Abstract—Orang Kuala as the sub tribe of Orang Asli
(indigenous people in Malaysia) cannot avoid the changes in
which occurs around them. For the indigenous people, the
change is always perceived as a threat which endangering their
traditional human capital. It is rarely that the change is
observed from a positive view in which it give them a chance to
change their life and compete with the other community. In case
of Orang Kuala, they are now participating in business-base
economic activities and left the former traditional economic
activities as fishermen. Their participation in business activities
will alter their traditional human capital and push them to use a
new human capital. The positive side of their involvement is
that their economic activities will be empowered. This occurs
due to the assumption that their engagement in business
activities can help them to achieve economic empowerment. To
scrutinize the truth, this article has two objectives; to identify
the ownership and use of new human capital and to identify
whether the new human capital is a factor to economic
empowerment. This paper used a quantitative approach which
has been conducted on 267 Orang Kuala in Johor, Malaysia.
The study showed, the ownership and the use of new human
capital are greater amongst businessmen as compared to
fishermen. The study also showed that the ownership of new
human capital is the factor of economic empowerment without
differential amongst the difference of Orang Kuala’s
occupations.
Index Terms—Malaysia orang Asli, new human capital,
human capital change, the ownership and use new human
capital, new human capital and economic empowerment.
W. A. Amir Zal is with the Department of Social Ecology, Faculty of
Social Development, University Malaysia Terengganu, 21030 Kuala
Terengganu, Terengganu, Malaysia (e-mail: waamirzal@umt.edu.my).
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Cite:W. A. Amir Zal, Ma‟Rof Redzuan, Asnarulkhadi Abu Samah, and Hanina H. Hamsan, "The Effect of the Ownership and Usage of New Human Capital Change on the Economic Empowerment Amongst Orang Kuala in Malaysia," International Journal of Trade, Economics and Finance vol.3, no.5, pp. 366-369, 2012.