UTAR hosts BAFE 2014

UTAR Faculty of Business and Finance (FBF), Centre for Accounting, Banking and Finance, Centre for Business and Management and Centre for Economic Studies, jointly organised the International Conference on Business, Accounting, Finance and Economics (BAFE) 2014 on 26 September 2014 at Kampar Campus.

Organised for the second consecutive year with the theme, ‘Globalisation in the 21st Century: Trends, Challenges and Issues,’ the one-day conference was a valued platform for thought sharing on research findings and networking on aspects of business management, accounting, finance and economics.

In his address, UTAR Vice President for Internationalisation and Academic Development Prof Dr Ewe Hong Tat said, “The theme for today’s conference is certainly most timely and relevant. The cross-disciplinary themes of this conference reflect the wide ranging impacts of globalisation on our society, including urbanization, education, climate change and much more and I am positive that BAFE 2014 will help to provide a very useful platform for more integrative related studies.” He also congratulated the organising committee for making the conference possible and extended a warm welcome to the participants.

Prof Ewe delivering his opening speech

Daniel Wa Wai How representing YB Dato’ Lee Chee Leong, Deputy Minister of Ministry of International Trade and Industry was the guest of honour at the opening ceremony.

The organising chairman of BAFE 2014 and Dean of FBF, Prof Dr Choong Chee Keong, expressed his gratitude to all parties for supporting the conference and he added, “The conference aims to attract experienced researchers and scholars who are willing to share their research outputs in the areas of business, accounting, finance, and economics. I believe each and every conference presenter in today’s proceeding will contribute to the development of new theories, methodologies, and empirical knowledge that will benefit all participants.”

Touted as a key initiative in providing a significant opportunity for researchers and academics to present their research findings, the successful BAFE 2014 saw the convergence of 90 participants and the submission of a total of 60 papers. The participants were from countries as far as Taiwan, Australia and Singapore while the rest included UTAR lecturers, staff and postgraduate students.

Prof Paresh Narayan from Deakin University of Australia and Assoc Prof Dr Albert Teo Chu Ying from National University of Singapore were the invited keynote speakers. Prof Paresh presented on ‘Does Financial News Predict Stock Returns? New Evidence from Islamic and Non-Islamic Stocks’ and Dr Albert Teo, spoke on ‘Doing Business Doing Good’ which focused on entrepreneurship and philanthropy.

Prof Choong (left) presenting souvenirs to (from left to right) Dr Albert Teo and Prof Paresh

Adding to the highlights was the announcement of the Winners of the BAFE 2014 Best Paper Award. Prof Ewe presented the prizes to the winners. List of winners as follows:

1. Poh Suan (Postgraduate Student, Universiti Sains Malaysia), Dr Hooy Chee Wooi (Senior Lecturer, Universiti Sains Malaysia) - Title: Effect of Geographical Diversification on Informational Efficiency

2. Tan Kok Hong (Lecturer, UTAR), Dr Chia Fah Choy (Assistant Professor, UTAR), Dr Alan Ong Han Kiat (Associate Professor, UTAR) - Title: Impact of Swiftlet Farming Relocation from Urban to Agriculture Land in West Malaysia

3. Padmashantini a/p Padmanathan (Lecturer, UTAR), Dr Gengeswari a/p Krishnapillai (Assistant Professor, UTAR), Sofiah a/p Kadar Khan (Lecturer, UTAR), Yap Wei Chyi (Undergraduate Student, UTAR) - Title: Factors Influencing the Purchase Intention of Hybrid Cars among Malaysians (A Case of Honda Malaysia)

4. Zuraidah Binti Zainol (Lecturer, Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris), Juliana Binti Haji Osman @ Zainal Abidin (Lecturer, Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris), Norsamsinar Binti Samsudin (Lecturer, Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris), Thuraiya Binti Zakaria (Lecturer, Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris) - Title: Achieving Customer-Brand Engagement for Companies’ Sustained Competitiveness: The Effect of Relationship Investments

The winners of Best Paper Award posing with guest of honour Daniel Wa (seventh from left), Prof Ewe (sixth from right), keynote speakers, BAFE 2014 organising committee and sponsors



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