Weekly Research Seminar Series - To recycle e-waste or not: Survey on psychological factors among young adults in Malaysia

We are pleased to invite you to our Weekly Research Seminar Series on Thursday, 4th November at 3pm. In this week seminar, we have external presenters, Dr. Erne Suzila Kassim, and Mohd Faizul Hassan presenting their research on “To recycle e-waste or not: Survey on psychological factors among young adults in Malaysia”. 

Weekly Research Seminar Series

We are pleased to invite you to our Weekly Research Seminar. It will be held online on 4th November from 3pm via Microsoft team platform. Weekly Research Seminar Series was launched in 2008 and has featured 300 presentations to date. The seminars provide a forum for researchers to share their work. Presenters include faculty from Middlesex University Dubai and other universities in the United Arab Emirates, as well as researchers from other global institutions.             

“To recycle e-waste or not: Survey on psychological factors among young adults in Malaysia”      

Erne Suzila Kassim & Faizul Mohd Hassan 

Abstract         

Technological advancements have led to producing a large variety of electronic items.  As technology proliferates, the life cycle of electronic products has also drastically decreased.  Therefore, a large volume of e-waste is now flowing out every year.  This situation is exceptionally prevalent in Malaysia.  It is estimated that Malaysia produces around 364 kilotons of e-waste/year or an average of 11.1kg per capita. The gold question of ‘Waste not, want not” run through everyone’s thoughts about getting rid of old household appliances. Numerous variables play a role in how and what an individual recycles.  In this context, this research explores the psychological factors among young adults in Malaysia towards intention to recycling e-waste. We collected 337 data and we found intention to recycle is predicted by attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control. Higher attitude is explained by higher reasons for, and higher environmental value. We also found the evidences on how environmental value is related to reason for and reason against recycling. In addition, we compared the recycling intention model against gender and job position. We found while females are more inclined towards environmental value of recycling e-waste and have a better social presence in motivating their recycling intention, it is the opposite for the males. Besides, students’ social presence does not shape their recycling intention. This research contributes to the emerging work design to improve our understanding of recycling behaviour. The findings can be used as a reference to the government, municipal council, non-governmental organization and community for policy development that is fundamental in addressing the e-waste issues. 

Presenter Bios   

Dr Erne Suzila Kassim is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Business and Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Puncak Alam Campus, Malaysia. She received her Bachelor Degree from Indiana University in Bloomington, USA, majoring in Economics and Sociology, MSc in Information Technology from Universiti Utara Malaysia, and PhD in Information Technology from International Islamic University Malaysia, specializing in digital innovations. She has been awarded with research grants for projects among others in the fields of e-learning, green IT, e-commerce and IT for micro-enterprises. Her research interests include social networking, remote work and research related to social creation and values. She is one of the panels in the development of Social Innovation Roadmap, Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.  At present she is working on Covid-19 vaccination roll-out case study, focusing on its impacts to the social and economy. Erne is currently Head of Innovation Management from the Faculty of Business and Management at Universiti Teknologi MARA. 

Mohd Faizul Hassan is a lecturer at the Faculty of Business and Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA. Prior to joining the academic, Mohd Faizul hold several posts related to industry and community engagement, assisting and coordinating for policy development and partnership. His research interests include digital innovation and society, technology management, and digital mental health and wellbeing. Mohd Faizul is at present a doctoral student at the faculty, and his research focuses on wellbeing and mental health.