Research in entrepreneurship field has magnetized the interest of many researchers as a tool of development for many countries. The study of the factors that leads people to become entrepreneurs has been a question of many researchers. This study explores the relationship between the Big-Five personality factors, contextual factors and entrepreneurial intention. As such, it fits squarely into the literature on the antecedents of entrepreneurship. Previous research has focused on the need for achievement as well as social psychological characteristics such as attitude and self-efficacy. This study looks at the extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness, neuroticism, perceived barriers, perceived support and close support which are determinants of entrepreneurial intention. The data was gathered from 123 undergraduate students at one of the university branch campuses in the northern region of Peninsular Malaysia. Data collection was based on voluntary basis, informed consent, and anonymity. Regression analyses indicate that entrepreneurial intention is positively correlated with extraversion, openness, and close support. In the final section, we discuss these results and discover a future research agenda.

This paper examines the relationship between OCBs and turnover intention. The sample consisted of 557 non manager employees across 63 hotels in Malaysia. Managers' ratings of employees' OCBs were collected and matched with 557 employees' self ratings of turnover intention and demographic. Factor analysis of OCB items revealed a new dimension of OCB, labeled as patience, together with four common dimensions -helping behavior, conscientiousness, sportsmanship and civic virtue. Consistent with cognitive consistency theory, the results show that helping behavior, Asian Social ScienceJune, 2009 109 conscientiousness, patience and civic virtue were significantly and negatively related to turnover intention. Moreover, the OCB dimensions explained a meaningful portion (25%) of the turnover intention measure. The results indicated that gender moderated the relationship between helping behavior and turnover intention and this relationship was stronger for females than males. These results point to the importance of considering behavioral factors in effort to predict and manage employee turnover.

This study aims to verify direct relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and performance and the interaction of the perceived environment as third variable on EO-performance relation. The study was conducted on 210 firms among Bumiputera small and medium enterprises (BSMEs) in three states of northern Peninsular Malaysia, namely Penang, Kedah and Perlis. Using factor analysis and varimax rotation, each component was loaded with three items that has value of factor loadings more than .40. Factor analysis identified four factors of EO as independent variable namely, autonomy, innovativeness, proactiveness and risk taking dimensions. Perceived environmental factors consisted of five dimensions of munificence, turbulence, competition, market dynamism, and restrictiveness identified as moderators. Three dependent variables identified as return on sales (ROS) return on assets (ROA) and return on capital (ROC) used in the study. Four control variables of sole proprietorship; partnership, private limited company and small-sized firm were dummy-coded to ascertain their influence in performance. EO dimensions are multidimensional where each of the four dimensions is a separate component. Each of the components consists of three items. Hypothesis testing utilized four steps hierarchical multiple regression analysis. Four steps model shown in F-value and positive beta coefficient shows the statistical significance of direct relation and interaction effect. In the first step of the analysis, two control variables directly affected ROS. The second step of the analysis found direct relation of three EO dimensions related to higher performance. In the third step, all perceived environmental factors found directly related with performance. The fourth step detected interaction effect where significant model and beta coefficients further tested with post-hoc probing by curve analysis on 2x2 graphs. Perceived environmental factors moderated the relationship between EO and performance

This study employed social exchange theory to examine the connection between one of the elements of teaching strategies, that is, lecturers' organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and students' academic achievement. Student needs for achievement was used as moderator. Analysis was conducted on a survey data of 196 students in one of the local public institutions of higher learning. The results revealed that OCB dimension of altruism and courtesy were significantly related to students' academic achievement. In addition, conscientiousness positively predicted students' academic achievement among students with high needs for achievement. These findings indicate that, in order to enhance motivation and learning among students, altruism, courtesy and conscientiousness are some of the important behaviors among lecturers. Interpretations of results, implications and future research are discussed.

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Municipal solid waste (MSW) in Malaysia mainly consists of food waste. As food waste is of organic compounds, its improper management may cause serious environmental issues, as it may produce greenhouse gases and polluting leachate. Alternative management of the food waste is through its utilization. However, the main issue in the utilization of food waste is its heterogeneity, whereby the diversified cooking methods, as well as food origin, emanates different characteristics. Hence, food waste needs to be pre-treated through the torrefaction process, which is a thermochemical method that converts it to biochar at a temperature between 200–300 °C in an inert environment. The main aim of this work is to evaluate the feasibility of food waste as a potential source of energy through the torrefaction process. The torrefaction of food waste was conducted in a vertical tubular reactor under an inert atmosphere. The results obtained from this study showed that as torrefaction temperature became more severe, the produced torrefied solid is more energy-dense, with apparent higher fixed carbon content and improved heating values. These findings imply that food waste may be able to be utilized as a solid biofuel, with fuel properties comparable to conventional fuels.

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