Small-medium enterprises (SMEs) have always been considered to be the backbone of Brunei's economy. As published by the OECD in 2006, SMEs constitute a high percentage of businesses, where they account for 98% of all active business enterprises, and contribute about 92% of the employment in the private sector, and at least 66% of the GDP within the non-oil sector of the economy. Since SMEs are considered to be significant for the economy, they are encouraged to improve their business performance in order to sustain their business development by enhancing their accounting information system. This article will focus on the current accounting practices in which Brunei SMEs have been implemented by MMA Cube Stores as a case study. As cube shop businesses have been growing all over the country, it is significant to carry out this research as it may apply to the other similar business in Brunei. Reasonable recommendations are included in this article for the augmentation of the accounting system among Brunei SMEs.

There is currently a dearth of knowledge for human resource management under an SMEs context. As a result, it is assumed that human resource management based on large business organizations is applicable for SMEs at a smaller scale. From the resource-based view, this article investigates the impact of human resource management practices towards the SMEs in Brunei Darussalam. By conducting an exploratory study, a questionnaire survey of 296 was collected from the local SMEs to ascertain how the human resource management practices impact their performance. This is followed by the analyzing the result via the Pearson Correlation and Multiple Linear Regression which suggests that specific human resource management practices have a significant impact on the SMEs. As part of the contribution, the article extends the knowledge of human resource management in SMEs context by understanding their impact towards the SMEs performance.

The COVID19 pandemic has indirectly changed the landscape of the business environment system through cloud intelligence within the digital ecosystem that has as a goal increasing the access, efficiency, effectiveness, equity and quality of business processes through cloud intelligent systems. Cloud intelligent systems are becoming revolutionary in today’s world pandemic causing a complete and drastic change to a variety of industries, including, security, transportation, business, logistics and manufacturing. The main purpose of cloud intelligence systems is to facilitate the ease of access from any location and the management of practical computing resources. One of the challenges faced by cloud technology today is scheduling. The role of scheduling algorithms is very important, since tasks are executed by orders that may need more attention. Here, scheduling algorithms intended to minimize monetary cost and minimize makespan time to execute the workflow are presented. This study proposes cloud intelligent systems apps through an approach to cloud computing scheduling that may lead to great benefits and efficiency. The result is very promising. It showed that there are numerous applications of intelligent systems due to the more advanced hardware being built nowadays, plus business processes advancing to become smarter and more efficient in growing profitably over a destructive digital ecosystem during the COVID19 pandemic. The results indicate that intelligent systems over the cloud play a big role not just for interacting with the world helping businesses grow, but as well as in the advancement for a better tomorrow.

This paper compares creativity experiences and perceptions among employees of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) and students in higher education institutions (HEI) in Brunei Darussalam. The study was conducted through interactions and surveys to assess (i) understanding and practice of creative tools and techniques; (ii) creativity performance in teams and individuals and (iii) perception of creativity among 39 employees in SME and 68 students from HEI. Statistical analysis was carried out using Pearson’s chi-square test for goodness of fit and Cramer’s V test to estimate strength tests for correlation. The findings indicate a majority in both groups have not received prior instruction in creativity and that employees of SMEs have less interest in receiving creative instructions. There is consensus among both groups that group work will result in greater creative performance. Ambiguity of customer needs or requirement was a factor most often cited to impede creative performance of teams in SME. Results from this study were used to make recommendations to improve practice and learning creativity in SME and HEI.

The COVID-19 pandemic has indirectly changed the landscape of the country’s education system. Through information-based decision-making, the management of the education system seeks to increase the access to and efficiency, effectiveness, equity and quality of education through effective systems of monitoring, evaluation, budgeting and planning. From this perspective, an Integrated National Education Information System (iNEISTM) was developed to streamline and transform business processes and to provide an application and technology platform to comply with the National Education System that may be suitable for the COVID-19 pandemic environment. The implementation of iNEIS™ aimed to significantly improve operational efficiency and productivity and provide better services, value and “holistic education” to students. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of the newly implemented, integrated iNEISTM and its implications for educational management systems that were implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. It specifically examines the benefits and obstacles that hinder the efficiency and effectiveness of the system. The result is very interesting. These findings demonstrate that there was a lack of positive impact on end-users, such as lacking readiness to accept organizational change and uncoordinated communication and information exchange between stakeholders and end-users. This research implies that when both the stakeholder-provider and end-user understand the significance of iNEISTM, there is a great possibility that the implementation will succeed in harvesting the full value of the system. This paper provides the stakeholder-provider with useful guidelines, in the form of recommendations, that need to be implemented to ensure improvement in the effectiveness of iNEISTM.

Researchers and practitioners have emphasised the need for advances in knowledge management (KM) research to better understand how organisations add value from their KM practices. Thus, a comprehensive framework, rooted in two main theoretical streams of KM practices, objectivist and practice-based perspective, is proposed. We believe this explains how KM practices add value, and will assist organisations to obtain a more accurate picture of their KM practices, the factors that influence KM implementation, and how KM can be measured. The framework also serves as a means to identify how well KM practices meet organisational strategies. This paper begins with a review of different KM perspectives and then reports the findings of qualitative in-depth interviews with UK car manufacturers. The results indicate that most organisations adopt different types of KM practices, with the findings revealing that top management commitment, strategy, IT, people involvement and organisational culture were the factors that most influenced KM implementation. In conclusion, the paper advocates an integrated view of KM perspectives and mechanisms for KM practice in UK car manufacturing.

The article focuses on the role of management of knowledge can have on organisations and looks at practical knowledge management (KM) practices from industry that can be employed by educational institutions. There is a view that KM is primarily business concept that can provide competitive advantage for commercial organisations. However, the KM processes such as knowledge creation, capture, sharing and use are not exclusive to business; good KM practices can bring benefits to all organisations. While KM is a growing field in almost last 20 years, very little has been written about it in the educational context. This is surprising, considering that education is about the creation and application of knowledge.  Given that higher education institution’s (HEI) priority of developing and creating knowledge, an integrated approach that prioritise KM can be used to underpin university’s organisational processes particularly its learning and teaching approach. This article illustrates how attention to two main perspectives exists in KM field; objectivist perspective and practice-based perspective, can inform the learning and teaching approach; surface and deep approach. The approach of this paper is basically conceptual and descriptive. Drawing from empirical research in UK car manufacturing industry, the article is to address the way in which KM practices are being implemented and elaborates on the need the KM in teaching-learning process. This suggests an integrated approach to provide for a balanced strategy in terms of KM implementation that can be applied in HEI. It is important for educators in HEI to understand how certain KM perspective and influence can lead to different to different learning and teaching strategy. Thus, HEI can realise the potential of KM in order to enhance the learning of students.

The recent global pandemic has conveyed emergency remote teaching (ERT) specifically the blended approach, an indispensable alternative teaching and learning delivery in formal schools. In Brunei secondary schools, the blended learning approach formed the core 'Continuity Learning Plan' for instruction along with the mandated educational changes accruing to the social and economic challenges of the twenty-first century learning system. Its widespread adaptation underlies teachers' transitional initiatives and practices which must have reshaped the structural climate and relational dynamics of conventional instruction. Espousing the continuous learning model, this paper envisages to investigate the adaptive-related practices of Bruneian secondary school teachers and learners employing blended learning. Qualitative research approach with semi-structured interview was adopted in the study with respondents comprising of 18 teachers and 13 students. Thematic coding and recursive analysis of data revealed seven (7) dimensions or centre points of blended learning and teaching practices, namely: technological, interactive and effectiveness, added value, feasibility, pedagogical, institutional support and evaluation of success. In general, results suggest the Hub-and-Spokes model that organic support, integrated implementation and professional readiness are germane to the adaption of a functional and manageable blended delivery approach.