Consumer socialization,social structural factors and decision‐making styles: a case study of adolescents in Malaysia

The purpose of this study is to investigate how the process of consumer socialization will determine adolescents’ decision‐making styles. Eight decision‐making styles were conceptualized as outcomes of the socialization process, which is acquired via interaction with socialization agents, namely parents, peers, printed media, television commercials and in‐school education. The study also proposed five social structural variables (social class, gender, ethnicity, residence and religion) as being associated with the socialization agents and decision‐making styles. The study sample consisted of 934 adolescents between the ages of 16 and 19 years. The data were collected using a self‐administered questionnaire and analysed with the SPSS computer program. As a result of regression analyses, significant relationships were found between social structural factors and socialization processes, suggesting that the influence of socialization agents on adolescents may vary according to certain demographic characteristics. Significant relationships were also found between social structural factors and socialization processes. Peers appeared to be the most important agents of consumer socialization, contributing to a variety of desirable as well as undesirable consumer decision styles. Printed media and television commercials were also found to be significant sources of the acquisition of both desirable and undesirable decision‐making styles. Parents and in‐school education, however, were insignificant in the acquisition of any decision‐making styles among adolescents. Information obtained from this study could be useful to government agencies and consumer educators. The most revealing finding of this study is that parents did not contribute to the formulation of decision‐making orientation for adolescents. This points to the need for consumer educators to take steps in designing programmes that will involve parents as primary socialization agents at home; this may be facilitated via printed materials. Apart from this, the information can also be helpful in enabling marketers to be more effective in targeting various adolescent markets by formulating marketing strategies according to demographic factors, socialization process and decision‐making styles.     

Malmquist indices of productivity growth for Islamic and conventional banks in Malaysia

This paper studies the total factor productivity （TFP） of banks in Malaysia with the emphasis on comparing the relative productivities of Islamic and Conventional banks. The Malmquist index approach is used to decompose productivity growth into technical efficiency and technological change. The productivity growth is measured and decomposed into technical change and efficiency change. The efficiency change is further decomposed into pure efficiency change and scale efficiency. It is found that Islamic banks＇ productivity growth is limited by its lack of technological change compared to its conventional counterparts. Nonetheless, both types of banks are operating at the correct level in terms of scale or size.     

Specifying and assessing a formative measure for Hofstede’s cultural values: a Malaysian study

The growing interest on Hofstede’s cultural values has dominated the area of management and organizational research. However, the extant literature with disappointing psychometric results have provoked a pressing need to re-examine its measurement model specification. To fill this gap, this study attempts to specify the epistemic nature of Hofstede’s cultural values and its underlying dimensions, and to assess a proposed second-order reflective–formative model for Hofstede’s cultural values at individual level in the school organizational context. The stratified sample consisted of 1,154 teachers selected from 30 Malaysian primary schools. The analysis was conducted using Partial Least Square analysis with SmartPLS 2.0 software program. Findings revealed the absence of multicollinearity with the convergent, nomological and discriminant validity were affirmed. This study has confirmed Hofstede’s cultural values as formative second-order hierarchical latent construct which are commonly operationalized by means of reflective dimensions would be better captured using a formative measure perspective by providing rigorous empirical evidence. Limitations and thoughts to stimulate future studies are discussed.     

Farmers,institutions and technology in agricultural change processes: outcomes from Adaptive Research on rice production in Sulawesi,Indonesia

International agricultural research centres use approaches which aim to create effective linkages between the practices of farmers, introduced technologies and the wider environment that affects farming. This paper argues that such new approaches require a different type of monitoring as a complement to conventional approaches that tend to favour a quantitative assessment of adoption and impact at the farm level. In this context, we examined monitoring data from an Adaptive Research (AR) project highlighting complementary qualitative analysis. Our emphasis is to capture the improvisational capacities of farmers and to reveal social and institutional constraints and opportunities in a broader innovation system. Our approach provided clear insights into how rice farmers adjusted their practices and how actors involved linked (or not) with others in the innovation system. We also demonstrated how institutions such as policies, religious rituals or service provider arrangements pose conditions that establish or constrain practices aligned with introduced technologies. A broader perspective in monitoring AR therefore provides important additional insights into the factors which shape outcomes in farming communities. To expand outcomes, AR projects should also pay attention to designing and testing new institutional arrangements that create enabling conditions for agricultural innovation.     

Transformative foresight: Universiti Sains Malaysia leads the way

This article describes Universiti Sains Malaysia's foresight journey. It begins by exploring five alternative scenarios of higher education: (1) The A’ la Carte University, (2) The Invisible University, (3) The Corporate University, (4) The State University, and (5) The University in The Garden. These scenarios are followed by Universiti Sains Malaysia's preferred vision of the future. It then examines the journey towards the preferred visión by articulating four stages of transformation: visioning, contesting, dynamic equilibrium, and self-direction/externalisation. The article concludes with an analysis of USM's current position, in transition between the contestation and dynamic equilibrium stages.     

How far, and how fast? Population, culture, and carrying capacity in Aruba

Our paper outlines the preparation of a Framework for Sustainable Tourism on the Caribbean Island of Aruba from the standpoint of futurists involved in public policy. Despite remarkable success with tourism over nearly half-a century, Arubans have become periodically concerned about the long-run sustainability of their major industry, their culture, and their Island. The paper explains the historic industrial epochs that have led to the demographic layering and cultural division of labor, the development of tourism from its beginnings in the 1950s, and to present-day concerns about over-development and migration behind the setting up of a National Tourism Council (NTC) in 2001. The basic issues confronted by the NTC were set within the overarching question of “how far and how fast” tourism in Aruba could or should expand. Following on from three exploratory scenarios, the Framework prepared by the authors makes proposals for expansion of tourism in distinctive culture regions and corresponding tourism products over the next two generations of Arubans at a pace that matches emerging needs, but below the carrying capacity of the Island. The paper explains the historic context, pragmatic assumptions made, empirical evidence used, and connects the approach to other papers in this issue.