In collaboration with UNAIR and Universiti Teknologi Mara Malaysia, Universitas Paramadina held International Master in Management Applied Research Awards (IMMARA) 2022. With SDG as the key parameter of Business Sustainability, this conference aimed to incentivize in-depth study on ICT, leadership, ethics, Islamic Business Finance, strategic partnership, and entrepreneurship on 17 SDGs. Suffering to a great extent post-pandemic, industries are forcibly set to a long-term business plan, characterized by the three essential elements: social, economic and environmental. This phenomenon reshapes the moral authority that sharpens the appetite for business sustainability at local, national and global scales. The disproportionate impact of the pandemic becomes the antecedent of deep consideration toward the vulnerability of fundamental markets, capitals (physical, natural, cultural, human and social), and technologies.
Being moved by the general theme this conference brought, two UIII FEB students; Muhammad Ismail Sunni and Milhatun Nisa sent their paper entitled “Probing MSMEs’ Competency in Utilizing Financial Assistance from Islamic Banks in Indonesia: An ECM Approach”. They deemed that forecasting the sustainability of MSMEs in Indonesia can be done by measuring to what extent financing services that Islamic banking provided could reinforce their performance. Hence, it is more plausible to determine which MSMEs sector could bring out the best potential of the financing aid distributed. To survive and thrive, Islamic financing has proven to contribute to the revival of MSMEs either by rectifying growth, increasing competitiveness, preventing unemployment and presenting technical assistance. Upon their presentation, Ismail depicted that interestingly, owing to the pandemic, accommodation and food services fell in both the short and long run. In his analysis, this might be due to the competence of related MSME actors that could not optimally employ the financing competence, while advancing their business is lacking since their capacity in finding opportunities is not significant. Other than being given the chance to present their paper, their paper was selected as one of the six best papers out of 19 papers submitted.
