The demand for palm oil is steadily increasing where global consumption in 2020 has reached 77 million metric tons or equivalent to 7 kg of palm per capita usage. However, the industry is under critics for unsustainable production practice and environmental degradation due to unscrupulous deforestation. One of the measures taken to ensure sustainability practices in the industry in Malaysia includes certifications such as the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and the Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO). These certifications are offered to industry players/plantation giants in which all stakeholders/members need to fulfill stringent requirements in order to obtain the certification. Efforts are now being taken to ensure that every stakeholder in the palm oil industry obtain sustainable certification, and this includes effort to enable smallholders to also follow the guidelines and fulfill the certification requirements. However, as of 2021, only 30% smallholders were certified despite the rigorous efforts made. Several factors may have hindered the participation of these smallholders. Hence, it is crucial that the agencies involved in managing this industry identify the factors influencing the certification of smallholders. The identification of these determinants will help policymakers to strengthen policy in disseminating sustainability practices in the palm oil industry. The objective of the current study is to identify factors influencing smallholders' participation in palm oil certification in Malaysia. This study looks beyond rational choice theory and develops a model based on elements of social structure and interaction. Quantitative approaches through questionnaire survey were used in this study. Purposive sampling was used, and data collections involved 200 oil palm smallholders in Malaysia. Four elements, namely, “Perceived Economic Benefit,” “Social Interaction,” “Shared Identity,” and “Communication Discourse,” were found to have significant influences on smallholders' participation in palm oil sustainable certification. Implication and future recommendation were included in the concluding remark.

Health, safety and the working environment are of paramount importance, especially in the high-risk environments found at facilities in the oil and gas industry, where hazards are inevitable and accidents may lead to regrettable situations such as explosions, oil spills and other disasters. The high number of accidents and disasters at such facilities bring safety-related matters to the fore. The complexity of the communication process is very often underestimated, where failures in communication could lead to major disasters. This paper investigates the role of communication management and the organizational communication climate and their impact on incidents and disaster avoidance. This study embarks on a quantitative approach involving 260 personnel from high-risk workplaces at oil and gas facilities, based on purposive sampling. Hypotheses were tested using PLS-SEM to identify causal relationships and for mediation analysis. The findings of this study show that communication management and the organizational communication climate have a significant impact on disaster avoidance. The organizational communication climate is also found to be a significant mediator for the relationship between communication management and disaster avoidance. Communication management and the organizational communication climate need to be enhanced and to be integrated with other technology and innovation to improve safety regulation adherence in the oil and gas industry.

Social media is a prominent communication platform. Its active usage permeates all generations and it is imperative that the platform be fully optimized for knowledge transfer and innovation diffusion. However, there are several considerations regarding platform usage, including media affordances. Social media affordances enable users to interact with the world around them through features of modality, agency, interactivity, and navigation. Previous studies have indicated that social media affordances significantly influence user behavior and usage. However, research exploring the effect of social media affordances on knowledge acquisition and the reduction of decision-making complexities is limited. Therefore, focusing on 179 paddy farmers in Malaysia, this study examined the effect of social media affordances on information quality, knowledge acquisition, and complexity reduction regarding innovation adoption decisions using a quantitative approach. This study’s findings reveal that social media affordances have a significant effect on perceived information quality, knowledge acquisition, and complexity reduction.