What was the impact of business performance on MSMEs during the COVID-19 pandemic?

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused changes in the pattern of interactions between people and has also had an impact on market traders in Indonesia. The purpose of this research is to increase the competitiveness of MSMEs through entrepreneurial orientation, market orientation and technology orientation toward product innovation and their impact on MSMEs' business performance. This study uses the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), and convenience sampling was used to select 160 MSMEs for the study sample. Based on the path coefficients that lead to business performance, technology orientation has a value of 16.1, followed by product innovation with a value of 10.6, market orientation with a value of 0.009, and entrepreneurship orientation with a value of 0.004, which have a positive effect on business performance. But if you look at what influences product innovation, the first is technology orientation at 0.357, followed by market orientation at 0.325, and entrepreneurial orientation at 0.245. This means that technology orientation is vital in improving business performance and product innovation. © 2023 AESS Publications. All Rights Reserved.

Assessing Indonesian Youth Acceptance of Corruption: Applying the Stimulus-Organism-Response Framework

Corruption is one of the old problems facing the Indonesian government to date. The Covid-19 pandemic has not reduced corrupt behaviour in Indonesia. In fact, state officials in Indonesia were arrested for corruption in providing government social assistance to communities affected by this pandemic. Based on this phenomenon, this study aims to predict corruption acceptance behaviour using a stimulus-organism-response framework. The research focuses on youth because youth are future adults who will be active in business, politics, community activities, and others. A total of 246 youth was respondents in this study. Judgmental sampling was applied in this study and questionnaires were distributed online. The data was then analysed using structural equation modelling. The results of the analysis show that 4 of the 8 research hypotheses are supported. The four hypotheses supported are that anti-social media exposure has a negative relationship with personal values of materialism and materialism has a positive relationship with acceptance of corruption. The results of the analysis also show that pro social media exposure has a positive relationship with religious involvement. Furthermore, religious involvement has a negative relationship with acceptance of corruption. Limitations and suggestions for further research are also presented in this paper. © 2022 Sabrina O. Sihombing and Hendra Achmadi.

Using Toulmin’s Argument Pattern Approach to Identify Infodemics in the Covid-19 Pandemic Era

The emergence of various web pages and social media platforms that exist in today’s digital information era makes it easy for us to access various sources of information and makes us flooded with information. This condition has the potential to result in the loss of our mental health. This is known by the World Health Organization (WHO) as an infodemic which is an excessive amount of information, both true and false, which makes it very difficult for people to find reliable news about the coronavirus, and has increased the spread of fake news, conspiracy theories, worldwide panic and confusion. WHO and all the governments of each country in the world have also carried out various efforts to break the chain of spreading fake news. But the spread of fake news around the world is faster than there is any control over it. Therefore, we need an awareness of each individual in order to equip themselves with the knowledge and skills in identifying fake news. Physics as a branch of science discipline cannot be separated from this fake news. One example of fake news about physics related to Covid-19 is the statement that the thermo gun used to measure body temperature is dangerous to human health because of its laser beam radiation. One alternative way that can be used to evaluate the truth of the news is by assessing the strength of the news argumentation. Toulmin’s argument pattern has been widely applied to analyze the quality of an argument, which can be applied in evaluating the truth of a received news content. This paper aims to provide an alternative in identifying the “infodemic” in the Covid-19 Pandemic era in evaluating the correctness of information by applying the Toulmin Argument Pattern. This argumentation pattern distinguishes three fundamental components and three additional components of a coherent argumentative discourse. The main framework of this pattern in analyzing arguments consists of three main components: claim, data, and warrant. Where data provides the basis for determining claims, warrant acts as a logical reasoning bridge that connects data and claims. Three additional components can be added to construct a more complex pattern for analyzing arguments: backings, qualifiers, and rebuttals. Where backing is the part that provides additional evidence to strengthen the warrant, Qualifiers indicate the strength provided by the warrant in relating data to claims, while rebuttals indicate circumstances where the warrant in this condition is no longer valid so that the claim can be rejected.