CSDCSR SMEs and Sustainability Seminar, 12 February 2014

To enhance the understanding of sustainability issues related to Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs), the Centre for Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSDCSR) organised a seminar entitled, �"SMEs and Sustainability" at Sg. Long Campus on the 12th of February 2014.

The objectives of the talk were to expose students and staff to a broader perspective of anthropology in assisting humanity and to encourage learning through real-life examples of asylum cases in the American context.

Asst Prof Dr. Falahat (Chairperson of CSDCSR) gave a short welcome speech to members and guests.

Asst Prof Phang Fatt Kong, the moderator for this seminar gave a general overview on sustainability of SMEs.

The attendees were presented with a series of talk related to SMEs and its sustainability in various topics. The first topic by Puan Kasmah binti Tajuddin touched on the needs of SMEs to be corporate socially responsible to various stakeholders. She also highlighted the importance and significance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) towards the profitability of the firm and to disclose the needed information to stakeholders.

First Presenter: Puan Kasmah binti Tajuddin, topic entitled, �"CSR Disclosure"

The second topic presented by Mr. Tee Peck Ling gave the audiences the developments and emerging issues that might affect Malaysian SMEs and provided recommendations on how to benefit from the opportunities and overcome potential threats. He also used the China-Malaysia bilateral relationship to indicate the opportunities available to SMEs.

Second Presenter: Mr Tee Peck Ling, topic entitled, "Issues and Challenges to Financial Management"

The third topic was presented by Ms. Shirley Chung. She touched on the impact of minimum wage implementation towards SMEs. She presented different types of impact and the effect of implementation based on various studies from other parts of the world. During her presentation, she showed the positive and negative impact towards the firm in general.

Third Presenter: Ms. Shirley Chung, topic entitled, "Overview of Minimum Wage"

The last topic was presented by Ms. Mandy Yeong who highlighted on the issues pertinent to the sustainability of water sources in Klang Valley and Putrajaya. She presented various views and comments by different governmental parties that indicated the needs for projects such as Langat 2 water treatment plant. Lastly, the results showed that these areas may suffer from water shortage by 2030 onwards. At the end of the day, the public left with invaluable knowledge on SMEs and areas of sustainability.

Fourth Presenter: Ms. Mandy Yeong, topic entitled, "Sustainability of Water Resources"

Organising committee are (from left), Asst Prof Dr. Loganathan, Cik Fitriya, Asst Prof Dr. Sia Bee Chuan, Ms. Farah, Ms. Mandy Yeong, Asst Prof Phang Fatt Kong, Asst Prof Dr. Falahat (CSDCSR Chairperson), Puan Kasmah, Ms. Shirley Chung, Ms. Komathi, Ms. Kalaivani and Mr. Low Chin Kian

Forum: Urban Poverty Realities, Solutions and Academic Opportunities, 11 April 2014

Urban poverty is an issue that is gaining the attention from the government. With rising prices, there is also a trend of many middle income families falling into poverty. If the poverty line income is set at RM1,500 (instead of the official figure of RM860), it is estimated that more than 20% of Malaysian households may be in poverty. An increase in urban poverty will also bring about other social ills like crime, vice, juvenile delinquency amongst others.

In line with UTAR�s vision - To be a global university of educational excellence with transformative societal impact, the Centre for Research in Sustainable Development and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSDCSR) is organising this forum where the reality of urban poverty is explained by academics and practitioners that are involved in the field as per following objectives:

1. To contextualize the reality of urban poverty with public perception and academic understanding.
2. To appreciate that Poverty Eradication requires more than piecemeal action but require a well-coordinated holistic, integrated and multi-disciplinary (faculty) approach.
3. To better understand the role that universities, local councils, business and government play in the fight to eradicate poverty.

The speakers and participants consist of people from various backgrounds which includes the local authorities from Selangor state government, lawyer, NGOs, academicians and general public.

Talk Series: Islamic Financial Consumption Talk, 29 April 2014

The center continued in its series of talk activities by inviting Dr. Ahmad Jamal from Cardiff University to give a talk to the academics and students on the perspective of Islamic Financial Consumption.

Talk Series: Some Statistical Rule of Thumb in Data Analysis, 23 May 2014

The center continued to organized more talk series as part of the activities to share knowledge among the members. The centre has invited Dr. Chang Yun Fah, a mathematician from FES to share with the academicians on the some knowledge pertinent to statistics when conducting data analysis.

Training Session on Turnitin Software, 10 & 12 June 2014

There were two training sessions conducted as part of the centre activities for the lecturers to be more familiarised with the usage of Turnitin software as part of the university requirement to instill the work of originality in writing academic thesis being part of the student�s graduation requirement. The training session was conducted by two of FAM staff, Cik Farah Waheeda Jamaluddin and Cik Fitriya Binti Abdul Rahim.

Talk Series: New Straits Times (NST) and its Development, 21 July 2014

UTAR Centre for Sustainable Development and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSDCSR) in collaboration with the Faculty of Accountancy and Management (FAM) organised the �"NST and Its Development" Talk on 21 July at Sungai Long Campus. The talk was presented by The New Straits Times Press (M) Berhad (NSTP) Group Managing Editor Datuk Abdul Jalil Abdul Hamid.

About 320 participants comprising mainly FAM students and academic staff thronged the lecture hall to listen to Datuk Abdul Jalil=s one-hour talk on the development of one of Malaysia�s leading print media group. He was accompanied by three other NSTP management officers namely its General Manager of Marketing Putri Shireen Syed Othman, Learning Curve Editor Hazlina Abdul Aziz and Senior Brand Manager Leslie Jebaretnam.

The main objective of the talk was to expose the students to the business aspects of media organisations and creating more awareness on sustainability of print media with the upsurge of digital communication and social media.

On hand to receive the guests were CSDCSR Chairperson Dr. Falahat, FAM Deputy Dean (Academic Development & Undergraduate Programmes) Ng Kean Kok, Economics Head of Department Chong Shyue Chuan, Accountancy Head of Department Dr Aik Nai Chiek, International Business Head of Department Tay Guan Meng, FAM Senior Lecturer Shamini Kandasamy and academic staff.

Talk Series: The Determinations and Dimensions of Customer Experience, 22 July 2014

The internal knowledge sharing continued with the center inviting Mr. Alexander Tay Guan Meng to share with us on the topic of determinants and dimensions of customer experience.

Talk Series: Financial Risk Management, 1 August 2014

The centre has taken the opportunity to broaden the perspective to understand the aspect of financial risk management by inviting 4 lecturers from finance to present the understanding of financial risk management. The four presenters have respectively talks on Portfolio Risk and Return by Dr. Aik Nai Chiek, Hedging Risk with Stock Index Futures by Mr. Tee Peck Ling, Hedging Interest Rate Risk with Interest Rate Swap by Ms. Jesslyn Tan Kok Eng and lastly Risk Control by Mr. Vincent Tung.

Talk Series: How Both Readers and Authors can Protect Themselves from Predatory Publishers? 4 September 2014

The internal knowledge sharing continued with the center inviting Ms. Saraswathy A/P Thurairaj to share with the authors on how to protect themselves from predatory publishers.

Talk Series: The Internationalisation of Born Global Firm: A Malaysian Perspective, 11 November 2014

The internal knowledge sharing continued with the center inviting Mr. Low Chin Kian to present on the topic of how Malaysian firm can be internationalised to be a born global firm.