Edward Low - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Edward Low

Small Medium Enterprises are corner stone to most of developing countries and it is widely recogn... more Small Medium Enterprises are corner stone to most of developing countries and it is widely recognized, unfortunately, E-Commerce adoption in Malaysia is low, it is 28% of 965 participant involved into e-Commerce activities. This research applied framework named technological organizational environmental(T.O.E) with four predict variables named perceived barriers, management support, organization readiness and competitor pressure to investigate the potential factors influence e-Commerce adoption among Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia. After apply filtering criteria, total of 150 datasets are valid and use statistical tool, SmartPLS version 2.0 M3 to generate the statistical result. Based on the result, management support, organization readiness and competitor pressures have strong influencing power to e-Commerce adoption. In this research, the R 2 value is 0.529, which is 52.9% of variance in adoption on e-Commerce can be explain with these three predict variables.

The fight for survival continues in the business world and becoming harder especially for the Sma... more The fight for survival continues in the business world and becoming harder especially for the Small and Medium Enterprises. They are limited to resources such as human resources and financial resources and the number of SMEs are decreasing in a rapid speed especially in Malaysia context. One of the reason is because they are unable to solve daily problems effectively and the problem recurs. Hence Problem Solving Tools are introduced to the companies but the adoption rate is low. This research will use the Technological factors (Complexity, Cost of Adoption and Relative Advantage) from the TOE model to differentiate the adoption level of problem solving tools. The questionnaires are sent to 1000 companies and 141 are useable for the final analysis. The Discriminant Analysis is used and the result shows that all the factors are having significant values.

E-Commerce adoption among Small Medium Enterprises in Malaysia is low, is 28% among 965 participa... more E-Commerce adoption among Small Medium Enterprises in Malaysia is low, is 28% among 965 participants involved into e-Commerce activities . There are two research questions used to archive research objective, RQ1: What is the level of e-Commerce adoption; RQ2: Which factors have influence to e-Commerce adoption. This research proposes a framework with three variables named perceived benefits, management support and government support to investigate the potential factors influence e-Commerce adoption. After apply filtering criteria, 71 of datasets are valid. The statistical results are generated by SmartPLS software package to calculate. Management support and government support have positive influencing power to e-Commerce adoption. The Beta value and R square are calculated, the R 2 value is 0.624, which is 62.4% of variance in e-Commerce adoption can be explain with Management support (β=0.495, t-value= 5.701), and Government support from Environment (β=0.413,). Based on the statistical result, it shows the propose research model has a strong predictive power and useful in explaining the factors which also has some influencing power to small medium enterprises to adopt e-Commerce.

There are many literature reviews claimed that e-Commerce bring benefits to Small Medium sized En... more There are many literature reviews claimed that e-Commerce bring benefits to Small Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs), unfortunately there is a little information about technology barriers. Malaysia is one of the developing countries enjoy the country economic growth. In developing countries, SMEs do not enjoy benefits from e-Commerce technology. According to ACCCIM, the e-Commerce adoption is low, which is 28%. In this propose framework, there are 5 predictor variables used to investigate the potential factors influence e-Commerce adoption. SmartPLS ver2.0 M3 statistical software used to process the data. Among these variable, 4 variables are significant, the R2 value is 0.578 for the model, which is 57.8% of variance in e-Commerce adoption can be explain with Management support (β=0.381, t-value=4.136), Organization Readiness (β= 0.162, t-value=1.654) , competitor pressure is (β= 0.164, t-value= 1.905) and Government Support(β=0.250,t-value= 2.933). Based on the statistical result, it shows the parsimony model has good predictive power and useful in explain factors that influence SMEs to adopt e-Commerce.

In Malaysia, Manufacturing Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) are very important as they contribu... more In Malaysia, Manufacturing Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) are very important as they contribute the second highest GDP to the nation and the products that are produced had brought good reputation to the country. However, in order for Malaysia's manufacturing SME to stay competitive at all circumstances, daily problems must be rectified effectively. Hence the Problem Solving Tools are recommended to the SMEs to help them solve a range of problems that they faced and help them stay competitive in the fierce environment but the adoption rate is not very satisfying. This research will focus on the Complexity and Organizational Resources factors that influence the adoption of Problem Solving Tools in Malaysia.

In Malaysia, Manufacturing Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) are very important as they contribu... more In Malaysia, Manufacturing Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) are very important as they contribute the second highest GDP to the nation and the products that are produced had brought good reputation to the country. However, in order for Malaysia's manufacturing SME to stay competitive at all circumstances, daily problems must be rectified effectively. Hence the Problem Solving Tools are recommended to the SMEs to help them solve a range of problems that they faced and help them stay competitive in the fierce environment but the adoption rate is not very satisfying. In order to investigate more about this phenomenon, preliminary studies are carried out to find out the factors influencing the adoption rate. The preliminary interviews also reveal the actual situation that the SMEs facing when coming to the issues of Problem Solving Tools.

Efficient management is an important element for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the manuf... more Efficient management is an important element for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the manufacturing sector to remain competitive. Most companies focus on the efficiency of their manufacturing operation and overlooked the importance of managing the Quality Assurance (QA) operation efficiently. QA holds the key to delivery; hence an efficient and effective QA buyoff system is crucial to ensure the company delivers on time. Efficient QA operation requires accurate and reliable inspection data. Therefore, information technology (IT) has to be deployed. This paper identifies the problems in the daily operation, proposes a computerized solution and discusses the benefits of using IT to improve the efficiency of QA operation of a SME in Prai, Penang. A comparison is made for before and after implementation of the system. Findings from the case study shows that computerized system bring benefits and increase the competitive level of the company.

This study investigates a comprehensive model of international tourist acceptance in the context ... more This study investigates a comprehensive model of international tourist acceptance in the context of mobile tourism guide. The research model is developed based on innovation characteristics of innovation diffusion of theory and extended model with additional construct such as mobility. The study employs convenience sampling to collect data from international tourists at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Thailand. Partial least squares (PLS) is employed to construct a predictive model of intention to use mobile tourism guide. Furthermore, individuals' responses to questions about intention to use a mobile tourism guide are collected and analyzed with various factors modified from innovation diffusion theory. The results show that all innovation characteristics are significantly related to intention except lack of complexity, and mobility weakens the effect on relationship between trialability and intention to use mobile tourism guide. The proposed model brings together extant research on mobile tourism guide and provides an important guidance that can be applied in developing mobile application for tourism industries.

Successful stories from Amazon.com, Airasia and Ebay have strongly left an impact towards the use... more Successful stories from Amazon.com, Airasia and Ebay have strongly left an impact towards the usefulness of Internet where they are the pioneers who encouraged many entrepreneurs around the world to change their normal business model and practices to ebusiness model. The Malaysia's government realizes the importance and potential of e-Commerce technologies and had allocated resources to improve the technologies and implement it in Small and Medium Enterprises (SME). The main objective is to transform current practice to service based platform, and to attract world class companies while grooming local companies. As the second biggest city in Malaysia, Penang Island focusing on the development of SMEs especially SMEs in the rural areas however after a decade of implementation of the e-business model, the e-commerce adoption level still does not reach the considerable level. A preliminary study had being carried out to understand the problems more.

Problem Solving Tools are tools that help companies such as Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) e... more Problem Solving Tools are tools that help companies such as Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) engaged in manufacturing to identify the root cause of the problems and rectify the problems effectively. However, the level of utilization of the Tools has been poor. The factors that influence the level of utilization of the Problem Solving Tools by these Small and Medium Enterprises were identified through preliminary interviews conducted in the course of this research. The preliminary interviews also reveal the actual circumstances of Small and Medium Enterprises in the manufacturing sector of Malaysia and the problems that they face with regards to the use of Problem Solving Tools.

In Malaysia, Manufacturing Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) are very important as they contribu... more In Malaysia, Manufacturing Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) are very important as they contribute the second highest GDP to the nation and the products that are produced had brought good reputation to the country. However, in order for Malaysia's manufacturing SME to stay competitive at all circumstances, daily problems must be rectified effectively. Hence the Problem Solving Tools are recommended to the SMEs to help them solve a range of problems that they faced and help them stay competitive in the fierce environment but the adoption rate is not very satisfying. In order to investigate more about this phenomenon, preliminary studies are carried out to find out the factors influencing the adoption rate. The preliminary interviews also reveal the actual situation that the SMEs facing when coming to the issues of Problem Solving Tools.