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Looking into the Islamic banking sector in Palestine: do religious values influence active social media engagement behavior?

Mahmoud Yasin (Department of Marketing, Arab American University, Ramallah, Palestine)
Lucia Porcu (Department of Marketing and Market Research, University of Granada, Granada, Spain)
Francisco Liébana-Cabanillas (Department of Marketing and Market Research, University of Granada, Granada, Spain)

Journal of Islamic Marketing

ISSN: 1759-0833

Article publication date: 29 July 2020

Issue publication date: 29 July 2020

549

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how religious values of Islamic banking users influence their active social media engagement behavior (SMEB), when exposed to online brand related-content.

Design/methodology/approach

The method used for data collection was an online self-administered questionnaire. A total of 448 valid responses were obtained from Islamic banks customers, who are members of at least one online brand community (OBC) on Facebook. Responses were analyzed and processed by means of structural equation modeling.

Findings

The results of the online survey reveal that religious values have a positive influence on the active SMEB in terms of contributing (like and/or share) and creating (posting positive comments) of brand related-contents via Facebook OBC. Religious values play a key role in encouraging Islamic banks’ customers to share and forward posts, advertisements and/or contents. Furthermore, religious values encourage customers to forward contents that comply with their religious values and beliefs and are also compatible with the Islamic rules of Shari’ah.

Originality/value

The findings of this study suggest that religious values are likely to impact customer behavior when consuming, liking, sharing and commenting on the online contents generated by Islamic banks. Given the fact that Islamic religious values are universal and persistent, there is a potential for long-term benefits for those Islamic banks that identify profitable religious consumer segments within the domestic and global markets as well as to promote and enhance active SMEB in terms of number of positive comments, likes and shares of brand-related contents.

Keywords

Citation

Yasin, M., Porcu, L. and Liébana-Cabanillas, F. (2020), "Looking into the Islamic banking sector in Palestine: do religious values influence active social media engagement behavior?", Journal of Islamic Marketing, Vol. 12 No. 9, pp. 1801-1819. https://doi.org/10.1108/JIMA-10-2019-0201

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited

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