Vol. 18 No. 4(I) (2026)

Malaysia is digitizing at an accelerated pace, especially in urban areas. Meanwhile, its population is rapidly ageing, leaving a narrow window to develop integrated mobility solutions for active ageing within the framework of smart cities. This research explores the use of transport technologies by the elderly in urban Malaysia and analyses the factors influencing their choices of transportation services. This study reviews different transport technologies, including e-hailing, online/contactless transport ticketing and payment, and other mobility technologies and services. The research employs a qualitative approach to understand transport-related concerns of the elderly in the urban area in Selangor. The main source of data was a series of in-depth interviews. The main influences on the elderly’s mobility behavior were found to be health conditions, personality, and travel confidence. Among the elderly with mobility challenges, there was a preference for private vehicles over public transport. Public transport was perceived as affordable and convenient. However, the elderly identified many usability barriers, including inadequate seating and extreme crowding. Many of the barriers would be mitigated with the use of various transportation mobility services. Generally, the elderly had positive views about safe, convenient, and affordable transport services. This study illustrates that incorporating integrated, accessible design and smart technology into the urban environments can provide secure, accessible transportation options for older adults living in ‘smart cities’.

With the continuous rise in food prices, the cost of living, and economic uncertainties, food security has become a serious public policy issue in Malaysia, especially for the B40 group. Despite its many dimensions, the existing research on food security has focused on food availability, food access, food utilization, and food stability, while being less focused on the factors of household food affordability and resilience that determine long-term food security outcomes. This conceptual paper proposes to broaden the definition of food security to reflect the situation faced by low-income households in Malaysia. This paper introduces an integrated conceptual model where food affordability is the proximal determinant of household food security and household resilience is the family's ability to "take a hit" and "bounce back" from economic shocks. This paper not only offers a conceptual framework for studying food security from the perspective of affordability and resilience, but it also offers insights for policymakers to consider in order to design more effective interventions. The proposed model is also a basis for future empirical studies.

Electronic sports, popularly known as esports, have grown in popularity among the general public, especially university students. It is expected that excessive participation in esports activities has negative impacts not only on students' health but also on their quality of life. Despite increasing research interest in esports, there is a knowledge gap in addressing the health problems of the esports lifestyle. This research investigates the relationship between physical condition, physiological factors, social relations, environment, spirituality, and healthy esports engagement. This article proposes a framework for a holistic model to assess the features of a balanced quality of life, such as a healthy lifestyle for esports players. The framework includes two techniques from health and sports literature. A survey questionnaire to esports players consisting of 150 university students was established. Pearson Correlation Coefficient and Regression Analysis were conducted to examine the independent variables. The findings showed that two of the variables (physical condition and social relations) were significant, while the others (physiological, environment and spiritual) were not significant with healthy esports engagement. This study concludes that the framework can assist esports athletes, particularly university and college students, to maintain a balanced quality of life while engaging in esports activities.

In today’s fast-paced digital economy, micro-entrepreneurs increasingly rely on digital tools to keep their businesses running and growing. Despite this urgent digital transition, a comprehensive understanding of how academic research addresses this phenomenon remains fragmented. This paper maps the current literature using a bibliometric analysis of Scopus data to better understand how researchers are studying this trend. We break down what the academic community currently focuses on and what it frequently misses by applying co-citation analysis, keyword co-occurrence, and network mapping. Our results show a significant increase in research on digital tools, mobile applications, and cloud-based services for micro-entrepreneurs. However, this research is geographically skewed toward developing economies. The top three countries with high citations are the UK, India and the United States, while the highest number of publications is dominated by India, South Africa and the United States, respectively. Despite the growing body of work, significant gaps remain. We still know very little about the long-term impact of technology on a micro-enterprise’s survival and do not even understand how local ecosystems drive technology adoption in the first place. This study provides a direct roadmap for scholars, policymakers, and industry practitioners looking to build better support systems for microentrepreneurs globally by identifying these blind spots.

National Healthcare Systems are an important aspect to study for health administration students, as they provide them with the knowledge and skills necessary to comprehend the organization, financing, and delivery of health services in a nation. The understanding of national healthcare systems allows students to examine healthcare policies, assess healthcare systems' performance, and recognize the strengths and weaknesses in the health care delivery system. Hence, the purpose of this study is to gain relevant and reliable data from the respondents to find out their opinions, experiences, and perceptions about the National Healthcare Systems (HSM479) course taken by the Bachelor in Health Administration (BA265) students. Data were gathered from 83 students who had finished the HSM479 course via online surveys on Google Forms. A structured questionnaire was created that focused on different dimensions such as Course Content and Relevance, Course Teaching and Learning, Student Engagement and Participation, Knowledge and Skill Development, Assessment and Feedback, and Perception and Satisfaction. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. The results revealed high levels of sense of relevance, student satisfaction, and positive learning outcomes among the respondents. Additionally, the course content, students' participation and skill development were significantly correlated with students' satisfaction in taking this course. The findings are consistent with maintaining continuity of higher education healthcare system education in higher education curricula, especially in health administration and allied health programs.

Knowledge of occupational safety is essential to ensure the well-being of the entire workforce. Hence, imparting occupational safety knowledge, especially to business and management students, is crucial, as it will prepare the students early before joining the industry. However, the needs of the present generation of higher-learning students transcend the current conventional teaching pedagogy. Therefore, higher learning institutions need to be creative in their teaching and learning approach. In line with this development, gamification has received recognition as a transformative approach in higher education, especially in enhancing learners' participation and inclusiveness towards complex fields like occupational safety, health and environmental (OSHE) management courses. This study examines the pedagogical effectiveness of OSHE Quest gamification, a safety-aligned board game designed to simulate real-world industrial safety scenarios. Sixty-three undergraduate students from one public higher learning institution in Klang Valley, Malaysia, participated to provide insights into their perspectives on the OSHE gamification board game. The study found that factors like personal traits, enjoyment, ease of use, usefulness, and acceptance play an integral part in influencing students' acquiescence to use gamified educational resources. The study also found that well-designed board games like OSHE Quest can serve as innovative tools for transforming OSHE teaching, bridging the gap between conventional classroom learning and interactive professional learning and practices.

Informal employment remains a significant feature of Malaysia’s labour market, yet its participation is often explained through a simplified distinction between survivalist necessity and voluntarist choice. This conceptual paper argues that such a binary explanation is insufficient for understanding the diverse realities of informal workers in Malaysia. Drawing on informal employment literature, recent DOSM statistics, Malaysian evidence on informal entrepreneurship, gig work, women micro-entrepreneurship, caregiving, youth employment challenges, and platform labour protection, a continuum-based conceptual framework of informal employment participation is proposed. Three broad positions are identified: survivalist informality, constrained voluntarism, and voluntarist informality. The concept of constrained voluntarism is introduced to explain workers who appear to choose informal employment for flexibility, autonomy, or income opportunity, but whose choices are bounded by economic insecurity, household responsibilities, weak social protection, limited formal employment opportunities, skills mismatch, financial constraints, platform dependency, migrant status, or institutional barriers. The paper also considers recent policy developments, including the Gig Workers Act 2025, and highlights the need to recognise non-citizen and migrant workers within discussions of informal employment protection. It is argued that this framework provides a clearer understanding of informal employment by recognising both workers’ choices and the structural constraints they face. The paper contributes by offering a Malaysia-focused conceptual framework that may guide future empirical research and inform more targeted labour market policies.

This narrative review examines entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and inclusive support in relation to entrepreneurial resilience among persons with disabilities (PWDs). Sources were drawn from a study literature matrix and related publications, with relevance assessed against these topics. Empirical studies were considered alongside conceptual work and policy guidance, while research involving other populations provided supplementary perspectives. The synthesis suggests that accessible education and support may contribute to entrepreneurial confidence and competence. However, these outcomes do not establish sustained business activity, venture survival, or improved income. The review distinguishes psychological and educational gains from longer-term business outcomes and considers coping and adaptation alongside external support conditions. Its conclusions are limited by differences between sources and the absence of a detailed search and selection record. Future research should track business outcomes over time using accessible measures. Programme providers should address participants’ learning and support needs and evaluate whether provision supports continued entrepreneurial participation.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly used in higher education to support experiential learning in customer service training, where applying theoretical frameworks such as the SERVQUAL model can be challenging. Students frequently struggle with emotional recognition, immediate decision-making, and applying SERVQUAL dimensions during role-play. To address these gaps, this study introduces ServeSmart, an AI-supported learning system that provides real-time guidance during customer service scenario role-play. Using a preliminary exploratory quantitative survey design, this study evaluated students' perceived learning experiences and the platform's usability. Using a non-probability purposive sampling strategy, 30 undergraduate students participated in individual scenario-based simulations followed by a validated post-evaluation questionnaire. Baseline findings indicated that a majority of participants had difficulty with emotional recognition and lacked immediate instructional feedback during simulations. Post-simulation results revealed that all participants reported higher perceived confidence in executing customer service tasks, a clearer perceived understanding of SERVQUAL concepts, and strong interest in future platform utilization. Overall, the findings demonstrate positive student perceptions of ServeSmart as a supportive experiential learning tool, highlighting its potential to offer an immediate instructional platform in service management education.

Fiscal sustainability in Malaysia’s public healthcare system has become increasingly important in the face of unprecedented challenges arising from population ageing and macroeconomic volatility. This study aims to analyse the factors affecting the fiscal sustainability of healthcare in Malaysia over the period from 1975 to 2024 using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model. The Healthcare Fiscal Sustainability Index (HFSI) is used as the dependent variable, while the old-age dependency ratio, real GDP growth rate, labour force participation rate, life expectancy, healthcare inflation rate, and unemployment rate are included as independent variables. The analytical framework is based on three theories: Demographic Transition Theory, Wagner’s Law, and the Fiscal Space Framework. The results indicate that the old-age dependency ratio has the strongest and most statistically significant positive relationship with HFSI in both the long-run and short-run models. The compression of morbidity hypothesis is supported by the significant positive relationship between life expectancy and HFSI. Real GDP growth has a significant positive effect on HFSI in the long run, suggesting that the government should leverage economic growth to strengthen sustainable healthcare financing. Labor force participation is not statistically significant, while the unemployment rate is marginally significant. Overall, the findings indicate that demographic ageing represents a major challenge to the fiscal sustainability of Malaysia’s healthcare system and provide important insights for policymakers to implement proactive measures to ensure long-term fiscal sustainability.