TY - JOUR AB - Purpose Four main strategies required for firms to be able to achieve their main objectives in organizations under the unified theory of the firm are technological advance, intellectual development, spirituality conducts and customer satisfaction concern. This study aims to explore the inclination of firms to adopt all these strategies in, factors that contribute to the adoption of all these strategies and significant relationship between these strategies of firms in the context of Malaysian firms.Design/methodology/approach Using primary data from the survey on a sample of firms in the financial sector of Malaysia, the study adopts several methods of analysis such as t-test for dependent sample, t-test for independent sample and correlation. Furthermore, ordinary least squares regressions are estimated to determine factors that have an impact on a particular strategy.Findings It is found that the strategies of the unified theory of the firm significantly contributed to the education level of managers. Highly educated managers tend to adopt strategies most of the time. It is also found that scores of customer satisfaction concern are highly related to scores of intellectual development and spirituality conduct. The correlation coefficient is also high between spirituality conduct and intellectual development.Originality/value The study analyzes the adoption of important strategies of a unified theory of firm among several firms using first-hand data (primary data) collected from the survey. VL - 11 IS - 7 SN - 1759-0817 DO - 10.1108/JIABR-09-2018-0143 UR - https://doi.org/10.1108/JIABR-09-2018-0143 AU - Duasa Jarita AU - Mhd Sarif Suhaimi AU - Abdul Sabian Nur Arfifah PY - 2020 Y1 - 2020/01/01 TI - Unified theory of firm: an empirical analysis T2 - Journal of Islamic Accounting and Business Research PB - Emerald Publishing Limited SP - 1453 EP - 1478 Y2 - 2024/04/26 ER -