Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1993. / Also available in print.

The Iban of Sarawak, East Malaysia, are the inhabitants of a vast equatorial rain forest which not only plays a crucial role in satisfying their material needs, but also provides them with a rich source of imagery for the portrayal of key cultural concerns and social values. That is to say, one finds that Iban collective representations are characterized by a profusion of floral and botanical forms, while the ritual use of plants features strongly in Iban religious life. Often these 'sacred' and 'profane' aspects of the plant world coincide, as in the case of Iban rice farming which both provides them with their staple diet, and at the same time is imbued with a deeply religious significance. The primary interest of this study, then, lies in its examination of the special relationship between man and plant in Iban culture. The research is based on library materials and takes, as its epistemological starting point, the idea that an understanding of metaphor can be usefully employed in the interpretation of symbolic phenomena. This approach works on two levels. On the one hand, there is the idea that a systematic examination of recurrent metaphorical forms - be they expressed in mythological narrative, ritual imagery, or everyday language - can be linked to dominant cultural values and social orientations. On the other hand, there is also the idea that a theory of metaphor - as developed in the field of literary criticism and semantics - can provide valuable insight into the way in which so-called 'symbolic phenomena' are 'actualized', or 'understood', by those for whom they operate. In the last instance, the study seeks to transcend the formal strictures of conventional structural analysis by suggesting ways in which the elaborate structures that are revealed by the latter are actually realized, or at least represented, in daily life - whether it be in the rarefied atmosphere of a religious ceremony or the more mundane setting at some commonplace activity. In doing so, the study raises a number of issues that are of a metaphysical nature - among them the question of indigenous notions of causation - thereby providing not just simply a re-evaluation of the existing ethnographic record, but also a point of departure for future inquiries in the field.

This thesis examines the different roles that Islam plays in Malaysian and Indonesian - politics. Whereas Islam serves to identify and distinguish Malays from the other ethnic groups in Malaysia, Indonesian Islam reinforces a centre-periphery or Java-Outer Islands dichotomy. Islam's importance in Indonesia derives from the fact that approximately ninety percent of the country's population is Muslim, albeit many of them are not zealous practitioners. In Malaysia, on the other hand, Islam is important because it is used as a barometer to identify ethnic Malays who comprise approximately fifty-five percent of the population. Apart from being the ethnic majority, Malays wield most of the political power in Malaysia. Additionally, Islam is the official religion in Malaysia. Public policy responses toward Islam in both countries are substantially different. Indonesian public policy, which derives its precedent from Dutch colonial administration, only tolerates Islam as a private religion. Malays i an public policy toward Islam is at once supportive and suppressive. The government has to promote it as the country's official religion and outbid an Islamic political party. Also, the government has to direct Islamic revivalism so that the country's delicate inter-religious and inter-ethnic harmony is maintained. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

The increasing importance of economic contributions of small and medium-sized sized enterprises (SMEs) around the world, especially in developing countries, motivated a better understanding of financial practices among SMEs. Financial support is among the factors affecting the success of SMEs. However, studies on the financial practices among successful SMEs in Malaysia are still limited. An understanding of the financial practices of this particular group of SMEs is essential in developing a supportive financial framework to achieve national agenda for improving SMEs sustainability and increasing the overall SMEs’ contributions to the Malaysian economy. This research investigates the financial practices among successful SMEs in Malaysia based on the list of Enterprise 50 award winners from 1998 to 2010. This specific database was chosen to serve the objective of this study. Investigations into SME managers’ level of preferences for various sources of financing, and their firms’ capital structure, are the main scope of financial practices under study. Electronic surveys among 444 SMEs were conducted with 120 responses, yielding a response rate of 29.6%. The results of analyses revealed that retained earnings and banking institutions were the most preferred sources of internal and external financing among SMEs managers. Generally, successful SMEs depend more on debt over equity-sources of financing with Debt-to-Equity ratio (DER) of 57 to 43. Furthermore, managers’ ownership status, highest level of education and level of experience are found to have a statistically significant association with their level of financing preferences. On the other hand, non-debt tax shields, tangibility and liquidity were found to have a statistically significant relationship with a firm’s capital structure. Managers’ levels of financing preferences were also found to be significantly associated with the proportion of their firm’s capital structure. Multivariate analyses revealed that managers’ levels of financing preferences were explained by their ownership status, highest level of education and level of experience, while the proportions of a firm’s capital structure are significantly explained by the manager’s levels of financing preferences. Finally, firms’ capital structures were found to be influenced by non-debt tax shields, tangibility and liquidity. This research enhances the existing body of knowledge of the financial practices of successful SME in Malaysia, by providing information on managers’ level of financing preferences and firms’ capital structure. This is the first study to focus on investigating the level of financing preferences among managers of SMEs in Malaysia. In addition, the firm’s capital structure was also investigated. This new knowledge will improve understanding and will enable further enhancement of knowledge in this area of financial practices among successful small businesses, in general, and particularly in the case of Malaysian SMEs.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2000. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 372-391). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

The lack of culturally appropriate norms for assessing the speech and language status of Malaysian children has been an ongoing issue in Malaysia. At present, there are no normative data against which to assess the phonological skills of Malaysian children. Malaysian Chinese children are usually bilingual or multilingual. They acquire English, Mandarin Chinese and Malay during their preschool years. English that is used in Malaysia is commonly recognized as Malaysian English (MalE). MalE has distinctive phonological characteristics that are different from those of so-called Standard English (SE). However, the variations of MalE may not be completely understood by many speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in Malaysia, and this may lead to difficulty in differentiating speech differences resulting from MalE dialectal features and true speech disorders. As well as establishing speech norms for MalE speaking children, information is needed about the current assessment practices of the phonological development of MalE speaking children. Three studies were carried out for the present thesis. The first study was designed to provide insight into Malaysian SLPs’ perspectives on the current use of articulation and phonology assessments in the country. It reports the results of a survey of 38 Malaysian SLPs in term of the types of articulation and phonological assessments currently used, SLPs’ perceptions about the adequacy and accuracy of current articulation and phonological assessment in meeting clinical needs, the experiences of SLPs in using current articulation and phonological assessments, as well as their perception of the need for further research in the areas of articulation and phonology. The findings indicated that informal articulation or phonological assessments were widely used. Only a minority of the respondents used standardized articulation or phonological assessments. The majority of the respondents felt that the lack of locally developed standardized tests and the utilization of informal assessments of articulation and phonology in their clinics did not provide accurate diagnoses or intervention plans. They felt that there was a need for collecting phonological developmental data and creating articulation and phonology assessments for Malaysian children. The second study was designed to identify characteristics of the consonant and vowel inventories of MalE as well as phonetic realizations of speech sounds, by investigating the speech production of ten adult Chinese speakers of MalE. The participants were asked to read a list of 206 single words which contained all expected MalE consonants, consonant clusters and vowels. These speech sounds were sampled in several different words and in different syllable-word positions. This study goes beyond previous studies of MalE phonology by using a quantitative auditory phonetic analysis. The characteristics observed were first categorized according to their frequency of occurrence and then further grouped into categories based on the possible influences of British English or American English as well as local Malaysian languages (Mandarin Chinese and Malay) and dialects. The interference patterns within MalE resulting from the influence of local languages and Chinese dialects were also discussed. The phonological features of MalE which converged with developmental phonological processes in SE children were explored. An understanding of the phonological features and realizations of MalE speech sounds is important because this will help speech-language pathologists to differentiate dialectal phonological features exhibited by MalE speaking children from phonological differences and disorders. The third study which was also the major study of this thesis was designed to provide valid and reliable normative data for the phonological development of MalE speaking Chinese children between the ages of 3 and 7 years. This study provided a description of the children’s phonological system in MalE in terms of i) age of acquisition of speech sounds, ii) speech sound accuracy and iii) phonological process use. 264 typically developing English speaking Malaysian Chinese children between the ages of 3 and 7 years were recruited to participate in this cross-sectional study. In a pilot study, eleven words were eliminated from the list used in the second study, leaving a list of 195 words which sampled consonants, consonant clusters and vowels in various syllable-word positions and phonotactic structures. The words were illustrated and presented colourfully in composite pictures to elicit a large and well-controlled single word speech sample. All the speech data gained were transcribed phonetically and analyzed quantitatively. The findings revealed that MalE children’s speech sound accuracy was underestimated when MalE dialectal features were not taken into consideration. MalE speaking children exhibited phonological acquisition patterns that were both similar and different to SE. The differences found were mainly due to the cross-linguistic effects of Mandarin Chinese and Malay which were acquired at the same time by MalE speaking children. The influence of Mandarin Chinese and Malay appeared to accelerate or delay the phonological acquisition of MalE based on phonetic similarity theory. The findings of the present study highlight the need to consider MalE dialectal features in the phonological analysis of MalE speaking children. The differences in phonological acquisition of MalE and SE indicate that the norms of SE are not suitable to be used for MalE speaking children. This study will provide useful and locally appropriate normative developmental data on phonological acquisition for MalE speaking Chinese children. Speech-language pathologists in Malaysia will be able to use it as a guideline in assessing and treating clients with articulation and phonological disorders. In addition, these normative developmental data are a prerequisite to the eventual establishment of a phonological assessment tool specifically designed for MalE.

Malaysian politics has long been dominated by tensions arising out of inter-ethnic inequality. However, economic policy in the earlier years of independence took a laissez-faire approach. Following the racial riots in 1969, there was a re-think on policy and the New Economic Policy (NEP) was promulgated in 1970. The underlying objective of the policy was to achieve national unity, which entailed improving the economic and social status of the Malay (Bumiputera) community visa-vis the non-Malays (non-Bumiputeras), especially the Chinese. The policy also attempted to transfer ownership of industries to the Malay (Bumiputera) community to develop a capitalist economy under the control of the Malay (Bumiputera) ethnic group. This study argues that, whilst the policy was successful at the outset in generating economic growth and reducing poverty, especially in the rural areas, it became obsolete even for that narrow purpose. The exclusive focus of the policy on inter-ethnic inequality made it insensitive to the problem of intra-Malay inequality. Due to the very success of NEP in the earlier years, the Malay community has become less homogeneous and cross-cutting cleavages have begun to emerge. Also, Malay tolerance of intra-Malay inequality has begun to erode. Many of Malaysia's current economic and political problems can be explained by the failure of income redistribution policy to reflect these changes within the Malay community. The argument is presented here using an analysis of the trends in income distribution. The required data are obtained from the literature and also from the Malaysian Family Life Survey (MFLS).

No description available.

This thesis attempts to explore and analyses environmental training (ET) in Malaysia, Singapore and the United Kingdom. It discusses the relationships of ET with environmental education, human resource development, learning, training and strategic planning. The main goal of the research was to assess which were the most commonly used ET protocols or 'best practices' that can be used and adapted in a variety of organisations. The research was based on a detailed literature survey and drew on the results from a postal questionnaire survey of 94 different organisations of varying size, age and having a variety of quality accreditations. The respondents were mostly from the 36-45 age group, males, first degree holders, specialised in business administration, middle managers and had spent 1-5 years in their organisation. A total of 28 variables were analysed using Chi-Square and Spearman Correlation and are discussed in the text. The 'best practices' of ET in organisations surveyed were identified as: those possessing environmental policies and training policies; conducting training needs assessments using a combination of methods such as discrepancy, democratic, diagnostic and analytic; including ET in their human resource development plan; delivering ET by external consultants and involving trainees in their environmental management system. In addition, these organisations delivered at least 1-5 ET courses per year, used in house courses and lectures, conducted ET evaluations and are committed to ET in the near future. From the 'best practices' identified by the research and face to face interviews with the staff of the Department of Wildlife and National Parks, Peninsular Malaysia, a SWOT analysis, Objective Oriented Project Planning and a Logical Framework (LOGFRAME) were used to formulate a strategic human resource development plan for the Department.