Pre-Meeting With Prof Binshan Lin

Prof Binshan Lin arrived from the United States this afternoon and he is staying at the Summit Hotel in USJ. Prof Faridah, Dr Leonora and myself had a pre-meeting with Prof Lin discussing on future collaboration, co-authorship and registering of journals with ISI. Our workshop will start tomorrow.

AMARC Meeting With Branch Lecturers

The CIMA-UiTM Asian Management Accounting Research Centre (AMARC) held a meeting on Thursday & Friday with representatives from the branch campuses. Discussions were focused on planning research activities between the Shah Alam group and the branch campuses.

Visiting Professor Glen Moyes

Professor Glen Moyes is a CPA (USA) and he specializes in forensic accounting, in particular "Fraud Risk Indicators". He has been working on developing the fraud indicators over the last 20 years. He is coming to Malaysia in mid June 2009. ARI members, please meet up with him. He has indicated his willingness to spend summer 2010 in Malaysia and working with researchers who are interested to publish in forensic accounting.

Four Papers for Binshan Workshop

I managed to complete four articles within a period of one week for the ISI workshop with Professor Binshan. Wow, that is quite an accomplishment. They are still very raw, but I am hoping to work with Prof Binshan for possible publication in the US. "If there's a will, there's a way"....

Dreams

One of the researchers gave me this big poscard a while ago, but I never paid much attention to it. Nevertheless, it has been placed on the wall in my office. However, lately as we were working very hard updating our databases with information on publications, research, citation, industry linkages, consultancy etc for the RU status, I saw it again and I told myself, "wow, what a concept!". This statement applies to UiTM....

For the Sake of ISI Publication....

Today has been a very busy day for Dr Rozainun, Deputy Dean and I as we have been "running around" after participants for Prof Binshan workshop on 1-5 June 2009. The 25 participants were supposed to have submitted their papers by yesterday. Well the running around was worth it as at the end of today, we were able to gather all 25 papers. Better still, some participants even have up to four papers per person. What can I say, it is indeed a "good problem" to solve. More papers for ISI publications!.. I am not complaining. Thanks everyone for cooperating

ARI-USRN Collaboration: A Possibility

I received this email from Dr Edward Ssemwanga, Deputy Vice Chancellor of a university in Uganda for a possible collaboration with ARI & UiTM. "Dear Prof Dr Normah Omar, I am a Ugandan and currently a lecturer and consultant in the areas of Corporate Governance, Management and Accounting. I am keenly interested in working with your esteemed Institute in research in various areas of interest. I have founded a research network which is Uganda Sustainability Research Network. Uganda Sustainability Research Network (USRN) is an academic network, carrying out research in Uganda on economic, financial, educational, social, environmental, governance, agricultural, energy and gender issues. USRN carries out its activities in close collaboration with worldwide research networks, individuals and other organizations. It is established by multi-disciplinary researchers from Uganda and from the rest of the world in order to support Government of Uganda’s efforts to achieve its goals within a sustainable framework. Special attention is being paid to research in factors that impinge on the achievement of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Dr Andrew Ssemwanga". Good prospect for our research centres CGRC & APCeS

Chapters of Book by ARI's Research Centres

I hope heads of ARI's research centre can initiate a project of publishing books of readings with members contributing chapters to the book. One book of reading for each research centre and we should have seven books. For RU assessment, we will be able to contribute points either in the form of publication in non-citation category or through copyrights for original writings.

RU Data Updates

I wish to invite all members of ARI and the Faculty of Accountancy to update their listing of research, publications, paper presentations and other RU-related information on Prisma. Please leave the hard copy of your work with us to allow us to compile them for RU assessment later on.

The Concorde Write Up

My research team had a two-day meeting at Concorde Hotel Shah Alam to streamline our chapter write ups. It was an effective meeting as we were able to prepare basic write ups for our monograph chapters. The research on Successful Bumiputera Enterpreneurs should be completed by the middle of June 2009. In addition to the chapters, we were also preparing for a paper to be presented at the forthcoming MACFEA Seminar in August. Insyaallah, a book and a journal article will also be published from this research.

Al Fatihah to Our Researcher Zawati

It was a sad day for all of us at ARI and the Faculty of Accountancy. One of our young researcher and lecturer Puan Zawati Hamzah passed away this afternoon at 12.30 pm leaving behind her husband and four very young children. Al Fatihah, may Allah places her amongst the solehahs.

Begin with the End in Mind

Steven Covey in his book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People has indicated the importance of a habit "Begin with the End in Mind". How very true. ARI becomes what it is today because of a vision that one day it will be recognized as an effective Centre of Excellence. Yes, today, as one of MOHE's centres of excellence ARI has been entrusted with important research projects. Today we are in the midst of completing some projects with impact for various organisations in the country: Audit Quality Rating of SME audit firms for MIA/MAREF, Dividend Policy and Corporate Governance Rating for MSWG, SME Financial Management for CPA and Public Sector Accounting and Reporting for Jabatan Akauntan Negara. Well done everyone

Management Accounting Innovations by SMEs

From the NAfMA workshop held yesterday, we received a lot of first hand feedback from SME participants on their management accounting innovations. Most participants are also exporters of products and services. Due to their sizes, they are able to concentrate and effectively implement new technologies such as six sigma and target costing to their organizations. My phd student, Ibrahim Morshidi was the happiest as he received a lot of positive responses from participants who are willing to participate in his PhD research.

ARI's Contributions Towards RU

Insyaallah, I am confident that ARI can play a significant role in our quest to become RU. Three of our journals: Malaysian Accounting Review, Journal of Financial Reporting and Accounting and Asia Pacific management Accounting Journal would hopefully be indexed with Scopus by early next year. In the meantime, these journals are already indexed with international directories such as Cabell, Ulrich and Enscohost. All our researches are producing spin-offs in the form of publication, innovation and consulting. We are also working on appointing renowned professors as visiting researchers at ARI.

NAfMA Workshop at UiTM

The CIMA-UiTM Asian Management Accounting Research Centre (AMARC) will be hosting the second NAfMA 2009 workshop in UiTM tomorrow 19th May 2009. The event will take place at the Bilik Warisan, Tunku Zahirah Gallery from 9.30 am to 12.00 noon. 19 companies have indicated their interest to participate in the event.

Integrity - How to Measure It?

At a recent Audit Quality Seminar at the Securities Commissions, I met a senior officer from the Malaysian Institute of Integrity (MII) and he posed me a question whether "perception" plays a role in today's society, especially when it involves the issue of integrity. I responded affirmatively and he asked me how we should deal with it. I told him that we must conduct research and provide relevant data to counter perception that might be detrimental to our country. He seemed interested and promised me that he would find a sponsor that would allow ARI and MII to conducta acollaborative research on this topic....

ITEX 2009

ARI sent four products to the recent Invention, Innovation and Technology (ITEX) Exhibition at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre on 15-17 May 2009. All four products had won bronze medals. Congratulations to all participants as follows: Corporate Signalling for Insider Trading by Dr Norazam, Dr Rashid Ameer & Dr Radiah Othman; Corporate Planning Tax Device by Dr Rohaya Md Noor & Dr Norazam; CR-Based Reputation Index by Dr Roshayani, Ms Suaini & Dr Faizah and Self Assessment Sustainability Practice Scorecard by Ms Haslinda, Ms Normahiran and Ms Anisah.

Research Direction for ARI

In line with the university's vision of becoming RU, ARI is focussing on the following activities for 2009/2010: Publication in ISI or Scopus-registered journals; increasing the number of principal researchers; increasing the number and amount (RM) of national and international funding; increasing the number of IPR particularly in the form of copyrights and trademarks and incraesing the amount of consulting value. In the recent strategic plainning meeting, my team headed by Prof Dr Kamal Harun, the DVC (linkages and community) has came out with specific initiatives to be carried out within the next few years.

Research Endowment

Perhaps ARI should be strategising in getting research endowment fund from private corporations in this country. Today I witnessed a ceremony of Professorial Endownment given by the public Bank Berhad to Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR). The Tan Sri Dato' Seri Dr Teh Hong Piow endowment fund was worth RM1.25 million for five years.

Applied Research

Today, I witnessed the launching of AQuR system, a research carried out by a group of ARI members under the sponsorship of MAREF. The system which was developed allows SME audit firms who are members of MIA to self-assess their own audit quality. AQuR is premised on the dimensions proposed under the International Standard Quality Control (ISQC) of which all SME firms must comply. It was heartfelf to see so many practitioners participating in the seminar. I have no hesitation in believing that AQuR could be commercialised in the near future.

Research on LLP

I attended the CPA (Australia) Council meeting today. We had a special session to discuss the LLP concept introduced by the CCM. The Company Commission of Malaysia (CCM) has recently drafted a proposal for the passing of a new bill: Limited Liability Partnership (LLP). The CCM recommends that the LLP should be a vehicle afforded to all business and not merely certain professional groups. It believes that the LLP provides businessmen and investors the flexibility to select the best business entity suited for its business. The proposed LLP Act will confer a separate legal entity status on the LLP - one that is distinct from its partners that will come into existence upon registration of the business entity.Partners of the LLP will be accorded limited liability in respect of tort and contractual claims. However, it will not insulate a partner of the LLP which he would otherwise incur by his own wrongful act or omission, even though such acts were carried out in his role as a partner of the LLP.

Well, for ARI, this is an opportunity for members to embark on an applied research on LLP among the accounting professionals. Research feedback would certainly be an important input to such proposal

Research Blueprint

A retreat to discuss strategies and to formulate research & publication blueprint for the university will be held at the Puncak Alam campus on 14-16 May 2009. My committee, the Journal and Citation Focus Group for RU has also been invited to participate in the strategic planning discussion. Just do it....

AQuR Rehearsal

The AQuR seminar is just around the corner. The organisers have received tremendous response from interested participants. Just to ensure everything runs smoothly, the committee members are rehearsing the event on Tuesday at the Securities Commissions. In the words of one of my fellow CPA Australia Council members, "...I am really looking forward to participate as no seminar on ISQC has been organised in Malaysia". ARI and MAREF are coorganising the one day seminar on 13th May 2009.

Meeting with the Auditor General

Recently, one of ARI's research fellows, Associate Professor Dr Asmah Aziz met up with the Auditor General, Tan Sri Ambrin Buang. Dr Asmah's visit was mainly to promote ARI's forthcoming Forensic Accounting Conference to AG staff. During their discussion, Tan Sri has proposed that ARI should conduct researches related to financial fraud in the public sector. At the same time, he also proposed that forensic accounting trainings and courses must be made compulsory to all public officers. For the first proposal, any takers? For the second, I completely agree with you Tan Sri.

Till Our Next Meeting in June

During our May meeting today, several proposals were presented by ARI members. First, Prof Dr Rashidah is to hold two workshops- one for our new staff to get national level research grants and the other with the Head of Research Centres and SIGs to apply for international grants. Second is for research centres and SIGs to propose names of visiting foregn renowned researchers to be stationed at ARI. Members are to submit to me names within the next one week so as to allow ARI to apply for additional budget from the Bourse office. Third is for Research Fellows and Associates to publish papers in professional journals. Fourth is for AFARe's Conference Secretariate to submit working papers to apply for students' grants from HEA & HEP for undergraduate students' participation in the forthcoming forensic conference.

UiTM in Readers Digest's Most Trusted Brand 2009 Award

Congratulations UiTM for winning the 2009 Most Trusted Brand Award by Reader's Digest. We had won the award under the "university" category. Please read this month's Reader's Digest for details. The award was based solely on consumers survey.It is a nice feeling to see UiTM as a reputable and trusted brand name. Congratulations everyone....

E-Books

A friend from the PTAR library was mentioning about the possibility of UiTM buying the E-book facility and perhaps forging smart relationship with Sciencedirect, one of the largest e-book publishers in this region. The purchase of this facility would entitle UiTM libraries to get access to thousands of e-books without having to worry about space limitation or having to build shelves to keep the books. Perhaps I want to suggest a step further for our university publisher, UPENA to also work closely with Sciencedirect and to place our publications as e-books.

The Small Things We Can Do....

In our aspiration to become an RU, we need to focus on the small things that we as individuals can do. For example, can each lecturer publish 1 more article in refereed journal? Can one lecturer collaborate with another lecturer to conduct and complete one more research? Many proverbs say things such as "it is the many small things that add up to a big thing" and " We can do no great things, only small things with great love". If each and every ARI member can adopt this spirit, UiTM will achieve that RU status sooner than later. Let's JUST DO IT....

Shared Orthodoxy

Today, I attended a public lecture on "Shared Orthodoxy" at INCEIF Campus in Kuala Lumpur. INCEIF guests had the opportunity to exchange ideas and pick up tips on the best ways to "disagree" at a public lecture by Dr Muhammad Afifi Al-Akiti, a Fellow in Islamic Studies at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies and Islamic Centre and lecturer in Islamic Studies at the Faculty of Theology, University of Oxford.

Call for Papers

ARI's three journals namely the Malaysian Accounting Review (MAR), the Asia Pacific Management Accounting Journal (APMAJ) and the Journal of Financial Reporting & Accounting (JoFRA) are jointly calling for prospective authors to send their papers for possible publication with the journals. All articles will go through a double blind review process. The journals are currently indexed with various international database directories such as Ebscohost, Cabell and Ulrich.

Labour Day Holiday

It is interesting to note of new proposal to introduce pension scheme for employees in the private sector. I remember discussing this topic last year with a few statistic and actuarial science lecturers in UiTM. I was told then that there's a technique that could be used to forecast monthly deductions for a certain pension scheme. Perhaps it is time to re-visit this discussion and for ARI to come up with concrete research proposal to be submitted to the ministry of human resourcs.

Meeting with MAREF CEO

Today the AQuR research team had a final meeting with MAREF CEO, Mr Shahrizal Muhaiyar to discuss some final details of the forthcoming seminar on 13th May 2009. Basically we are very happy to collaborate with MAREF on this event. Personally, I think the collaboration is a synergy between ARI and MAREF. Beside the seminar, we also discussed on the prospect of putting MAR as online journal so as to cover a much wider readership. Another synergic collaboration is for ARI & MAREF to also work closely with the Malaysian Accounting Academic Association (MyAA), a newly formed entity.