Purpose This paper aims to examine the extent to which corporate board attributes influence dividend payout policies. Design/methodology/approach A total number of 2,842 firm’s year-observations of Malaysian non-financial firms representing from various industries. The firms were scrutinized over a period of 14 financial years covering from 2005 to 2018. The data was in a panel form given the cross-sectional and time-series nature. The fixed effect is used as the main technique for analysis. The OLS and random effects techniques are used for robustness for this study. Findings The results revealed that the proportion of board independence, board tenure, board size and CEO duality have a positive and statistically mixed effect on dividend pay-out. However, the corporate board diversity and board member age had a negative association with dividend payouts. Overall, the results suggest that firms with well-organized corporate board attribute affect positively on dividend pay-out policy. Originality/value This research contributes to a nuanced understanding of internal governance mechanisms by presenting evidence of the substitution hypothesis in an emerging economy in which firms operate within a unique regulatory framework and board composition.

Purpose of Study: Malaysian tourism sector has widened its scope by venturing into extreme sports tourism. With this new development, tourism opportunities are created and boosting the Malaysian tourism industry growth. The study highlights the development of extreme sports destination that closely related to international and tourists’ involvement and preferences in Malaysia. The purpose of this paper is to determine the predictors of sports tourism involvement in Malaysia from the extreme sports perspective. Specifically, it is going to investigate the possible significant predictors that possibly influenced the international or local tourists’ preferences in choosing Malaysia as their preferred extreme sports tourism destination. This study is restricted to international or local tourists who participated or going to participate in extreme sports activities in Malaysia. Methodology: This study proposes a theoretical framework that is developed based on the review of past researches and literatures. We identified five factors that possibly influenced international tourists or local tourists to choose Malaysia as their extreme sports tourism destination simultaneously involved in such activities. Those predictors are event popularity and entertainment, economics (costs and expenses), facilities and infrastructures, social, and environmental impact. Results: The proposed hypotheses predicted a significant and positive relationship exists between event popularity and entertainment, economics (costs and expenses), facilities and infrastructures, social, and environmental impact towards the tourist involvement and sports tourism development in Malaysia. For the future research, we proposed to further conduct an empirical analysis to test these hypotheses. Implications/Applications: This study could help tourism sectors to explore opportunities for development particularly in the extreme sports sectors in Malaysia.  This study is also useful for researchers, students, tourism operators, tourism sectors, government and society because it could increase the involvement of international tourist or local into the extreme sports activities in Malaysia.

The study aims to investigate factors that determine dividend payout policy using 336 non-financial firm year observations covering the period 2005 to 2016 in Malaysia. We found a significant positive relationship between corporate board size, board members average age, board tenure and dividend payout policy. We also found a strong negative effect and statistically insignificant relationship of board diversity, board independence, CEO duality and dividend payout policy. Additional, financial leverage has a negative effect on dividend payout policy. It is also noticed that firms with diverse boards are more likely to pay dividends and tend to pay larger dividends than those with non-diverse boards. Our results suggest that board diversity has a significant impact on dividend payout policy. Impact of board diversity on dividend payout policy is particularly conspicuous for firms with potentially greater agency problems. Our findings are consistent with the argument that corporate board traits enhancement positively affect the dividend payout policy which is beneficial for shareholders. This study offers useful insights into the current global debate on board traits and its implications for firms. The dividend payout policy signals good news to investors. Corporate board traits and firm"s financial decision are the factors that disrupt the dividend decision.

This paper focuses on the impact of strategic leadership on operational strategy and organizational performance of the automobile industry in Malaysia with a particular focus on Proton (Perusahaan Otomobil Malaysia). Since the mid-1980s a growing body of research on leadership has focused on strategic leadership, in contrast to managerial and visionary leadership. It has focused on how leaders make decisions in the short term that guarantees long-term viability of the organization. Senior leaders also have the ability to align human resources in an effective way directly to the business strategy. This article focuses on how national car manufacturer, Proton, exercises strategic leadership to influence its operational strategy and performance. It examines both dependent and independent variables that influence on strategic leadership with implications for future research.

This research paper scrutinizes to recognize the determinants of dividend pay-out. A total of 203 Malaysian non-financial firms representing from various industries were scrutinized over a period of fourteen financial years covering 2005 to 2018. The panel data form specified the time series and cross-sectional nature used for this research paper. Fixed effect and random effects description techniques were used for investigation. The outcomes reveal a statistically significant and positive association between corporate board size, ROA and dividend pay-out. However, financial leverage has a negative and significant relationship with dividend policies. But the study reveals a statistically insignificant and positive relationship between board diversity and dividend pay-out. This paper suggestions insight to policy-makers of emerging economies interested in the development of the financial structure mechanism. This study guides companies in the structure and employment of dividend pay-out.

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Bitcoin spearheaded the rise of cryptocurrencies since it was first launched in 2009. The concept of bitcoin as digital currency was first published publicly in the 2008 well-known whitepaper by pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. The whitepaper outlined a self-serving peer-to-peer transaction network concept based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party such as financial institutions. Since then, thousands of cryptocurrencies have been launched mostly through token offerings as an alternative approach of raising funds for blockchain, technology projects, and start-ups. People are holding cryptocurrencies mostly as digital asset investments. Some individuals made huge profits from buying cryptocurrencies at their initial offerings and sold later when the prices increased. Some crypto millionaires were born from such trades. However, many people lost their investment as well due to many factors. Some were due to bad investment decisions, and some fall into scams and investment programs run by dishonest peoplewith promises of highly lucrative returns. As trading and owning cryptocurrencies are becoming common, governments and policymakers around the world are coming up with proper and comprehensive regulations for cryptocurrencies. In the context of Malaysia, in which zakat collections and distributions are of state matters, this paper discusses the implementation of zakat payment platform for cryptocurrencies at zakat institutions. This paper seeks to contribute to the academic development, blockchain technology, and zakat management.

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