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INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC ECONOMIC SYSTEM CONFERENCE (I-iECONS 2021)
Issues and Challenges in Implementing National Covid-19 Immunisation Program for Malaysians
Nur Qamarina Sharom Syaziyah Sharom
Faculty of Economics and Muamalat, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM) E-mail: [email protected]
1. Introduction
In Malaysia, the establishment of the Special Committee for Ensuring Access to COVID-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV) has to spearhead the way of moving Malaysia to be free of COVID-19. The implementation of the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme has been started in December 2020 and Malaysia has begun to receive the first batch of vaccine in February 2021. However, in implementing this mass vaccination program, there will be lots of issues and challenges that need to be focused on to make its ways to success.
This is aligned with Sustainable Development Goals or Global Goals that have been introduced by the United Nations in ensuring all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030. In achieving the third goal which is good health and well-being, Malaysia as one of the members of the United Nations need to take part in solving the issues of infectious disease such as COVID-19 by ensuring everyone has the access to the vaccines. Therefore, this study will focus to identify the challenges of achieving this goal.
As moving towards the end of 2020, numerous COVID-19 vaccine candidates managed to show relatively high efficacy in the clinical trials. The vaccines are the hope of society to open up for social and economic events. The vaccination program has been simulated and it was proven to be part of a two-pronged strategy in combatting the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia (Wong et al., 2021). The two-pronged strategy will be the vaccination and the obedience with the standard operating procedure (SOP) advised by the World Health Organization (WHO).
According to WHO, vaccination is a simple way of protecting people against diseases. The vaccine will stimulate our body’s defence mechanism system to build antibody or resistance in order to make our immune system stronger. Therefore, in protecting society against COVID-19, our government has brought the effort of introducing the National COVID-19 Immunisation Program.
JKJAV plays an important role in coordinating this program. This program is the largest vaccination program that has been introduced in the history of Malaysia. The vaccination program does introduce their policy in giving vaccines such as the vaccination is voluntary and will be given free of charge to everyone living in Malaysia. This program aims to provide herd immunity by ensuring 80% of Malaysia’s population to be vaccinated by February 2022 in order to reduce infections and death.
Under the National COVID-19 Immunisation Program, JKJAV has managed to secure vaccines supply from different suppliers such as Pfizer and Sinovac. After the procurement of the vaccines, here come the challenges in deploying the vaccine around Malaysia and several issues raised along the way.
140 2. Materials And Methods
For this study, face-to-face interview and questionnaires will be conducted. First, for the interview, the purposive sampling method will be used and the data will be gathered using audio-taped and semi-structured interviews. The respondents will be given questions and they have the opportunity to explain their answers. In addition, their expressions will be recorded. The potential respondents will be representatives who involved in the National COVID-19 Immunisation Program (health professionals, government officers, community representatives and university and college students).
Second, a self-administered questionnaire will be included in the sample required that the respondents who are recipients of the vaccines and are all willing to participate on their own. The convenient sampling method will be applied as a mode of conducting the survey. Respondents were briefed about the purpose and rationale of the research and invited to fill in self-administered questionnaires. Then, findings from both qualitative and quantitative approaches will be analysed and finalised.
3. Expected Findings
The proposed research is observing the implementation of the National COVID-19 Vaccination Program. It is hoped that the respondent’s opinions and views will be taken into consideration in the development of better improvement and implementation of mass vaccination program in Malaysia. All the issues and challenges that need to overcome also be a good reference for any upcoming project similar to this.
4. Conclusion
The proposed study would like to focus on the implementation of the National COVID-19 Vaccination Program.
It is one step towards a better future in Malaysia. This is because the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are absolutely a pain in the neck for the whole population of the world. Therefore, the mass vaccination program for Malaysians will give us new hope in improving our health, social and economy. However, there are issues and challenges that we need to overcome in order to implement the program such as public awareness, government role, media role and the vaccine itself.
Hence, it is hoped that in this study, the respondents’ ideas and perceptions towards this issue are gathered in finding the connection and midpoint. Besides, this study will also help in gathering the recommendations and suggestions that can be made for the improvement of the implementation of the mass vaccination program in Malaysia.
From the result, the respondents will be attentive to the issues and challenges of executing the National COVID- 19 Vaccination Program. Thus, the respondents with different background and role in the government or the community can act accordingly in order to ensure the success of the implementation of the National COVID-19 Vaccination Program. Last but not least, this effort will help in preparing both government and the community to overcome any challenges for implementing another mass vaccination program in the latter future.
References
Covid-19: Movement Control Order imposed with only essential sectors operating. (n.d.). Retrieved April 11, 2021, from https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2020/03/575177/
covid-19-movement-control-order-imposed-only-essential-sectors-operating
Covid 19: More individuals to be vaccinated next month. (n.d.). Retrieved April 12, 2021, from https://themalaysianreserve.com/2021/03/26/covid-19-more-individuals-to-be-
vaccinated-next-month/
Wong, W. K., Juwono, F. H., & Chua, T. H. (2021). SIR Simulation of COVID-19 Pandemic in Malaysia: Will the Vaccination Program be Effective? http://arxiv.org/abs/2101.07494
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INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC ECONOMIC SYSTEM CONFERENCE (I-iECONS 2021)
The Impact of Website Interactivity in Crowdfunding Platform
Wan Nur Fazni binti Wan Mohamad Nazarie, Aulia Rahman Zulkarnain, Hanim Misbah, Junaidah binti Abu Seman, Nur Ainna Ramli, Hafiza Abdul Hamid
Faculty of Economics and Muamalat, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM) Yayasan Maghfirah
E-mail ([email protected])
1. Introduction
Crowdfunding refers to a new Internet-based method of funding, in which individuals solicit contributions for projects on specialized crowdfunding (CF) platforms. As a platform it is important to identify the effectiveness and efficiency of the platform before it come out to the public (Wan Mohamad Nazarie and Williams,2021). Similar with e-commerce website, crowdfunding also need attention from researchers to study about website appearance.
This is important to gain an insight into how safe consumers feel when using a website due to lack of human presence and social element. A website acts as a bridge that links sellers and consumers. It appears to be a promising channel for website users when searching for information on products or services through the Internet.
According to McKnight et al., (2002), consumers tend to first explore a website before being ready to undertake any transactions. While exploring a website, the consumer’s initial trust may come as a result of a good first impression of a website’s quality (Lowry et al., 2008). Customers’ judgement of the website as an overall reflection of the trustworthiness of the vendor cannot be ignored (Hampton-Sosa and Koufaris, 2005).
Prior research asserts that website design positively impacts consumer trust in the online environment (Fimberg et al., 2020). Website design features are one of the key factors that could influence users’ responses and experience (Nielsen and Loranger, 2006). A website that is well designed will generally lead to better user performance. For example, a user may spend a considerable amount of time on certain web pages compared to others. By analyzing a user’s web-browsing behaviour towards website design features, their personal preference can be inferred and used in recommending information. Several researchers have taken multiple approaches to have a better understanding of the importance of the website. For instance, studies have focused on the color design of a website (Marcus and Alexander, 2007; Cyr, Head and Larios, 2009; Maguire, 2011); layout (Rosen and Purinton, 2004); images (Karimov et al., 2011); navigation (Tan and Wei, 2006; Cyr and Head, 2013); and multimedia cues (Wang et al., 2016).
Website interactivity is one of crucial factors in enhancing consumer perceptions toward crowdfunding platform.
An interactive website design would engage between the website and the crowd. As a brick mortar, a barrier for consumer trust towards online vendors may increase due to lack of human touch. Virtual re-embedding is an approach that could bring the consumer online experience closer to vendor and face-to-face interactions (Riegelsberger and Sasse, 2001; Steinbrück et al., 2002). Karimov et al. (2011) classified social cue design applications into three subcategories: human-like features, assistive interface cues and social media cues.
Human-Like Features
In the online environment, the absence of a human aspect is a crucial factor in respect to the restriction of human interaction between seller and buyer, compared to a bricks-and-mortar setting (Hassanein and Head, 2004). Karimov and Brengman (2011) found that a higher level of social presence can be achieved by embedding human-like cues, such as facial photographers or video streams, in the website. To trigger consumers’ trust beliefs, a sense of social
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presence, sociability and responsive human contact via the website interface should be transmitted, which in turn positively influences their purchase intentions (Gefen and Straub, 2004).
Steinbrück et al., (2002) found that displaying a photograph of the company on the website tends to build a higher consumer trust compared to not displaying any photographs. The usage of a human photograph is identified as being an effective way to increase the trustworthiness of the online vendor. In line with this, Aldiri et al., (2008) argued that the employment of photographs and video clips by the vendor can be an effective way to gain initial consumer trust.
Assistive Interface Cues
Assistive interface cues can be regarded as imaginary interaction. The response in imaginary interaction is produced by a computer. It has also been found that a sense of human warmth and sociability can be instilled by providing means of actual interaction with other humans or stimulating the imagination of interacting with other humans. Also, website features that impart a sense of social presence, such as recommendation agents, avatars, and live-help function, could stimulate the imaginary interaction with another human. In a broad review of the assistive interface cues literature, it was noted that the presence of an assistive interface mechanism might yield a higher level of social presence, which in turn elevates consumer trust (Qiu and Benbasat, 2010).
Social Media Cues
Social media cues can be regarded as objective reviews by customers or web communities (such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter or a blog). Generally speaking, a good testimonial from customers via social media could influence other consumers’ decisions to purchase or not (Khalid et al., 2013). Customer reviews could increase the social presence of the website and may increase prospective customers’ trust in the online vendor (Mudambi and Schuff, 2010).
Hence, the purpose of this study is to propose an integrated concept model with trust model to demonstrate how experiential context of website interactivity of crowdfunding platform influence crowd to fund the crowdfunding platform.
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Figure 1: Conceptual model of this study
The aim of this study is to explores the effects of website interactivity on crowd’s perceptions of crowdfunding platform using laboratory experiments. Based on above discussion, this study proposes these hypotheses.
H1: Trust of a crowdfunding platform is positively associated with funding intention.
H2: Perceived usefulness is positively associated with trust.
H3: Perceived usefulness is positively associated with funding intention.
H4: The level of interactivity of a crowdfunding platform is positively associated with trust.
H5: The level of interactivity of crowdfunding platform is positively associated with perceived usefulness.
2. Methodology
This study adopt 2 (website interactivity: high or low) x 2 (funding intention: yes or no) between subject experimental design. This study utilized the between-group experiment design. The between-group experiment design is used in separate groups of subjects with different kinds of conditions (manipulation) in the experiment and each subject is tested only once.
The experiment will be conducted with a single one-hour session for each subject. Each subject will be asked to complete the experiment individually and then they will be briefed about the consent form. The subject will only be notified that the project campaign had been extracted from an actual project in a CF campaign. Next, the manipulation check will be completed before conducting the actual experiment to prevent bias formed from responding to the dependent variables. Then, the subject will be asked to complete the questionnaire within the time given. Finally, each subject will be given a small gift for their participation.
3. Discussion
This study will provide several academic and practical implications. In academic, this study target to enhance the understanding of how interactive crowdfunding platform influence crowd to fund in crowdfunding project. By implementing the experimental methods on consumer behaviour and funding intention, the result of this study will provide more understanding on the trust model in crowdfunding platform context. Practically, this study provides several managerial implications of crowdfunding practitioners to build their own platform in accordance with online consumer behaviour. In other words, the findings of this study have important practical implications that provide guidelines for platform owner on establishing a strategy to help the crowd understand the feature of crowdfunding platform.
Reference
Aldiri, K., Hobbs, D. and Qahwaji, R. (2008) ‘The Human Face of E-Business: Engendering Consumer Initial Trust Through the Use of Images of Sales Personnel on E-Commerce Web Sites’, International Journal of E-Business Research (IJEBR), 4(4), pp. 58–78. doi:
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Cyr, D. and Head, M. (2013) ‘Website design in an international context: The role of gender in masculine versus feminine oriented countries’, Computers in Human Behavior. Elsevier Ltd, 29(4), pp. 1358–1367. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2013.01.050.
Cyr, D., Head, M. and Larios, H. (2009) ‘Colour appeal in website design within and across cultures: A multi-method evaluation’, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies. Elsevier, 68(1–2), pp. 1–21. doi: 10.1016/j.ijhcs.2009.08.005.
Fimberg, K. and Sousa, S., 2020, July. The Impact of Website Design on Users’ Trust Perceptions. In International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics (pp. 267-274). Springer, Cham.
Hampton-Sosa, W. and Koufaris, M. (2005) ‘The effect of web site perceptions on initial trust in the owner company’, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 10(1), pp. 55–81. doi: 10.1080/10864415.2005.11043965.
Funding Intention (Yes
vs no) Trust
Perceived Usefulness Website
Interactivity (Low vs High)
H1 H4 H2
H5 H3
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Lowry, P. B. et al. (2008) ‘Explaining and Predicting the Impact of Branding Alliances and Web Site Quality on Initial Consumer Trust of E- Commerce Web Sites’, Journal of Management Information Systems, 24(4), pp. 199–224. doi: 10.2753/MIS0742-1222240408.
Maguire, M. C. (2011) ‘Guidelines on website design and colour selection for international acceptance’, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), 6769 LNCS(PART 1), pp. 162–171. doi:
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