As part of their on-going effort to engage practitioners in their current research projects, members of the the Islamic Microfinance research cluster of the Accounting Research Institute (ARI) recently visited the Perbadanan Usahawan Nasional Berhad (PUNB). PUNB is Malaysia's national entrepreneur development corporation that facilitate aspiring entrepreneurs to set up strategic and high potential businesses. ARI members and fellows comprising Dr
SitiKhadijah, Dr Bashir and Soheil accompanied Professor Dr Rashidah Abdul
Rahman to PUNB Kuala Lumpur. PUNB was established in 1996 to spur the development
of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by providing infrastructure facilities,
financial assistance, advisory services, market access and other support
programmes. The
delegates from ARI had a fruitful discussion with Mr Mohd Nor Shazali Idris, Head
SME Investment Unit on possible collaboration in research and consultancy
between PUNB & ARI. Areas of interest include examining governance,
marketing strategy and Islamic product development in PUNB.En Shazali was also
interested to assign us a task in studying the impact of PUNB microfinancing on
the success of the Young Entrepreneur Scheme.
