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In today’s competitive business world, marketing is critically important to universities in positioning a product to attract the interest of its clients, which are the prospective students. As for public universities such as University Teknologi Mara (UiTM), the key to survive the increasing competition and financial difficulties is through their alumni loyalty. The purpose of this study is to determine the factors that affects the Alumni Loyalty towards UiTM. This study tests a model derived from a relationship marketing perspective to investigate the effects of components of University Brand Image which are Academic System, Reputation, Employability, Shared Values and Social Network on the Alumni Loyalty towards UiTM. Based on the literature review, a theoretical model is proposed and tested through Partial Least Square - Structural Equations Modelling (PLS-SEM) using a sample of 815 UiTM alumni. The results reveal that the significant factors that affect Alumni Loyalty are Reputation, Employability and Shared Values. In addition, the results highlight that Academic System do not affect Alumni Loyalty directly but rather indirectly through the mediation of Satisfaction. Overall, Academic System, Reputation, Employability and Shared Values are important in explaining the variance of Alumni Loyalty. University should be careful about the quality of the course offered and methods of delivery by the academicians since the implication of an Academic System is significant toward the loyalty of alumni.

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Obesity is becoming an epidemic globally as it has been closely linked with a wide variety of chronic diseases. The identification of associated factors for obesity occurrences is still the main interest of many researchers. However, there has been extensive disagreement among researchers over possible factors associated with obesity which commonly involve the demographic factors, socioeconomic status (SES) and environmental factors. Biomarkers are also considered as important possible factors linked with the prevalence of obesity but investigations looking into their associations are still lacking. Therefore, it is important to examine factors that are associated with obesity using biomarkers and common factors to get detailed perspectives on obesity prevalence. The objectives of this study are to determine the prevalence of obesity and to examine the association between the common factors and biomarkers with obesity among community in Selangor, Malaysia. The results showed that the prevalence of obesity among participants was 49% (N=498) and Ordinal regression model with Cauchit built-in link function was the best fitted model to predict obesity. Meanwhile, three types of common factors (i.e. older age, being female and Malay ethnic) and one type of biomarker (i.e. high glucose level) were found to be significantly associated with obesity.

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Flood has caused an enormous negative impact on the environment and the population safety in Malaysia. Many areas are found to be vulnerable to flood due to heavy rainfall during monsoon seasons. However, not many studies were done to identify how vulnerable the prone areas are affected. This study focused on developing flood vulnerability measurement in Peninsular Malaysian states. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was applied on a set of secondary data consisting of several input and output variables across 11 years from 2004 to 2014. The flood vulnerability index for each dimension was computed based on three aspects of flood vulnerability dimensions, i.e. the Population Vulnerability, the Social Vulnerability and the Biophysical Vulnerability. The result showed that Johor was the most vulnerable state among all the states in Peninsular Malaysia in terms of the Population Vulnerability. Meanwhile, Kelantan was the most vulnerable state in the Social Vulnerability and Kedah was the most vulnerable state in the Biophysical Vulnerability. The assessment of flood vulnerability can provide multi-information that may well contribute to a deeper understanding of flood disaster scenario in Malaysia.

Purpose: The impact of the Covid-19 outbreak since March 2020 has put Malaysia’s logistics sector in a contrasting reality to other sectors, as during the implementation of the movement control order (MCO), this sector was declared as providing essential service and allowed to operate in order to fulfil customers’ needs. This study aims to assess the efficiency and productivity of the logistics industry in Malaysia before and during the pandemic so that the performance of this industry can be observed.Design/methodology/approach: This study uses secondary data. Yearly records from the annual reports for the period of 2010–2020 were gathered pertaining to 15 Malaysian logistics companies treated as decision making units (DMUs) in this study. The efficiency and productivity of the Malaysian logistics industry during the Covid-19 pandemic have been assessed by using a hybrid DEA model consisting of a combination of epsilon-based measure (EBM) and Malmquist index.Findings: Findings showed that Lingkaran Trans Kota Holdings Berhad was the most efficient and productive logistics company with an average efficiency score of 1 and 12.7% growth in the average productivity index during the study period. In contrast, MISC Berhad obtained the lowest average efficiency score of 0.285. Nevertheless, the average productivity index for MISC Berhad showed an increase by 25.7%. During the early outbreak of Covid-19, Complete Logistics Services Berhad achieved full efficiency and also attained the highest positive growth of 76.2%. Harbour-Link Group Berhad was the least efficient company, scoring an efficiency score of only 0.254 and a decline in productivity growth by 40.8%.Research limitations/implications: The data used in this study may not be sufficient to represent the performance of the entire logistics industry as the pandemic is still not completely over. More useful insights can be obtained if the data can be extended until 2022 to assess the performance of logistics companies after the outbreak of Covid-19 in Malaysia. Many resources that have not been explored in this study and past research may provide an avenue for further research on the performance measurement of logistics companies, particularly in the Malaysian context.Practical implications: This study’s discovery may be used to facilitate the evaluation of resource utilisation and help inefficient logistics companies maximise their efficiency. Also, the findings may be used to help policymakers evaluate the existing policy in order to ensure that logistics companies have sufficient resources to offer reliable and efficient courier services.Originality/value: Although numerous studies have been conducted on the efficiency measurement of logistics companies, so far, scarce research in Malaysia has deployed a quantitative approach to measure the performance of Malaysia’s logistics industry, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. Therefore, this study fills this gap by assessing the efficiency and productivity of the logistics industry in Malaysia before and during the pandemic of Covid-19.

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