ABSTRACT
Industrialized Building System (IBS) implementation is one of the best practices to enhance, which contributes to the overall development and economy of the Malaysian construction industry. The advent of COVID-19 has disturbed all aspects of life and the Malaysian construction industry is no different including housing projects. Therefore, the objectives of this study are to examine the impacts and new practice approaches of IBS implementation in the housing construction projects due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study conducted the quantitative approach and distributed the questionnaires for data collection. The respondents involved in this study are the G7 contractors in the area of Johor. A number of 140 responses were received and were analysed using SPSS version 22.0. The descriptive analysis was used to describe the respondents' background while the mean, standard deviation, and ranking were used to achieve the objectives of this study. The significant findings showed that the most impacts of the IBS implementation in the housing projects due to COVID-19 were the new safety regulations, improving the supply chain, and reducing the unskilled foreign worker. In addition, the respondents recommend some new practice approaches for IBS implementation including new incentives allocation, up-to-date technology implementation, and skillful workers utilization. In conclusion, this study has been established the impact of COVID-19 through identification of the impacts and suggested new practice approaches, which will help the contractors in managing housing construction projects effectively. © 2022, Construction Research Institute of Malaysia. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Purpose: The global recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has led to the closure of thousands of village-owned enterprises (VOEs), which are community-managed enterprises that operate in the hostile rural areas in emerging economies. Thus, considering that a Schumpeterian view of economic downturn sees recessions as times where old products/services decline while new products/services emerge, this paper aims to explore the specific innovation-based diversification strategies that matter for the survival of emerging economy VOEs in recession periods to develop new theoretical insights. Design/methodology/approach: The study is based on multiple-case studies of 13 leading VOEs operating in the rural areas of Java Island in Indonesia, an emerging economy. The data was analysed using within-case and cross-case analyses. Findings: Overall, a number of major novel findings have emerged from the analysis, based on which the authors developed several new propositions. First, from the perspectives of both new product and new service diversification, “unrelated diversification” is the primary resilience strategy that seems to be associated with the survival of VOEs in the COVID-19 recession, over and above “related diversification”. Second, from an industrial sector diversification perspective, the most dominant resilient strategy for surviving the recession is “unrelated diversification into tertiary sectors (service sector)”, over and above diversification into the primary sector (agriculture, fisheries and mining) and secondary sector (manufacturing and construction). Originality/value: The authors contribute to the literature on entrepreneurship in emerging economies by identifying the resilience diversification strategies that matter for the survival of VOEs in recession. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.
ABSTRACT
The widespread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic led to a discovery that open distance learning (ODL) has turned out to be the only choice for teaching and learning by most institution (s) of higher learning (IHLs). In Malaysia, ODL is considered a new approach as physical laboratory practice has always been conducted for laboratory courses. This is a quantitative study which explores the perceptions of e-Lab among the students of bachelor’s in electrical and electronic engineering (EE) by focusing on the effectiveness and readiness in conducting the e-Lab. Simulation-based model is proposed for conducting the e-Lab using an interactive media and validated with the final score performance. With the future goals of improving the e-Lab in terms of delivering methods and engaging mediums between students and laboratory instructor, this study also discovered the levels of response from students’ perception to substitute the conventional laboratory by providing an equivalent and comparable learning experiences of the students. © 2022 Institute of Advanced Engineering and Science. All rights reserved.