Anyone Interested to Participate in Community Service?

I wish to invite interested ARI members to participate in a community service organized by the AR-Raha Foundation. The foundation has been set up by philantrophists Dato' Mohd Zin & his wife Datin Azlina. Basically the Foundation hopes to inculcate togetherness and cohesiveness among community members in the Shah Alam area. ARI can contribute to the foundation by giving career talks to school leavers as well as conducting workshops on "Personal Finance" and "Managing Family Budget". A slot, on 23 May 2009 (Saturday, at 10.00 am to 12.30 noon) has been allocated to ARI. The venue would be at the AR-Raha Premises in Section 7, Shah Alam. Those interested to participate, please discuss with me on topics to be covered. Our focus groups are basically families and young professionals.

More Pictures on MAPIM 2009 Award

As mentioned in my earlier entry, Associate Professor Dr Zuraidah Mohd Sanusi, a Research Fellow at ARI had won the prestigous MAPIM 2009 award under the category of Best Article in a Refereed Journal. Her paper titled "Effects of Goal Orientation and Task Complexity on Audit Judgment" was co-authored by Takiah Mohd Iskandar and June M. L. Poon. The article was published in the Malaysian Accounting Review Journal, Vol 6, No 2, December 2007. Congratulations.

PhD Proposal Defense

One of my PhD students, Ms Razana, presented her proposal to a panel of assessors today. Her proposal is titled The Influence of Auditors' Personality Traits and Auditors' Independence on Audit Judgment Performance in Malaysia. Part of her research would be a collaboration with the Malaysian Institute of Accountants (MIA) and the the Malaysian Accounting Research and Education Foundation (MAREF). Her experiments would involve the participation of external auditors who are members of MIA. To date she has completed her preliminary interviews with senior partners of some renowned audit firms in Malaysia.

Financial Criminology and AMLA Presentations

Congratulations to all my master students from the AFC713 (Financial Criminology & Money Laundering) class for their very successful final project presentations. They got to choose either to present local or international unsolved financial fraud cases and they also had to propose possible investigative framework to solve their selected projects. These projects would be compiled and be made available at ARI resource centre for all interested researchers. The students have all worked very hard to make those impressive presentations. I am very proud of ALL of you. Congratulations again!!!

Research Assistants Needed

Interested accounting post graduate students are encouraged to apply for a short-term research assistant position at the Accounting Research Institute. Five positions are currently available for the months of May & June 2009. Details on job specifications and salary can be obtained from the following researchers: Prof Normah at dr.normah@accountant.com or Prof Rashidah at shidah@salam.uitm.edu.my.

Audit Quality Rating (AQuR)

Recently I accompanied a group of researchers to present their research findings to the Malaysian Institute of Accountants (MIA) and the Malaysian Accounting Research & Education Foundation (MAREF). The research is on the development of a quality rating system for the SME auditors in Malaysia. Both MIA and MAREF are indeed very impressed with the findings that an interactive portal has been developed, the cost of which is being sponsored by them. The launching of AQuR and AQuR portal will be held on 13th May 2009 at the Securities Commission, Kuala Lumpur. The occasion will be graced by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Chairman, YB Dato' Seri Azmi Khalid and the MIA President. UiTM Deputy Vice Chancelor will also be presenting a welcome speech during the event. Congratulations to AP Dr Zuraidah for heading the project. This is another applied research that has been successfully completed by the ARI team.

Tips for Writing Journal Papers

I was communicating with Professor Dr Glen Moyes from University of Texas-Pan American as we are writing papers together. One interesting tip given by Prof Moyes when he was starting to write the paper was the need to think of the abstract (this assuming that the research part is already being completed) and produce 3-4 Tables for each article. Each Table summarizes the findings related to each of the research objective. I personally thought it was a profounding tip. "Think how the Table is to be presented before you actually start to write". Let's try it...

ISI-Journal Writing Workshop with Prof Binchan

The workshop is scheduled on 1-5 June 2009 at level 12, Accounting Research Institute. Invited participants please get ready with your draft article as we need to send the articles to Prof Binchan perhaps two week before his arrival in UiTM. If any of you is not able to make it for the workshop, please inform AP Dr Rozainun coz we need to replace you with another candidate. Please help us to help you by making sure that everyone submits the paper in time. It is indeed not easy to get Prof Binchan to conduct this workshop due to his very tight schedule. Since he has agreed to run this workshop, please make full use of his stay here. During his 1 week stay here, he intends to have a 1 on 1 discussion on how to further improve the paper. Prof Binchan's trip is financed by the Malim Sarjana grant of three professors: Prof Ibrahim, Prof Rashidah and myself. Looking forward to see you at the workshop.

National Higher Education Strategic Plan (NHESL) & PMO

Today I attended a briefing on the monitoring system of NHESL by MOHE officers. The Program Management Office (PMO) of MOHE had developed the PMO monitoring system. For the system to work effectively, public universities such as UiTM had to feed in the required information. Premised on seven thrusts and 18 critical agendas, the system would be able to track the progress of all Malaysian universities in each of the performance dimensions. One of the seven thrusts is our deliverables in Research & Development. As a MOHE Centre of Excellence, ARI has an important role to play in promoting UiTM in its research & development agenda.

Meeting with MSWG

Today (Wednesday, 22 April 2009) - I went to the Minority Shareholders Watchdog Group (MSWG) office at Jalan Changkat Raja Chulan in KL with Dr Wee and Dr Shikin. We met up with the CEO of MSWG, Ms Rita Benoy Bushon and Ms Lya Rahman, GM Corporate Services. Basically the meeting was to discuss our forthcoming collaborative project on Dividend Policy of Malaysian PLC. It was a meaningful meeting as we also discussed on other possible projects that could be undertaken in the near future.

Call for Initiatives

I wish to invite interested individuals - lecturers and students - who are keen to work closely with ARI to undertake the following projects:

• Publication of books on successful enterpreneurs
• Publication of books on successsful business organisations
• Research and publication on successful SME accounting firms
• Research and publication on successful accountancy alumni

Expected completion date is 30th November 2009. Those who are keen please drop me an email at either dr.normah@accountant.com or normah645@salam.uitm.edu.my

Forensic Accounting Moot Court Presentations

Congratulations to our final semester Master in Forensic Accounting and Financial Criminology Students. Today we had an all-day moot court presentations for the course Investigative Techniques and Procedures. It was clear that the students had worked very hard to come up with very interesting presentations. Thank you to our learnered law lecturers: Assoc Prof Dr Zaiton and Tuan Lee for their great feedbacks and comments. Also our appreciation to Assoc Prof Dr Rozainun Aziz, the Head of the Asia-Pacific Forensic Accounting Research Centre (AFARe) for coordinating the event.

Opportunity to Publish with Oxford-Fajar

Last Friday, 17th April 2009, Associate Professor Dr Asmah (ARI's research fellow) and I attended a Network-Cocktail session organised by Oxford-Fajar Publisher. The event was held at the Meredian Hotel, Kuala Lumpur. During the briefing session, we were told that the company is looking for interested writers and authors to write books suitable for Malaysian universities. ARI and faculty members who are keen to write books can contact Mr Jan Albert Pang, Senior Sales Executive - hp: 0124753012 or email:jan@oxfordfajar.com.my. One interesting thing about the briefing cum cocktail session was the fact that we all had to stand...

Thank you Dato' Ameer of Mydin Hypermarket

Recently a group of us researchers went to Mydin Hypermarket in Subang Jaya to interview Y. Bhg Dato' Ameer, the Managing Director/CEO of the company. We were completing our research project on Usahawan Berjaya. Dato' Ameer were very kind to show us around the store and spent a good three hours discussing with us. One interesting trait about the Mydin Hypermarket is how the Mydin family members from many generations come in full force to make sure that the company is successful. We were very fortunate to have met Dato' Ameer's dad (his parents were at the store during our visit) who started the original business in Penang . Then he moved to Kelantan to start another business in Kota Baru. Dato' Ameer's eldest brother initiated a business in Kuala Terengganu. Dato' Ameer himself further expanded the business to what it is today. we hope to complete our research and book on this topic very soon.

Congratulations Associate Professor Dr Zuraidah

Just to share with everyone that Associate Professor Dr Zuraidah Mohd Sanusi had won the Anugerah MAPIM 2008 under the category Makalah Jurnal Terbaik. Her paper titled "The Effects of Goal Orientation and Task Complexity on Audit Judgement Performance" which was published in the Malaysian Accounting Review, Volume 6, No 2 was chosen to win the award. MAPIM stands for the Majlis Penerbitan Ilmiah Malaysia. The Council is a collboration with the Ministry of Higher Education. Dr Zuraidah is also currently a Research Fellow at the Accounting Reseach Institute. A ceremony to award winners will be held on 18th April 2009 at the Grand Ballroom, Hotel Seri Pacific, Kuala Lumpur. Congratulations to her, we are so proud of her.

Blog Class

All the administrators (from the Faculty of Accountancy & ARI) attended the blog class today. Among those presence were: Prof Dr Ibrahim Kamal, Prof Dr Suzana, AP Dr Rozainun, AP Dr Norazam, AP Dr Asmah, AP Dr Rohaya, AP Dr Ming, Dr Kalsom, AP Rashid, Ms Mariati, Ms Maizanee, Mr Shamsol, Ms Nor Hashimah and Ms Norazah. Thanks to our lovely Dr Intan Salwani for teaching us.

Research University

As we are all aware, UiTM aspires to attain the research university status within the next 1-2 years. ARI hopes to contribute towards RU by adopting all the KPIs which include among others: no of principal investigators, no of research & publications, amount of research grant, no of industry linkages, professional participation, updated facilities and others. This year ARI hopes to publish 20 articles in ISI or Scopus-index journals; to complete 15 research projects; to secure four international research grants; to link with three GLCs & four MNCs and to collaborate with professional bodies such as CIMA, ACCA, MICPA, ICSA, ACFE, CPA Australia and MIA. Those interested to become members of ARI as research fellow, research associate, industry expert or graduate fellow, please contact me at Tel: 603 5544 4924 or Mobile 6019 337 1583