Anugerah Akademik Negara (AAN)

The third AAN was held last night at the Royale Chulan's Grand Ballroom. The event was to honour academics who excelled in teaching, research and commercialisation. As a director of ARI, I was also invited to attend the dinner. It was a stimulating experience to see friends from fellow academics being recognized. The top award, Tokoh Akademik Negara was conferred to Professor Dr Muhammad Haji Salleh from USM. Congratulations Prof.

KMart's Ten Deadly Sins....

I presented a paper entitled "KMart's Ten Deadly Sins: a Counter Strategy by Mydin Hypermarket". The paper was based on a 2003 book KMart's 10 Deadly Sins by Marcia Layton Turner which according to Dato' Ameer Ali Mydin had a tremendous influence over the Mydin's business. Our research team comprising Dr Zuraidah, Dr Norashikin, Ms Noralmiah and myself had early this year interviewed Dato' Ameer, the managing director of Mydin Holding Bhd. It was interesting to learn from Dato' Ameer, how Mydin had used KMart's experiences to its own advantage. "Smart people learned from the experiences of others"....

What is the Worth of Your RM1?...

As he was officiating the 13th MACFEA seminar in Shah Alam, Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob, the Domestic Trade, Cooperative and Consumerism Minister shared a story of how he recently had breakfast in a cafe which was owned by one cooperative in Kuala Lumpur. the cafe was promoting a "RM1 Breakfast package". With RM1, one could get roti canai for 40 sen and teh tarik for 60 sen. The minister was told by the cafe owner that he only incurred 18 sen to make roti canai and 20 sen for his teh tarik. Yet, he can make some profit from this business. Well, the concept is very simple: usually we make profit when we charge a higher selling price for our product; but we can also focus on selling higher volume at lower selling price. Aspiring researcher, may be you can do a case study on this cafe...."Now everyone can have a RM1 breakfast"...... fancy?

Meeting Two Lady VCs......

It was an interesting moment to meet Prof Dato' Aminah Ayub, the Vice Chancellor of UPSI at a recent event in UiTM. Dato' Aminah and I were attending the same university: University of Iowa, USA in the early 1980s. She was then doing her Master in Biology and I was in my third year BBA. Also present for the event was UKM's vice chancellor, Tan Sri Prof Dr Sharifah Hafsah. Perhaps ARI can soon initiative collaborative research with UPSI & UKM...After all, ARI must embark on multi-diciplinary research.

Effective Researchers: What to Focus On?

Whether you are a research student or a fellow academic researcher, the question I like to ask you, is "are you being effective?". To be an effective researcher, you must end each research task by writing it properly. Once your write up for that particular task is completed, attempt to publish your work. Focus on publishing your works in journals that are indexed with Scopus or ISI-Web of Science. Sometimes researchers spent a lot of time reading articles and books and no attempt is made to write their work quickly. As a result, writing will become a chore. Write at least one paragraph a day, then write a page a day. Very soon, you will get better at writing and publishing your work. That's how you become effective....

ARI to Offer PhD Program

The university senate had recently approved the proposal to allow centres of exclence such as ARI to offer graduate level programs. For a start, ARI would like to focus on offering PhD in Forensic & Criminology and Corporate Governance. Students could then be actively involved with the research projects undertaken by by two research centres namely AFARe and CGRC. As the researchers from these centres are already well-networked with relevant authorities/agencies such as the Malaysian Institute of Integrity, Malaysian Institute of Corporate Governance, Minority Shareholders Watchdog Group, the Association on Fraud Examiners, Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commision, the Royal Malaysian Police etc, researchers will be much facilitated in getting research data. Interested researchers are welcome to register with ARI & you don't have to be an accountant....

Dana Kecemerlangan "Clinic"

A research "clinic" cum briefing session was organized today by the Research Management Institute. Basically, the event was organised to assist researchers whose research proposals were previously "rejected". Another opportunity was given for these researchers to update and improve their proposals so that they can resubmit them for the forthcoming evaluation meeting. Facilitators from among professors and experienced researchers were appointed to assist participants with their proposals.