IAFC 2010: 8 - 9 December 2010

Day One:ARI wishes to congratulate the organizers of the International Accounting & Finance Conference (IAFC 2010)for successfully attracted more than 140 conference papers, forty of which are from international authors and researchers. The two main organizers are namely the Faculty of Accountancy and Faculty of Business Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA Sabah. As a co-organizer of the international conference, the Accounting Research Institute (ARI)is happy to be able to network with all participants. The two-day conference,themed "Governance and Liberalization of Private and Public Sector: Issues and Challenges" was graced by the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Environment Sabah, YB Datuk Haji Masidi Manjan. Meanwhile, the keynote speaker was Prof Dr Malcom Smith, Professor of Accounting, Edith Cowan University, Australia. The first day saw the papers being presented in eight parallel sessions. In the evening, there was a conference dinner where eight outstanding papers were recognized. As part of the entertainment event, a cultural show was showcased by UiTM Sabah's students and our international participants were greatly mesmerized.

CSSR 2010 : Day Three

Day Three
The remaining ARI's eleven papers were presented on the last day of the conference. Most presenters have received some very good feedbacks from the other participants and this hopefully would enable the researchers to further improve their papers for future publications.
This year's CSSR has attracted more than 100 international papers from countries such as UK, USA, India, China, Bangladesh, Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Indonesia and many others. It was indeed a very good way to network. Most importantly, researchers get to think and strategize some form of transdiciplinary research projects for the future. Perhaps forthcoming CSSR conference will see more of the merger of science and social science research to be presented and published.

CSSR 2010 Continues

Day Two
After a very brief opening ceremony by the Chairman of IEEE Malaysian Chapter and the presentation of two keynote papers in the morning, the conference proceeded with eight parallel sessions in the afternoon.
All in all, four hundred papers have been successfully reviewed and to be presented during the three-day conference.
Eleven ARI papers were presented today. Seven papers were presented in the "Accounting Application" session; three papers in "Policy and Governance" group and One paper in the "Frontiers in Education" Track. Congratulations all.

CSSR 2010: Tutorial sessions

Day One:The first day of CSSR is filled with useful tutorials. For the social science researchers, three tutorial sessions are useful and relevant to them. They are namely:(1) Writing Research Articles for the Engineering Field by Dr Ramesh Nair. This session elaborates part of a large study that examined the writing of Malaysian Academics and the author highlights lessons that we can laern from the engineering researchers; (2) Research, Publication, Citation and World-Class University by Prof Szarina Abdullah. The tutorial explains the significance of research, publication and citation, which cummulatively have been used, interalia as indicators of world class universities; (3) Researching into Forecasting Management: From Quantitative to Qualitative Study by Prof Rozainun, ARI's own member. This topic presents a way forward within the area of Management Accounting, in particular with the role of planning. The main emphasis here is forecasting management, which has received attention and interest among the forecasters to examine the behavioural aspects of forecasting. All in all, it was a good starter for CSSR 2010.

International CSSR 2010

The annual Conference On Science and Social Research (CSSR) of Universiti Teknologi MARA is going international. This year's CSSR 2010 is jointly organized by Universiti Teknologi MARA, IEEE and the Computer Society. Three international conferences namely IEE Conference on Open Systems, International Conference on Computer Applications & Industrial Electronics and International Conference on Science and Social Research will be held concurrently at the Seri Pacific Hotel, Kuala Lumpur on 5-7 December 2010. Proceedings of the three conferences will be published in IEEE Explorer and ultimately published and indexed by SCOPUS/ISI Thomson. ARI researchers will be presenting and publishing total of 22 papers as follows:
1. Balanced Scorecard Equity Valuation Model
2. An Exploratory Study on the Possibility of Misappropriation of Assets - A Case
Study of a Local Authority
3. Strategy Maps as a Communication Tool in Balanced Scorecard Implementation:
Study of a Malaysian Utility Company
4. Bridging Theory and Practice: Lessons on Management Accounting from Selected
Practices in Malaysia
5. The Impact of Ownership Structure on Stock Returns
6. Corporate Governance Structure and Voluntary Risk Disclosures
7. The Use of Managerial Accounting Information (MAI): Perceptions of Users and
Preparers
8. Malaysian Enterprise Risk Management (MERIM) Framework
9. Financial Performance of Malaysian Local Authorities: A Trend Analysis
10. Neuro Teaching: An Impact to Performance
11. Corporate Governance Structure, Regulatory Regimes and Voluntary Disclosures
12. Fraud Diamond Risk Indicator: An Assessment of Its Importance and Usage
13. Self-Regulating Corporate Governance: Towards a Self-Governance Regime
14. Learning from K-Mart's Mistakes: New Improvements on Mydin Hypermarket's
Business Strategies
15. Organizational Commitment and Emotional Intelligent: Explaining the Interaction
of Personality Traits of Auditors
16. Dividend Trend and the Relevance of Dividend
17. Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Practice of Forecasting in Malaysia: A
Practical Insight
18. The Importance of Intellectual Capital Information to SMEs in Malaysia
19. Tax Planning and Corporate Effective Tax Rates
20. Determinants of Successful Utilization of Tax Incentives in SME's Manaufacturing
Sectors
21. Innovation Capacity in Higher Education
22. Quality of Cross-Border Mergers and Acquisitions Performance in Five East Asian
Countries

Setting a HICoE Vision

The Institute for Infrastructure Engineering and Sustainable Development (IIESM)of Universiti Teknologi MARA organised a one-day strategic visioning workshop at the INTEKMA Resort today. IIESM aspires to become another HICoE from UiTM. In essence, IIESM has seven research units under its wing. They are namely: Geotechnical Engineering & Georisk Management (MYGERMAC), Concrete Waste Engineering & Earthquake CWE3C), Innovative Construction Materials & Structures (ICMSC), Flood Marine, Bioremediation, Water Resources Engineering & Management Research (WAREM) and International Research on Disaster Prevention. As the only HICoE from UiTM, the Accounting Research Institute (ARI) Director, Prof Dr Normah Omar has been invited to share ARI's own experiences. ARI hopes that IIESM will be successful in its vision of becoming another HICoE from Universiti Teknologi MARA.

New Applied Research Reports

ARI wishes to congratulate eleven of our Masters Students who have successfully completed and submitted their applied research project. The eleven research titles are as follows:
1. Performance Review of Fraud Detection System; A Case Study of A Malaysian Bank
2. Analysis of Under-Declared Tax: A Case Study of an IRB Branch
3. Mid-Term Review of Government-Linked Companies Transformation Program
4. Skills and Competencies of Accountants to Detect Financial Fraud: A Case Study
5. Evaluation and Analysis of Non-Performing Loan of a Financial Institution
6. An Analysis of Corporate Disclosure Awareness Among the Management of a PLC
7. An Analysis of Fraud Awareness Among Employees of an Insurance Company
8. Risk Assessment on the Operational Department of a Malaysian Port
9. Employees Perception on Whistle Blowing Policy in Detecting Occupational Fraud
10.Transforming the Malaysian Public Sector: Methods & Experiences of MAMPU
11.NPL of a Local Bank: Evidences from Post-Mortem Review Reports

Forging Reasearch Clusters in ASEAN Countries

Day Two:
The first conference to launch the Pioneering ASEAN Higher Education Research Clusters was held recently in Bangkok, Thailand on 26-27 November 2010. Malaysia was represented by directors of all HICoEs and a deputy vice chancellor from UPM. Nine countries namely Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, philippines, Indonesia, Laos PDR, Cambodia, Vietnam and Brunei attended the conference which was hosted by the SEAMEO RIHED of the Thai higher Education Department in Bangkok. The meeting agreed in principle over the development of an ASEAN Citation Index (ACI)to cater for the regional needs of ASEAN researchers. Research clusters will be spearheaded by individual centre of excellence. Based on the available network obtained from the conference, ARI is poosibly looking at forging a research cluster with NTU & NUS (Singapore), University of Chullalongkorn (Thailand) and UniversityBrunei Darulsalam.

First Conference on Pioneering ASEAN Higher Education Research Clusters

Day One:
In view of our efforts to forge strategic alliances with top notch research centres globally, it was indeed a golden opportunity for ARI when the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) invited us (ARI) to represent Malaysia to the first ASEAN conference on Higher Education Research. The conference was attended by 42 international delegates on top of more than 300 Thai participants who represented their respective universities. The two day event was officially opened by the Thailand Prime Minister. Basically the conference was held with two very specific objectives. Firstly, participants are to agree on a specific research cluster projects. Secondly, the conference must decide on how such research cluster will be carried out. ARI hopes to identify strategic alliance partners from among ASEAN universities.

Congratulations to Another Batch of Winners

The first day of UiTM's 73rd convocation was held today. The event was graced opened by the His Royal Highness, DYMM Yang diPertuan Agung, Tuanku Mizan. His Royal Highness is the university's Chancellor. The event saw among others, the awards of honorary doctorates to two of UiTM's former vice chancellor and director. Dato' Ahmad Zaidee Laidin was awarded the Doctor of Electrical Engineering and Prof Dr Mansor Salleh the Doctor of Mechanical Engineering. For ARI and the Faculty of Accountancy, beside the Diploma in Accountancy and the Bachelor of Accountancy students, we also celebrated the successes of our post graduate students: 15 Master of Accountancy, 1 Master in Corporate Governance and 18 Master in Forensic Accounting and Financial Criminology. Congratulations and well done....