This exploratory case study examines the power relations among the stakeholders of a tourism event in Borneo. It examines the sources of stakeholder power and the pattern of interdependence of various stakeholders, primarily based on interviews with event managers and stakeholders, as well as field visits. An analysis of the different types and amount of resource control, dependency, and network centrality resulted in four different categories of stakeholder power patterns—executive, asset based, referral, and diffuse stakeholders. The study also found that resource-based power was the primary source of power, whereas network-based power was a secondary and supplementary source. The case study revealed that the salience of event stakeholders based on their power was highly variable due to the different types of power that they had. This article contributes to the literature of event tourism, a typology of the event stakeholder powers in a predominately government-owned music festival, and offered practical suggestions to event management. It also advances the stakeholder power concept within event tourism studies.

PurposeThis study aims to determine how different event quality dimensions (i.e. information availability, program content, food, staff service, merchandises, ticketing, facility and convenience) individually affect the satisfaction of millennial festival participants, and how their satisfaction subsequently influence their behavioral intention.Design/methodology/approachThe research hypotheses were tested with a sample of 272 millennial participants attending the Borneo Jazz Festival held in Miri, Sarawak.FindingsThe results indicated that program content and facility are crucial predictors of millennial participants' level of satisfaction with the event. Furthermore, the level of satisfaction would, in turn, affect their intention to revisit the event and spread positive word-of-mouth.Research limitations/implicationsThe results are expected to assist festival planners in managing and designing festivals that can appeal to millennials who make up a significant percentage of tourism market.Originality/valueThe study adds to the knowledge of how music festival environment can yield loyalty amongst millennial festival participants in Sarawak, an Eastern state of Malaysia on the island of Borneo.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine external event stakeholders’ strategic actions to advance their interests in tourism events, based on their resource relationships with the event. It takes the novel approach of examining stakeholder influence strategies from the external stakeholder perspective. Design/methodology/approach The study used a qualitative case study research design, with five government-owned tourism events in Sarawak, involving primary data from 37 interviews with external stakeholders. Findings The stakeholders perceived that they were not overly dependent on the events studied due to their short duration. Two types of resource relationships were found: event-dependent stakeholders and event non-dependent stakeholders. Stakeholders were found to be deploying various influence strategies, which were largely subtle, positive and collaborative in nature, regardless of whether they were event-dependent or event non-dependent stakeholders. Research limitations/implications The findings are limited to the context examined in this study. Going forward, stronger public–private partnerships and formalised resource relationships are needed to ensure continuity of resource supplies and greater event innovation. Originality/value The study adds to the knowledge of how event external stakeholders exert their influence in accordance with their interests and resource dependency relationship with government-owned tourism events in the context of Sarawak, Borneo.

Purpose This study aims to explore the internationalisation paths and strategies adopted by firms from an emerging market and serves as a step towards examining the suitability of prevailing internationalisation theories in the context of emerging market firms. Design/methodology/approach This study adopted a qualitative methodology and gathered data through in-depth semi-structured interviews with 15 top managers of internationalised firms from the East Malaysian state of Sarawak. Data were analysed thematically. Findings The results revealed that the internationalisation strategies of firms from Sarawak can be classified under three main categories: motivations and markets, modes and measures. The constraints the firms faced were important determinants of their internationalisation strategies. The internationalisation paths and strategies of the firms were also found to exhibit both similarities to and deviations from the tenets of prevailing internationalisation theories. Originality/value The study contributes knowledge to the literature of both internationalisation theories and internationalisation strategies of emerging markets, in particular, it advances Fey et al.’s (2016) Five M Framework.

This research aims to investigate the information needs and information seeking behaviour of the rural dwellers in Sarawak focusing on identifying their information needs; examining their use of information sources; assessing their perception of quality and accessibility of the information sources; and determining the barriers to information seeking. An interviewer-administered questionnaire survey is adopted for data collection, from the rural dwellers, covering broadly the northern, central, and southern regions of Sarawak. This study covers a broader range of information needs (12 types) and use of information sources (20 sources) of the rural dwellers in Sarawak. Using a quota sampling technique based on geographical region, data are collected from 130 respondents in each region, a total of 390 respondents. This paper reports the research findings using descriptive statistical analysis. The rural dwellers have the highest needs in the area of religion, health and medical, as well as entertainment, leisure, and sports. They have the lowest needs for information about social welfare, politics, and general/state election. The popularity of digital sources such as the Internet, social media, and mobile applications have become the main source of information seeking of the rural dwellers, with the traditional sources such as television, radio, and newspapers are still being widely used. When the perception of information source quality and accessibility is high, the frequency of using the source for information seeking is also high. Poor infrastructure and limited financial ability are cited as the main barriers to information seeking among the rural dwellers.