International Journal of Management, Finance and Accounting

Review of the Role of Psychological Curriculum in Vocational and Technical Education in China

Hengjun Wang — 2025-08-30

The integration of psychological education in China's vocational and technical education (VTE) schools is increasingly recognized for its role in promoting students' personal and professional growth. This review synthesizes recent research to evaluate the integration of psychological education in VTE schools and its benefits, outcomes, and challenges. A psychological curriculum is found to enhance both students' personal and professional development. However, key findings also highlight the inconsistency in the implementation of psychological education among VTE schools and the insufficiency in updating the curriculum to address students' changes due to the transformation in technology and economy. Proposing a mixed-methods approach, the study employs stratified random sampling to survey 500 VTE students and purposive sampling to conduct semi-structured interviews and focus groups with 30 students. Quantitative data analysis provides insights into students' experiences with psychological education, while qualitative findings offer a deeper understanding of how psychological curricula influence their academic and career development. This research contributes to the existing literature by highlighting the need for a more structured, evidence-based psychological curriculum in VTE institutions.

Effects of Research and Development Subsidies on Research and Development Investment and Firm Performance: Evidence From High-Tech Firms in China

Hanqi Ye — 2025-08-30

Over the past decade, the Chinese government has actively promoting research and development (R&D) in high-tech industries to foster scientific and technological innovation and address economic slowdown. Against this backdrop, this study explores how the interaction between government R&D subsidies and R&D investment influences the performance of high-tech firms in China. Specifically, it investigates (i) the relationship between government R&D subsidies and firm performance, (ii) the relationship between government R&D subsidies and R&D investment, and (iii) the mediating role of R&D investment in the relationship between government R&D subsidies and firm performance. Analysing 773 listed high-tech firms from 2018 to 2021, this study finds that direct government R&D subsidies and tax incentives do not significantly influence firm performance. However, direct subsidies indirectly reduce firm performance by stimulating R&D investments that are resource-intensive and risky in nature. This mediating effect is not observed in the case of tax incentives. The findings provide insights into enhancing the effectiveness of R&D subsidies in promoting R&D investment and firm performance in high-tech industries.

How Personality Shapes Workplace Incivility: A Theoretical View

Mazni Alias — 2025-08-30

Workplace incivility, characterised by low-intensity, ambiguous behaviour such as disrespect, rudeness, and discourtesy, disrupts workplace harmony and erodes organisational culture. Although these behaviours may appear minor, their cumulative impact can significantly harm individuals and organisations, manifesting in decreased morale, productivity, and well-being. Personality traits play a crucial role in shaping how employees perceive, experience, and respond to workplace incivility, influencing its outcomes and associated costs. However, existing literature offers limited insights into how these personality differences exacerbate experiences of workplace incivility, leaving a critical gap in understanding this phenomenon. This conceptual paper draws on victim precipitation theory and trait activation theory to examine the intricate relationships between agreeableness, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and negative affectivity with workplace incivility. By integrating these theoretical perspectives, this paper proposes a framework to understand how personality traits influence susceptibility to incivility and its subsequent effects on individuals and organisations. This study aims to advance theoretical discourse, guide future empirical research, and inform organisational strategies to mitigate the adverse consequences of workplace incivility.

A Critical Review of Theory of Planned Behavior in Knowledge Payment

Tang Yunlong — 2025-08-30

The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) is a widely applied theoretical framework for predicting individual intentions and behaviors. However, its application in the knowledge payment domain remains limited. Existing studies primarily focus on TPB’s three core constructs while overlooking emerging factors. Additionally, most studies rely on quantitative methods, particularly cross-sectional surveys, lacking longitudinal and experimental research, which may result in an incomplete understanding of consumer knowledge payment behavior. This study utilizes a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) methodology to thoroughly examine the current research based on the TPB within the domain of knowledge payment. A systematic search method was employed to gather pertinent research from prominent academic databases, accompanied by stringent inclusion and exclusion criteria to guarantee the representativeness and credibility of the chosen literature. Additionally, qualitative content analysis and knowledge mapping techniques were applied to synthesize key findings and identify potential theoretical gaps. The findings suggest that incorporating trust, motivation, and electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) can enhance the explanatory power of TPB in knowledge payment research. Moreover, adopting longitudinal studies, experimental designs, and big data analytics can improve the robustness and predictive capabilities of future research. While this study provides a theoretical expansion framework, further empirical validation is required. Future research should integrate interdisciplinary approaches, such as psychology, behavioral economics, and data science, to further enrich TPB's theoretical and practical significance in knowledge payment studies.

Factors Influencing Intention to Purchase Electric Motorcycles in Urban India

Chung Hui Ong — 2025-08-30

This study investigates factors influencing urban Indian consumers’ electric motorcycle purchase intentions amid growing sustainable transportation demands. Building on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), the research integrates core constructs—Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, and Attitude—with two contextual variables, including Consumer Awareness and Perceived Trust. A quantitative survey was distributed via Google Forms to 153 urban residents across Indian cities, with a GPower analysis confirming adequate statistical power for regression modeling. The findings reveal that Perceived Usefulness, Attitude, and Perceived Trust significantly influence consumers’ purchase intentions, with attitude emerging as the most influential predictor. In contrast, Perceived Ease of Use and Consumer Awareness were not found to have a significant impact. These results suggest that government initiatives like the FAME II subsidy scheme may enhance consumers’ trust and awareness, thereby supporting purchase intentions. These insights also highlight the need for policymakers to reinforce incentive structures and for manufacturers to focus on enhancing product credibility. Marketers should adopt benefit-driven communication strategies to transform consumer awareness effectively into actionable purchase intentions. Together, these efforts can help transform consumer awareness into concrete behavioral intentions, accelerating India’s transition toward sustainable mobility.

Employee Turnover Intentions: An Empirical Study on Five-Star Hotels in Malaysia

Chin Wei Chong — 2025-08-30

This research aims to explore how economic, social, psychological, and training and development factors influence employee turnover intentions in five-star Malaysian hotels. Data was collected through questionnaires and distributed to 120 employees using convenience sampling, and SPSS was used to perform the data analysis. The results of the multiple regression analysis revealed that economic factors (including pay, reward, and benefits), social factors (including co-workers, manager or supervisor, and working environment), and training and development factors (including training opportunity and career development) are significantly related to employee turnover intentions. In contrast, psychological factors (including job involvement, personal characteristics, personal life, and family) are not significantly related. The research provides valuable insights to help build effective retention strategies in five-star hotels in Malaysia by addressing the diverse needs and expectations of the employees.

Buy Now, Think Later? A Conceptual Take on Malaysian BNPL Choices

Alin Afina Alias — 2025-08-30

“Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) has reshaped consumer spending behaviors, with Malaysia experiencing a significant surge in adoption and usage. BNPL is widely used by Gen-Z and millennials as a form of payment, leading to increased spending due to this borrowing scheme. It has introduced a shift in consumer spending patterns, often characterized by the ‘Buy Now, Think Later?’ mindset. Due to the rising popularity of BNPL schemes, Bank Negara Malaysia is looking to amend the Consumer Credit Act. As BNPL schemes often synthetically promote positive payment behaviors through readily available installment credit options, many consumers seem to adopt a “buy now, think later” attitude. However, the financial knowledge and impulsivity of Malaysian consumers’ attitudes toward BNPL remain underexplored. Therefore, this conceptual paper develops a framework to investigate the role of financial knowledge and impulsivity in shaping attitudes toward BNPL among Malaysians. The study will employ a quantitative approach by collecting primary data through an online questionnaire among BNPL users from Gen Z and Millennials in Malaysia. Data analysis will be conducted using IBM SPSS software, incorporating demographic analysis, reliability testing, descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and multiple regression to test the proposed hypotheses. Practically, the findings can help policymakers, financial institutions, and educators promote responsible BNPL usage among young consumers to prevent excessive reliance on BNPL.

Bridging Innovation and Security: A Bibliometric Review of Blockchain’s Impact on Higher Educational Institution Management

Zhi Ning Koo — 2025-08-30

Blockchain technology in higher education institutions (HEIs) can revolutionize academic administration by improving data security, increasing transparency, and boosting operational efficiency. However, blockchain adoption in HEIs faces technological, organizational, and regulatory challenges. A bibliometric review procedure assessed the 246 relevant studies from Scopus peer-reviewed literature on blockchain adoption’s main themes, most prominent authors, journals, and articles. The findings highlight Blockchain’s ability to streamline credential verification, automate academic processes, and reduce administrative costs. However, key barriers such as scalability limitations, interoperability issues, financial constraints, and regulatory challenges continue to hinder widespread implementation. Besides, there is a significant gap in top management support and institutional readiness, which impacts the integration of blockchain systems in educational frameworks. This study advances the scholarly discourse on blockchain implementation in academia by examining the challenges associated with its adoption and proposing strategic solutions to facilitate its effective integration. The research implies compelling insights for policymakers, educational leaders, and technology developers eager to capitalize on the revolutionary opportunities of blockchain technology in HEIs. Besides, this study is among the first to demonstrate a structured analysis of Blockchain’s impact on operational efficiency in HEIs from a technological, organizational, and environmental perspective, addressing the gap in institutional readiness.

Identifying Potentially Illicit Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing Transactions Through Machine Learning Techniques

Shiuh Tong Lim — 2025-08-30

Financial institutions worldwide face significant challenges in detecting and preventing illicit financial activities, such as money laundering and terrorism financing. Traditional rule-based methods often generate high false positive rates, increasing manual verification efforts and higher operational costs. This research explores machine learning techniques to enhance the detection of suspicious transactions. Several algorithms, including K-Nearest Neighbors, Decision Tree, Random Forest, Logistic Regression, Support Vector Machine, and Naïve Bayes, are applied and evaluated using a dataset from a financial institution. After a comprehensive performance assessment, the Random Forest model is the most effective, exhibiting the highest accuracy of 0.9333 in identifying suspicious transactions while minimising false positives. These findings highlight the potential of integrating machine learning into financial crime prevention protocols. It serves as a guide for practitioners to predict suspicious transactions in financial institutions based on previous patterns of transactions. It also helps financial institutions to reduce compliance costs, which are typically higher than those of standard rule-based systems. However, this work presents a suspicious transaction prediction paradigm from prior behaviour with no transparency in features and with high accuracy and zero false positives, as with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) promotion of new Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) initiatives.

The Impact of Social Media on Consumer Satisfaction: The Role of Usage Frequency, Brand Image, Brand Identification, and Content Quality

Yu Qing Soong — 2025-08-30

In recent years, consumers have widely utilised social media to be particularly involved with interested brands via online platforms, share their opinions, and easily explore brand-related information. Hence, this study examined the impacts of social media, from the perspectives of usage frequency, brand image, brand identity, and brand content, on consumer satisfaction in China based on social identity theory and attachment theory. The research applied a quantitative method via an online questionnaire, and 302 valid responses were received. After the data was collected and a research model was built, multiple regression analysis was utilised to analyse the data and prove the hypothesis. As such, the findings showed that brand content quality significantly positively affected consumer satisfaction, while usage frequency, brand image, and brand identity had insignificant relationships to consumer satisfaction. The study's results contributed to the existing related literature by further analysing the impacts of usage frequency on consumer satisfaction and aiming to provide marketers with feasible strategies to help improve consumer satisfaction.

Internet of Things (IoT) Adoption by Organisation: A Systematic Review

Yusliza Jamalut — 2025-08-30

Despite the transformative potential of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Industry 4.0, adoption of IoT technologies remains slow and limited in organisations. This study addresses this challenge by conducting a systematic review to identify key factors influencing IoT adoption from the organisation level and social science perspective. Using the PRISMA protocol, a total of 16 empirical articles published between 2016 and 2024 were selected from Scopus and Web of Science databases. A deductive thematic analysis guided by the Technology-Organisation-Environment (TOE) framework revealed that relative advantage, organisational readiness, and competitive pressure were the most frequently cited determinants of adoption. Meanwhile, trust, awareness of IoT, leadership characteristics and government support were identified as underexplored variables. The findings provide theoretical contributions by refining adoption models and offer practical insights for policymakers and practitioners seeking to accelerate the implementation of IoT. Future research is recommended to apply qualitative designs and expand search strategies to include expert-verified keywords and alternative databases.

From Anxiety to Action: Understanding Financial Worries and Strategies to Boost Insurance Take-Up

Hui Shan Lee — 2025-08-30

In developing countries, inadequate insurance and financial planning have led experts to call for government intervention to avoid potential financial crises. In Malaysia, where increasing insurance uptake is a national priority, this study examines how education and socioeconomic factors influence financial concerns. Using a regression model, this study analyses data from 1,000 survey responses from Malaysia in the Global Findex database, examining the effects of education, income, gender, age, and urbanicity on various financial worries, including retirement, medical expenses, monthly bills, and education costs. Findings show that higher education levels are associated with reduced financial anxiety around medical expenses and monthly bills, while income and age significantly impact all financial worry areas. The study highlights the potential of incorporating insurance awareness and financial literacy into education to improve financial well-being and build a more resilient society. The novelty of this study highlights the need for targeted insurance policies that address the specific financial concerns of diverse socio-economic groups.

Generative Artificial Intelligence and Its Role in Shaping Customer Loyalty in Banking: A Conceptual Framework

Nimra Aziz — 2025-08-30

The role of Generative Artificial Intelligence (Generative AI) in Electronic Customer Relationship Management (Electronic-CRM) systems is reshaping consumer engagement in the banking or financial industry. There is a significant gap in understanding the direct impact of Generative AI on Electronic-CRM and customer loyalty in the banking industry. This paper proposes a conceptual framework to investigate the influence of Generative AI on enhancing Electronic-CRM, particularly in three key dimensions: data security, problem-solving, and customer orientation, and its ultimate impact on customer loyalty in the banking and financial sectors. An extensive literature review suggests that the role of Generative AI enhances data security measures, as data security remains a crucial concern in the banking industry. By addressing customer issues efficiently, streamlining queries, and reducing response times, Generative AI enables customer-oriented strategies that foster a stronger relationship between the bank and its customers. Data is compiled from databases such as Scopus, Google Scholar, and ScienceDirect to conceptualize and critically evaluate the customer’s long-term relationship after the incorporation of AI-driven CRM systems, particularly the role of Generative AI. Future empirical research will employ a quantitative methodology using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) via Partial Least Squares (PLS) path modelling to validate the relationship and expand the proposed framework. Furthermore, the study will provide valuable insights for banking executives, policymakers, decision-makers, and technology developers on the role of Generative AI and Electronic-CRM in the banking business.

Exploring the Impact of Leadership on Encouraging Innovative Behaviours: An Employee’s Perspective

Fouzia Khan — 2025-08-30

Innovation is crucial in the current business environment amidst uncertainties and heightened competition. The study explored how employees perceive their leaders' behaviour regarding innovations in the service sector. An in-depth interview technique has been employed as part of a qualitative research approach to identifying leaders' behaviours likely to enhance or discourage employees' innovative behaviour. Eight participants with extensive experience in the service sector were selected from various sectors, including consultancy, financial services, and the telecommunications industry in Malaysia. Thematic analysis was used to identify leaders' behaviours that encourage or discourage employees' innovative behaviour at work. The study observed 15 different leader behaviours related to employees' innovative behaviour. Eight behaviours directly drive innovation, five behaviours are indirectly related, and two behaviours hinder employee innovation. The study found that employees' perceptions of innovative role modelling, empowerment, recognition, consultation, development, identifying innovation champions, and rewards positively influence innovation. In contrast, constant monitoring and high workload pressure are seen as obstacles to innovative behaviour. The study contributes to the existing literature by comparing the inventory of leaders' behaviours. It reveals that employees view Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) positively in terms of innovation, suggesting that further research could explore the magnitude and significance of CSR in various contexts. This study highlights the importance of organisational leaders gaining insight into their employees' perspectives to cultivate idea generation and implementation. When leaders understand their employees' attitudes towards creativity and innovation, they can adjust their leadership style and behaviour to foster a work environment that encourages creativity and innovation.