Search results

One of the main issues that many organizations will face in the coming years is the management of increasing diversity in the workforce. The purpose of this paper is to examine the levels of individualism and collectivism of managers in two different cultural environments, that is, Malaysia and Australia.

Data were collected by questionnaire from middle managers in a total of 18 organisations in Malaysia and ten organisations in Australia. Individualism‐collectivism was measured using Singelis et al.'s 32‐item scale. The items in the scale are designed to measure the horizontal and vertical aspects of individualism‐collectivism. The items were answered on seven‐point scale where 1 indicates strong disagreement and 7 indicates strong agreement. In addition, the seven‐item job satisfaction measure, which is part of the Survey of Organizations questionnaire developed by the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, was used.

The study reveals the existence of differences between Malaysian and Australian managers on the level of vertical individualism, horizontal collectivism, and vertical collectivism. In addition, the Australian managers appear to have a significantly higher level of job satisfaction than their counterpart in Malaysia.

Overall, the findings of the present study suggest that there have been significant shifts in value classifications in Malaysia since Hofstede conducted his original study. This finding underscores the fact that, although a nation's work‐related values and attitudes are deep‐seated preferences for certain end states; they are subject to change over the years as external environmental changes shape a society. Therefore, researchers and practitioners should use caution before attempting to use work‐related values and attitudes to understand human behaviours in organizations.

The results of this study may be of interest and assistance to managers of multinational and international organizations who need to manage in global contexts and, therefore, need to understand cultural‐driven differences in personal and interpersonal work‐related conditions between and across nations.

The results of this study provide empirical corroboration of the theoretical perspectives of Singelis et al. on individualism‐collectivism and horizontal and vertical dimensions of individualism and collectivism respectively. In addition, they may be of interest and assistance to managers of multinational and international organizations who need to manage in global contexts and, therefore, need to understand cultural‐driven differences in work attitudes of employees between and across nations. Finally, the study's findings contribute to a growing body of research that illustrates the need to take a multidimensional approach to the study on individualism‐collectivism.

Recent trends and developments in Bitcoin have led to a proliferation of studies that analyzed the Bitcoin returns and volatility; however, the volatility connectedness between Bitcoin and equity market information in emerging countries quietly remains scarce. Regarding this deficiency, the purpose of this paper is to examine the dynamic connectedness between Bitcoin and equity market information.

Daily data from January 1, 2012 to May 31, 2018 are used. The paper applies a novel time-varying parameter vector autoregression (TVP-VAR) model extended by Antonakakis and Gabauer (2017). This model addresses the biases in coefficient estimates, considering innovations from sources of time variation.

The findings reveal that the volatility transmission of Bitcoin return is not an important source of shocks of market returns in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS), suggesting that Bitcoin return contributes less volatility to equity market information. The results further show that Bitcoin is the main receiver of volatility while market price risk is the dominant transmission catalysts for innovations in the rest of the stock market returns.

Important implications can be derived from these findings, signaling of the demand to develop and implement volatility connectedness policy measures in order to guarantee the stability of financial assets. However, the most significant limitation lies in the fact that the analysis of this paper is restricted to the volatility connectedness between Bitcoin and equity market information in BRICS countries.

By acknowledging the wide range of econometric models, the paper uses TVP-VAR model because this methodology is a useful and relevant tool in modeling the volatility connectedness of financial variables, thus providing meaningful information to policy makers and international investors.

This study aims to examine the performance of government projects financed by the issuance of Indonesia Sovereign Sukuk (SBSN Project) from stakeholder theory perspective and propose policy recommendations to improve its effectiveness as a government financing instrument.

The authors applied a qualitative interpretive approach in this study by conducting content analysis using stakeholder theory. Big data from official webinars about Indonesia Sovereign Sukuk issuance on the internet were used and coded by qualitative data analysis software.

The results reveal the stakeholders’ concerns regarding the project implementation. The cluster analysis confirms that technical ministries are the instrumental stakeholders who have the authority and tools to achieve SBSN Project success. The authors propose inclusive policy recommendations for each stakeholder, such as establishing an SBSN Project Master Plan, presuming disincentive to use project extension facility and setting up a comprehensive approach to assist working units in technical ministries in project preparation, development and service delivery. From the perspective of sustainability, the Government of Indonesia should focus more on education to the local community as end-users, value creation to integrate SBSN Projects with other financing schemes and regulation to ensure the effectiveness of a reward–punishment mechanism.

The findings of this study may be useful to the Government of Indonesia, especially the Ministry of Finance, in determining and establishing moving forward policies that are relevant and contribute significantly to the sustainability of the Sovereign Sukuk programme.

This study is one of a few studies exploring Islamic public financing instruments, with its originality lying in the examination of the SBSN Project performance from an academic approach, specifically stakeholder theory. This study uses big data available from the public domain to formulate proposed actions to achieve a sustainable SBSN Project programme.

Several research models have been proposed in the existing literature to understand the intention to use Islamic banking where conventional bank customers are not primarily addressed. Upon measuring the level of Islamic financial literacy (IFL) among the customers of conventional banks in the UAE, the purpose of this paper is to examine the direct and indirect effects of IFL, awareness, cost and benefit, reputation and attitude towards Islamic banking on the intention of potential customers to use Islamic banking.

Using judgmental sampling techniques, questionnaires were distributed to working individuals who did not have accounts with Islamic banks. A total of 350 completed and usable questionnaires were received and used for further analysis. The SmartPLS 3.0 software was used to analyse the data.

The results revealed that the level of IFL was high across the respondents and differed significantly as a function of gender, income level and years of work experience. The findings showed that IFL, awareness, reputation and attitude towards Islamic banking significantly influenced the intention to use Islamic banking, while cost and benefit appear not to. Interestingly, IFL was negatively correlated with the intention to use Islamic banking, but when the attitude towards Islamic banking mediated the relationship between IFL and the intention to use Islamic banking it then became positive.

Future research should consider looking at non-Muslim economies, which might be more vulnerable to IFL. In addition, a comparison between the current customers of Islamic banks and potential customers might be relevant to see whether the IFL of the current customers differs from the new customers.

The implications of the research are twofold. First the study suggests that IFL is crucial for an Islamic bank’s potential new customers. Islamic bank managers should design and focus their policies toward enriching the knowledge of the public about Islamic banks and their products. Second, IFL alone does not lead to a higher level of intention to use Islamic banks unless there is a positive attitude towards such banks.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies to consider the IFL measure used in this paper. Therefore, this study will be the foundation for future research on IFL.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the effect of management and decision‐making styles on the job satisfaction of academic staff in a Malaysian Research University.

The sample consisted of 218 respondents. The instruments used in the study were the Teacher Job Satisfaction Questionnaire and the Decision Style Inventory. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to determine the influence of decision‐making style and management style on the job satisfaction.

The findings showed that the research university had adopted an analytical decision‐making style. The hygiene factors were the predictors of job satisfaction as perceived by the academic staff at the research university in Malaysia.

This research selected a top Malaysian research university and small samples were selected from the whole population under consideration, thus, the findings can be generalized as similar to other research universities. In addition, the university management determines the decision‐making style, and the job satisfaction of the academic staff is affected by the decision‐making style of the university.

A contribution is made to the literature as the research reinforces the view that the management style and decision‐making style can predict or affect the job satisfaction of the academic staff.

Organizational culture is a determinant for quality improvement. This paper aims to assess organizational culture in a hospital setting, understand its relationship with perceptions about quality of care and identify areas for improvement.

The paper is based on a cross‐sectional survey in a large clinical department that used two validated questionnaires. The first contained 20 items addressing perceptions of cultural typology (64 respondents). The second one assessed staff views on quality improvement implementation (48 faculty) in three domains: leadership, information and analysis and human resource utilization (employee satisfaction).

All four cultural types received scoring, from a mean of 17.5 (group), 13.7 (developmental), 31.2 (rational) to 37.2 (hierarchical). The latter was the dominant cultural type. Group (participatory) and developmental (open) culture types had significant positive correlation with optimistic perceptions about leadership (r=0.48 and 0.55 respectively, p<0.00). Hierarchical (bureaucratic) culture was significantly negatively correlated with domains; leadership (r=−0.61, p<0.00), information and analysis (−0.50, p<0.00) and employee satisfaction (r=−0.55, p<0.00). Responses reveal a need for leadership to better utilize suggestions for improving quality of care, strengthening the process of information analysis and encouraging reward and recognition for employees.

It is likely that, by adopting a participatory and open culture, staff views about organizational leadership will improve and employee satisfaction will be enhanced. This finding has implications for quality care implementation in other hospital settings.

The paper bridges an important gap in the literature by addressing the relationship between culture and quality care perceptions in a Pakistani hospital. As such a new and informative perspective is added.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between Islamic governance and the social performance of Islamic banks, pioneering a new aspect in terms of the impact of the National Shariah Board (NSB) on the social performance of Islamic banks. The essential body in the Islamic banks in charge of Islamic governance is the Shariah Supervisory Board (SSB). Therefore, in this study, the authors explore how the characteristics of the Shariah board and Islamic governance mechanisms influence the social performance of Islamic banks.

Panel data methods are applied to the annual data of 43 banks from 14 countries over the period 2012–2018 to explore the impact of Islamic governance on Islamic banks’ social performance. The authors have used all available bank annual reports in the given period. Social performance is measured by Maqasid al-Shariah (in terms of the goals of the Islamic moral economy) index using a comprehensive evaluation framework. Islamic governance is represented by the improved Islamic Governance Score (IG-Score) index, which measures the quality of Islamic governance in Islamic banks. In the research, the authors also introduce the frequency of SSB meetings in IG-Score.

The findings suggest a strong link between Islamic governance and the social performance of Islamic banks, illustrating the importance of the Shariah board in achieving maqasid. On the other hand, the research discovered that NSBs are inefficient and the existence of NSB can jeopardize the social performance of Islamic banks. The results of this research imply valuable recommendations for Islamic banks that are keen to improve their social performance.

Besides investigating the impact of SSB governance on the social performance of Islamic banks by using an improved IG score index, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that investigates the impact of NSBs on the social performance of Islamic banks.

This paper reviews economic and finance research on Islamic investments. In the course of our review, we focus on the following issues: the performance of Islamic stock indexes, Islamic finance–growth nexus and Islamic real-estate investment trust market.

This literature survey consists of two stages such as random and systematic. It begins with a random search of articles with the intention to explore the three different areas of Islamic banking and finance. In order to maintain some level of quality of the literature review, we explored inside citations of articles based on relevant and recent articles from SCOPUS and Web of Science.

This paper represents an attempt to organise current research on Islamic stock markets, Islamic finance-growth nexus and Islamic real-estate finance: (1) the first prevailing finding is that Islamic stock indices are less volatile than conventional stock indices; (2) most empirical studies regarding Islamic finance–growth nexus focus on the impacts of banking sectors on growth and neglect other segments of the Islamic financial market; (3) based on our review of existing studies, there is no unanimous model for Islamic home financing in Islamic banks.

The mixed findings in this area hinder the understanding of Islamic investment and prevent identifying trends that support decision-making. Our review provides suggestions for prospective research directions. Most empirical studies regarding Islamic finance–growth nexus focus on the impacts of banking sectors on growth and neglect other segments of the Islamic financial market.

There is no literature review on Islamic finance-growth nexus and Islamic real-estate literature. Therefore, we are going to fill this gap to review these three different aspects of Islamic banking and finance.

The purpose of this paper is to examine and analyze the effect of Lamaholot culture and role conflict on occupational stress and its impact on the performance of ikat weaving female craftspeople. This research is conducted in East Nusa Tenggara Province (NTT) based on consideration of the spread of weaving industry center.

The study population is 388 ikat weaving craftspeople in 20 industrial centers spread over 11 sub-districts in East Flores Regency. Inferential statistics which is often called as inductive statistics or probability statistics is statistical techniques for analyzing sample data and the results are applied to the population. This analysis is used to test the relationship between variables in the hypothesis (Sugiono, 2014, p. 207). This research uses structural equation modeling with variance-based or component-based approach with partial least square to test hypothesis and produce a fit model.

Lamaholot culture has a negative effect on occupational stress, on the other hand, role conflict has a positive effect on occupational stress. The higher the Lamaholot culture and the lower the role conflict will have an impact on the reduction of weaving workers’ stress. The higher the Lamaholot culture, and the lower the role conflict and the occupational stress will have an impact on the improvement of performance of weaving craftspeople. Occupational stress mediates the effect of Lamaholot culture and role conflict on the performance of weaving craftspeople.

The originality of this research lies in the use of occupational stress as a mediator between relationship of Lamaholot culture and role conflict on performance. On the other hand, the use of Lamaholot culture variable has a function as a derivative of organizational culture theory derived from the local culture of NTT, Indonesia. With the discovery of novelty from this research, it is expected to enrich the literature related to the field of behavioral organizational science, especially about role conflict, occupational stress and organizational culture using local cultural values of Lamaholot.