Idiosyncratic risk and stock price crash risk: The moderating role of discretionary income smoothing

Poverty and income inequality are extreme issues that still exist in Malaysia. Any rise in poverty and income inequality definitely affect economic growth. There are many great efforts taken by the government of Malaysia to eradicate poverty and to reduce the gap of income inequality which occurs since 1970’s. The incidence of poverty and income inequality is higher in rural areas compared to urban areas. This paper is mainly to study the level of poverty and income inequality in Malaysia together with government intervention to develop Malaysia’s economic growth. The research is focused among the working people at Ipoh, Perak. In this paper, questionnaire forms are being distributed to get information regarding the issue of poverty and income inequality. It also looks into the strategies taken by the government of Malaysia to eradicate poverty and income inequality. Few recommendations are given in terms of education policy, financial aid and assistance from government and non-government organization (NGO) to upgrade the standard and quality of living among the poor and lower-income group of people.

The risk of virus contracting during the COVID-19 pandemic has changed consumer preference for online shopping to meet their daily needs than shopping in brick-and-mortar stores. Online shopping presents a different environment, atmosphere, and experience. The possibility of ethical violations is higher during online than face-to-face transactions. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the influence of perceived health risk and customer perception of online retail ethics on consumer online shopping behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic, involving seven variables, namely perceived health risk, security, privacy, non-deception, reliability fulfillment, service recovery, and online shopping behavior. The data were collected through an online survey by employing the purposive sampling technique to a consumer who has shopped online during the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia. 315 valid responses were obtained and analyzed through quantitative method using SEM-Amos. The results showed that perceived health risk and four variables of online retail ethics including security, privacy, reliability fulfillment, and service recovery affected online shopping behavior. Meanwhile, non-deception was found to have an insignificant effect. The coefficient value proved perceived health risk to be more dominant in influencing online shopping behavior than the variables of online retail ethics. Thus, consumers pay more concern for their health during online shopping. However, positive consumer perceptions of the behavior of online retail websites in providing services also can encourage consumers to shop online during this pandemic.

Human resource management (HRM) is one of the elements enabling an organization to remain competitive in turbulence conditions. The effective practice of HRM makes competent and innovative employees contributing to the achievement of organizational objectives. This study aims to analyze HRM practices in creating innovation and organizational performance. The questionnaire was used to measure the respondents’ perceptions of variables used by a Likert scale. A survey of 126 manager samples and middle managers at export-oriented short and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Bali, Indonesia, was conducted to test the model. The analysis has shown that the proposed model was proven to be compliant with the research hypotheses. HRM significantly affects organizational performance and innovation, and it was found out that innovation can improve organizational performance. However, in the process of simultaneous testing, it was found out that innovation cannot improve organizational performance. The lack of attention to investments in human resources became one of the barriers to SMEs in creating innovation.