can be used to select a suitable preheating condition of SEN for continuous casting process of steel without any trouble.

This research studied the effects of hot rolling parameters on dual phase steel as a hot rolled product. Objective of the research was to determine the influence of different hot roll parameters that affect the microstructure of the rolled steel when it was tested in the conditions similar to hot rolling. These parameters consisted of deformation degree, deformation temperature, holding temperature and holding time at a constant temperature after the test specimen is deformed. These tested parameters affect the morphology and volume fraction of soft ferrite matrix of dual phase steel. The type of morphology and volume fraction of ferrite will lead to different properties of hot rolled dual phase steel. This research used a carbon steel containing manganese-niobium as master specimens. Rolling simulation was conducted with the aid of a deformation dilatometer. Experimental procedure consisted of a development of continuous cooling transformation diagrams of tested steel, investigation of hot rolling parameter on ferrite formation, and modeling of ferrite formation.By considering the continuous cooling transformation diagram, the ferrite formation temperature of tested steel is in the range of 650-700ºC. Hot rolling simulation at a temperature between 650ºC and 690ºC showed that increasing of deformation degree increased volume fraction of ferrite. This was due to the increasing deformation degree, which affected the increasing nucleation site of ferrite and also affected grain refinement of ferrite. Holding temperature and holding time of specimens after deformation significantly influenced the ferrite formation. The test series showed that lower holding temperature and longer of holding time resulted in increasing volume fraction of ferrite. Comparative results obtained from hot rolling simulation using deformation dilatometer and the calculated results using a mathematical model showed similar trends of hot rolling parameter influences on ferrite formation and also shared comparable values. This research therefore introduced a construction of a processing map which presented the relationships among hot rolling parameters and ferrite formation. This processing map could be used for controlling a hot rolling process to obtain a desirable hot rolled dual phase steel.

The paper presents organizational experience of nanotechnology education (NTE) in Kazakhstan, oriented on competency-based model of modern specialist’s profile. The Model determines reference points of appropriate education based on real nanotechnology (NT) development. Although modest, the scale of NT development in Kazakhstan is growing as it is the government’s key priority and interest to achieve an industrial-innovative breakthrough. This is evidenced by the initiatives and state programs as well as substantial funds allocated with the objective to match countries with highly competitive economies. In this case the main question of NT development in Kazakhstan becomes: how is it possible to accelerate and develop NTE in weak NT market conditions and uncertain demand from employers?The purpose of the research is modeling of NT specialist’s profile, in order to create guidance to those who prepare specialists capable of working in knowledge-intensive industries including NT. Methodologically substantiated approaches for the creation of a future NT specialist’s profile were used in close connection with the requirements of Scholar Schools operating at the universities. Competency requirements imposed by scientists within Scholar Schools were taken as the main purposes of NTE. Main characteristics of specialists in the form of competencies’ matrix were reflected in purposes and tasks of educational programs of NTE that contain a specific set of study disciplines used by engineering course designers. As a result becomes possible to ensure purposeful training in transition period of the formation of NT branch.The experience of organization of NTE based on research conducted may be of interest from both methodology of NTE organization and as a contribution to science-based learning.