The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in more than 4.3 million confirmed cases and more than 2,90,000 deaths worldwide. It has also given rise to fears of an imminent economic crisis and recession. Social distance, self-isolation, and travel restrictions have led to a reduction in the workforce across all economical sectors and have led to a loss of many jobs. Schools have closed down, and the need for commodities and manufactured goods has decreased. On the other hand, the need for medical supplies has increased significantly. The food sector is also facing increased demand as a result of panic buying and storing food products. In response to this global outbreak, we summarize the socioeconomic effects of COVID-19 on the various aspects of the world economy. In Malaysia, the COVID-19 epidemic has checked the resilience of the agriculture sector. Especially the Malaysian paddy industry as country imports 30% of its overall consumption from different parts of the world. The real price of rice triplicating for the consumers, which was alarming for nations in this pandemic situation. The Government of Malaysia introduced the National Agrofood Policy 2011-2020 (NAP4) in 2010 as a guidance document for the implementation of agricultural sector development programs and projects in Malaysia. The NAP4 's 10-year term is to be finished by the end of 2020. Several sectors demonstrate substantial success after approximately 8 years of introduction, while the other classes often lag behind the goal and progress quite slowly. Agricultural sector performance is affected by many problems and challenges. In acknowledgment of the poor success of this field, the Ministry of Agriculture and Agri-Based Industry has launched new approaches, policies, and programs that can change the agricultural sector more rapidly. The new direction is aimed at ensuring national food security and boosting farm and revenues. The authorized government agency needs to revise the policy formulation where Malaysia needs to set stages to revolutionize and modernize the rice farming to address the problem faced by the paddy sector in this pandemic situation to adopt GF. In this study, the researcher focuses on the improvisation of the policy to increase the paddy production sustainably.
One of the innovations introduced toward tackling the heightening of environmental impact is green technology. In the agricultural industry, the implementation of green fertilizer technology (GFT) for the modern development of environmentally friendly technology is a necessity. Within the Malaysian agriculture sector, the GFT application is needed to increase production levels among all crops. One of the essential commodities of all crops has always been paddy, given its status as the staple food among the country's population. Paddy production with the adoption of GFT potentially opens the path toward sustainable development in the industry as well as it also provides the food safety aspect. Moreover, this helps farmers to improve their productivity on paddy production in Malaysia. This paper attempts to evaluate the contributing socio-psychological factors, innovation attributes of environmental factors, and channels of communication to decision-making among farmers in Malaysia on GFT. Furthermore, this research also aims to assess the moderating role of cost between the farmer's behavioral intention and the adoption of GFT. The sampling process followed the stratified sampling technique-overall, 600 survey questionnaires were dispersed and 437 effective responses were received. The structural analysis results obtained have revealed significant positive effect for perceived awareness, attitude, group norm, perceived behavioral control, environmental concern, agro-environmental regulations, relative advantage, compatibility, trialability, and observability, and on farmer's behavioral intention, a significant effect for paddy farmer's behavioral intention in order to adopt of GFT. Further, the interaction effects of cost on the link between farmer's behavioral intention and adoption of GFT are statistically significant. Though, the finding could not back an outcome for the subjective norm, complexity, and mass media on farmer's behavioral intention. Finally, critical outcomes obtained in this research contribute to deepening the thoughtfulness of paddy farmers' adoption of GFT. This study concludes with policy recommendations and future directions of the research.
Health, safety, and environment (HSE) are critical aspects of any industry, particularly in high-risk environments, such as the oil and gas industry. Continuous accident reports indicate the requirement for the effective implementation of safety rules, regulations, and practices. This systematic literature review examines the relationship between safety communication and safety commitment in high-risk workplaces, specifically focusing on the oil and gas industry. The review comprises 1,439 articles from 2004 to 2023, retrieved from the Scopus and Web of Science databases following the PRISMA comprehensive guidelines. This study considers safety communication, communication climate, and communication satisfaction to evaluate their influence on safety commitment under occupational health and safety. This study identifies safety commitment issues and their underlying factors, discussing measures for preventing and reducing accidents and incidents and highlighting preventive measures for future research. It also signifies the variables influencing accident and incident rates. The research underscores the importance of communication dimensions and the need for workers to possess adequate skills, knowledge, and attitudes regarding occupational safety and health procedures. Moreover, the study contributes to the industrial and academic domains by improving organizational safety commitment, promoting a safety culture, and developing effective communication strategies. Furthermore, practitioners may benefit from this comprehensive overview in developing, evaluating, and enhancing occupational safety.
With the rising concern about climate change, there has been an increased public awareness that has resulted in new government policies to support scientific research for mitigating these problems. Malaysia is among the major energy-intense countries and is under an excessive burden to advance its energy efficiency and to also work towards the reduction of its carbon emission. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) have the potential to lessen the carbon emission and gasoline consumption in order to alleviate environmental problems. Most of the energy problems linked to the increasing transportation pollution are now being reduced with the solution of the adoption of PHEVs. PHEVs are seen as a solution to cut carbon emission, which prevents environmental damages. Furthermore, PHEVs' driving range and performance can be comparable to the other hybrid vehicles as well as the conventional IC engines that have gasoline and diesel tanks. Thus, many efforts are being initiated to promote the use of PHEVs as an innovative and affordable transportation system. In order to achieve making the consumers aware of the adoption of PHEVs, we used a model which is based on the extended theory of planned behavior (TPB). This review is based on the factors affecting the adoption of PHEVs among Malaysian consumers. The model takes into account the ten key features that influence the adoption of PHEVs, such as environmental concern, personal norm, attitude, vehicle ownership costs, driving range, charging time, intention, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and personal norm. All these constructs are drivers towards the adoption of PHEVs. These factors affect the relationship between the adoption of PHEVs and how consumers intend to protect the environment. This review is based on improving how the "attitude-action" gap is understood as it is an important element for further studies on PHEVs. The aim of the research is to come up with a framework that examines how to modify the consumer's environmental concerns in acquiring PHEVs. This will pave the way for more academic research and future works that can emphasize how to obtain empirical results. The authors' recommendation is that, before a consumer's behavior is assessed and considered, an observation of the current technology is needed with methods and knowledge of the existing technology adoption aspect.
This study investigates the significance of self-management in academic staff stress management related to social networking sites (SNS). It emphasizes particularly on reducing social media exhaustion and increasing job effectiveness. The research applies the stressor-strain-outcome theory and the Smart PLS (partial least squares) analytical approach to examine data from 391 respondents. The study's goal is to provide empirical data on the efficacy of self-control management in reducing SNS stress and its effects on academic staff's psychological wellbeing and job performance. Data is collected by survey using online email platforms among academic employees, and the collected data is examined utilizing the Smart PLS approach. This approach allows for an investigation of the proposed links and their statistical importance. This research's ramifications are important for academic institutions since its results can help academic personnel effectively cope with SNS-related stress. Academic employees can better limit their SNS usage and avoid social media tiredness by promoting self-control management practices. As a result, academic employees' job performance and overall wellbeing may increase. The study's findings help to comprehend how self-management might reduce SNS stress and improve staff performance in the academic sector.