This research explores the roles of social status and parental influence on student's attitudes to choose careers in agriculture with the moderating role of career prospects among Malaysian students. The survey method was adopted to collect the data from 183 students who enrolled in agricultural related courses. Data of five major sections such as demographic profiles, attitude, social status, parental influence and career prospect were collected by questionnaire. The PLS-SEM technique was used to analyze the data using Smart PLS 3.0. The average age of the respondent is 21 years old with females 66.1% and male 33.9%. The majority are Malay (89.6%), followed by Chinese (6.6%) and Indian (3.8%). This study suggested that social status has significant influenced the student attitude towards careers in agricultural sectors, but not parental status. Furthermore, career prospects moderated the positive relationship between social status and student's attitudes towards an agricultural career. Implications of the findings and suggestions for future research are also discussed.
The turn over intention has dramatically caused high turnover among Malaysian unskilled workers in oil palm industry. Therefore, this study was to determine the level of local unskilled workers perception of turnover intention and provide additional insight for the industry players and policy maker to identify the needs and characteristics of the Malaysian employees to them to work in the oil palm plantation in future. This research used quantitative approach and cross- sectional method to address the current scenario in the oil palm plantation. Data were obtained from a field survey of 347 oil palm plantation employees all over Malaysia. A descriptive and cross-tab analysis was used to analyse the data. Findings of the research revealed the workers’ demographic characteristics namely age, gender and work tenure have the intention to leave. This research described that majority of respondents (58.5%) has intentions to leave from present job to another industry. Finding also found higher salary and allowance and free health service are keys to higher motivations. It was also suggested that employers should provide an attractive benefits package as a strategy to attract and retain workers.
Almost one million hectares of oil palm in Malaysia have been planted by the oil palm independent smallholders (OPISH). Most of these farms are small size holding and scatters throughout Malaysia. These factors cause them to face several problems and consequently put their income below potential. To assist the OPISH, the government had introduced the oil palm grower cooperative known as Koperasi Penanam Sawit Mampan (KPSM). The objective of KPSM is to increase the oil palm yield, OPISH incomes, and as a platform of interaction between OPISH and extension officers to discuss their problems. However, cooperatives' performance can be influenced by several factors. This paper aims to study the extension officer and members' participation as independent variables. Good governance is incorporated as a moderator variable to investigate a cooperative's performance. The partial least squares (PLS 3.0) and structural equation modelling instruments are used to analyse the data in this study. Most of the respondents are male, and 22% are of the younger generation. The results demonstrated that good governance (p-value of 0.095(p<0.1) and t=1.669 (more than 1.64) has a moderate relationship between members' participation and cooperatives' performance. On the other hand, good governance did not strengthen the relationship between the extension officer and co-operatives performance.
Agribusiness entrepreneurship has become an important component for economic development due to its significant role in creating job opportunity and improving the livelihood of a community. This study aims to investigate the role of perceived social status, job security on agribusiness entrepreneurial intention as well as to examine the moderating role of entrepreneurial education. Quantitative research design was applied using university students as the sample. The result of this study demonstrated that moderating effects of entrepreneurial education on the relationship between perceived social status and agribusiness entrepreneurial intention was not established, thus, called for exploring this moderating effect in other contexts. However, this study revealed that entrepreneurial education moderates the relationship between job security and agribusiness entrepreneurial intention. As an implication to the policy, the government needs to promote agribusiness entrepreneurship as a money-spinning career and uplift the status of agribusiness in aiming to attract the Gen Y to participate in this sector.
The Oil Palm Assistance Scheme for Replanting (TSSPK) and the New Planting (TBSPK) for Independent Smallholders (ISH) were inaugurated in 2011 as part of the 10th Malaysia Plan. It is a subset of the National Key Economic Area (NKEA) Oil Palm Commodities Entry Point Project 1 (EPP1). Among the assistance included in these schemes are the high-quality seedlings, agricultural inputs such as fertilisers and pesticides along with the cash fund for land preparation and cultivation of the seedlings. The smallholders who participated in these schemes were also given extension services by the MPOB extension agent (TUNAS) on various aspects of oil palm management. A total of 382 participants were involved and responded to the survey. The proportion of respondents are from Sabah (38.5%), Sarawak (38%), and Johor (23.6%). The study found that the average age of the participants mostly is 60 years old and above (40.1%), and 57.4% of participants were the owner of the oil palm plantation. The range of fresh fruit bunch (FFB) production harvested for the first and second year is between 0 - 4.6t/ha/year, which is slightly low due to the El Nino occurrence in 2016. A profit in income was recorded from the FFB sales after participating in the scheme. The low-income category recorded a decrease of 30.11% while the higher income category showed an increased between 2.66% to 16.59% after they joined the schemes. Some participants also implemented the integrated cash crops alongside the oil palm to generate income while waiting for the immature oil palm to produce yield. This study shows that most of the respondents complied with the Good Agriculture Practice (GAP) after joining the scheme. Most of the participants were pleased with the implementation of the schemes and services done by the TUNAS Officers and gave them an excellent rating. Several improvements are suggested such as agriculture input distribution, clustering the smallholders into cooperatives, continuity of GAP implementation, and comprehensive research in the future.
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