Background
This paper explored adolescents’ sexuality with specific reference to their attitudes towards sex, safe sex, their risk-handling skills, sources of sexual information and how this information influenced their knowledge and attitudes.

Methods
This qualitative study utilized focus group methodology. Four focus groups were conducted, involving a total of 31 Malaysian adolescent boys aged between 13 and 17 years.

Results
Findings from the focus groups revealed that the concept of sex was seen within the context of marriage and sex was also viewed as synonymous with love. All the participants denied having sex. The reasons for having sex were: ‘to have fun’, ‘part of natural urge’, curiosity, tension and pressure from family, schoolwork and being away from family. Procreation and the expression of love were also noted as reasons why people have sex. Masturbation was fairly well known among the boys but was felt to have negative consequences on one's health. There was a general lack of awareness on the issue of wet dreams. There were mixed feelings with regards to sexual abstinence before marriage. Knowledge on safe sex was still vague. The boys also perceived themselves to be at risk of HIV infection, but lacked the skills for handling this issue. Sources of sexual information were mainly from male friends or through the mass media. None of their parents talked to them about sexual matters.

Conclusions
Level of awareness and knowledge on sexual issues is still lacking. Misconceptions still prevail. Sex education and research in this area is warranted.

The companies’ increased power also implies increased responsibility and new demands from the society and its inhabitants, and this responsibility of the corporations can be termed Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR. The core of the thesis concerns how a MNC can gain a competitive advantage through undertaking CSR in South East Asia. To operate in a prosperous way a company must gain recognition and acceptance, or in terms of the institutional network approach; legitimacy, from all its key stakeholders and the society in general, which is conducted through finding a harmony between the internal and external environments. The thesis consequently investigates the institutional settings of the internal and external environments of SKF Nilai in Malaysia, which functions as a case company, and the so-called matching strategies the company has used in order to harmonise the institutional settings. This paper further explores the implications and the actual benefits that evolve during the process of CSR, both at subsidiary and Group level.

In conclusion, certain requirements, both internally and externally, constitute the base on which the mother company and the subsidiaries rest. This foundation is necessary in order to develop the correct strategies for establishing and sustaining a competitive advantage through CSR, and includes supportive culture, competent management and supportive organisational structure.

Innovation plays a crucial role in the evolution of high-tech clusters which are invoked as a strategy for sustainable industrialisation and economic growth. Over the last five decades, the Silicon Valley in California has emerged as the most successful high-tech cluster in the world. Not surprisingly, policymakers, regional planners and real-estate developers elsewhere in the world have sought to emulate its success. Malaysia's answer to the Silicon Valley is the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC), which was launched in 1995 with the aim to create a knowledge-based economy through technological leapfrogging. Is the MSC a mere 'top-down' planning exercise that is out of sync with the needs of the Malaysian economy, or does it represent a strategic way forward for Malaysia to catch up on technologically advanced countries? This paper examines the rationale, implementation and progress of the MSC, the issues arising from the MSC experience and the implications for other developing countries.

Purpose – The aim of this article is to gain insight into some of the human capital development (HCD) policies that enhance employee satisfaction. A salient focus of the study is to assess whether employees in globalised foreign-owned MNCs are likely to be more satisfied with the HCD policies than with the practices employed by locally owned MNCs.

Design/methodology/approach – Specifically, four MNCs in the chemical industry, which were selected based on equity ownership, were analysed to ascertain whether employees in these MNCs in Malaysia are satisfied with the HCD policies by providing an account of the satisfaction level of the employees with the HCD policies in these four Malaysian MNCs.

Findings – A main conclusion from the findings of this research is that respondents in European MNCs are generally more satisfied than respondents in Asian-owned MNCs with the HCD policies of the company. On the whole, European MNCs place more importance in HCD but it cannot be concluded that foreign-owned MNCs have better HCD policies and hence higher employee satisfaction with the HCD policies compared with locally owned MNCs.

Research limitations/implications – Similar research could be conducted on a larger sample, incorporating MNCs of different equity ownership, to determine how HCD policies of globalised MNCs affect employee satisfaction. Further research could be extended to different regions and sectors.

Practical implications – It provides an insight of desirable HCD practices that human capital practitioners could develop to create competitive advantage through their human capital assets.

Originality/value – In addition to identifying the relevant HCD practices, commentary is provided of current knowledge in terms of best HCD practices that could be emulated by local organisations as well as other institutions in the Asia Pacific region.

The purpose of this paper is to examine various normative, attitudinal and control factors influencing consumers’ intention to adopt broadband internet in a developing country such as Malaysia. This study is based on empirical data collected using a self-administered questionnaire relating to the normative, attitudinal and control variables. Structural equation modeling analysis is conducted to test the role of numerous variables on consumers’ behavioral intentions to adopt broadband internet in Malaysia. Results revealed that Primary Influences (PI), Relative Advantage (RA), Hedonic Outcomes (HO), Facilitating Conditions Resources (FCR), and Self-Efficacy (SE) are positively associated with consumers’ Behavioral Intention (BI) to adopt broadband in Malaysia. The significance of this research study is twofold. Practically, this research study provide some useful guidelines to industry players, be it the internet service providers (ISPs) or the policy makers, to understand which are the factors (primary influences, self-efficacy, relative advantage, hedonic outcomes and facilitating conditions resources) that can have an influence on consumers’ intention to adopt broadband technology. It was found that primary influences, self-efficacy and relative advantage are the key determinants that influences consumers’ broadband adoption. From here, practitioners could take into consideration our findings when revising and restructuring their marketing strategy. Theoretically, the research framework used in this study is an extension from the past research models used (i.e. TPB, DOI and MATH). With the newly integrated framework, a greater level of comprehension can be attained with regards to the broadband acceptance among the Malaysian consumers.

This article attempts to bring together recent literature about the typology of nationalism, with the ways in which ‘Malay’ or ‘Melayu’ have been used as the core of an ethnie or a nationalist project.
Different meanings of ‘Melayu’ were salient at different times in Sumatra, in the Peninsula and in the eastern Archipelago, and the Dutch and British used their respective translations of it very differently. Modern ethno-nationalist projects in Malaysia and Brunei made ‘Melayu’ a contested and often divisive concept, whereas its translation into the hitherto empty term ‘Indonesia’ might have provided an easier basis for territorial, or even ultimately civic, nationalism in that country.

This essay reads Lloyd Fernando’s Green is the Colour (1993) against the “lost” (forgotten, erased) but recently recuperated histories of ethnic unity in Malaysia to challenge the state’s account which paints the past as a time of disunity and animosity between the ethnicities essentialized as “races”. Specifically, I reframe the racial violence of “May 13, 1969” at the heart of Green is the Colour to argue that the novel gives the event a much more radical treatment than has been critically acknowledged.
Instead of presupposing racial difference as the natural and spontaneous cause of the violence, the novel, I show, unmasks as myth the account by the state which renders its own complicity invisible.

This essay reads Lloyd Fernando’s Green is the Colour (1993) against the “lost” (forgotten, erased) but recently recuperated histories of ethnic unity in Malaysia to challenge the state’s account which paints the past as a time of disunity and animosity between the ethnicities essentialized as “races”. Specifically, I reframe the racial violence of “May 13, 1969” at the heart of Green is the Colour to argue that the novel gives the event a much more radical treatment than has been critically acknowledged. Instead of presupposing racial difference as the natural and spontaneous cause of the violence, the novel, I show, unmasks as myth the account by the state which renders its own complicity invisible.