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Despite being a Muslim-dominated country, Bangladesh has widely embraced traditional microfinance since its inception in the mid-1970s. However, Islamic microfinance, which has a lot to offer to the poor, is still in its infancy and has yet to gain momentum in the country. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze the importance of Islamic microfinance and propose alternative Shariah-compliant microfinance models in Bangladesh.

This study is based on the desk research method, which relies on existing literature to collect secondary data on key concerns of traditional microfinance programs. In addition, institutional-level secondary data were also collected from the Microcredit Regulatory Authority (MRA) of Bangladesh. Guided by the Maqasid-al-Shariah, this study then proposes several Islamic microfinance models to overcome selected challenges faced by the microfinance industry in Bangladesh.

This study suggested three composite Shariah-compliant microfinance models, which are likely to help the underprivileged and thus ensure the achievement of the sustainable development goals in Bangladesh. The first model explained how the operational strategy of incumbent microfinance institutions (MFIs) could be restructured, while the second proposed the organizational strategies for establishing a new MFI. The third model used the notion of Sadaqah (charity) to address the multiple borrowing issues of the industry. Meanwhile, the successful transformation of the conventional microfinance industry to an Islamic one is dependent on the effective collaboration between the regulatory authorities, practitioners and MFIs.

Albeit the paucity of literature on the topic, the findings of this study will guide policymakers/practitioners in designing relevant microfinance models to help transform conventional microfinance into Islamic microfinance in Bangladesh.

This paper aims to examine existing literature on halal food consumption from the perspective of consumer behaviour research. It identifies progress, current state and gaps and provides direction for future research to advance the field.

This paper reviewed papers from 2007 to 2023 using Scopus and WOS databases. The review used the Theories–Context–Characteristics–Methods (TCCM) framework and followed the scientific procedures and rationales for systematic literature reviews (SPAR-4-SLR) protocol.

The review summarises the methods, theory and approaches used in the topic and presents key findings and a proposed framework. It can guide future researchers in developing their models, making it a valuable starting point for future research. Despite the existence of SRL in halal food to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work is the first review that proposes a model for halal food in consumer behaviour.

This review provides a twofold contribution. First, this review's theoretical contribution is advancing consumer behaviour literature on halal food. Second, this work's practical contribution is to enrich practitioners' understanding of the antecedents of consumer behaviour regarding halal food. This is the first review proposing a consumer behaviour model for Halal food. It makes a theoretical contribution to understanding consumer behaviour on Halal food and provides practical insights for practitioners.

Construction delay always causes massive damage to the advancing construction industries, which is no different in the case of Bangladeshi construction industries. This paper aims to investigate the major delay factors causing construction delays in public-funded, mixed and private-funded construction projects of Bangladesh. Also, it offers preventive suggestions from expert stakeholders to reduce the recurrence of delays.

At first, an extensive literature review was conducted to identify the thirty-seven major delay factors categorized under seven groups. A questionnaire was then developed for survey at ongoing construction projects at a different division of Bangladesh. Next, data from 110 respondents were collected, and the delay factors were ranked based on the Relative Importance Index (RII); lastly, probable solutions were suggested for top-ranked delay factors based on opinions from expert stakeholders in the construction sector of Bangladesh.

The overall RII ranking of the 37 delay factors showed “Construction mistakes and defective work,” “Contract modifications by the client” and “Adverse weather condition” as the top three factors causing the delay. For public-funded projects, “Construction mistakes and defective work” and “Slow decision making by a consultant” are the top delay factors. For mixed projects, “Slow decision making of the client” and “Construction mistakes and defective work ranked top, and for private-funded projects, “Financial problems and payment delay of the client” and “Adverse weather condition” ranked top. These nuances of ranking in individual project types ascertain that the causes of delay vary in terms of project features.

The outcome of this project will help identify the significant delay factors based on their severity of effectiveness associated with public-funded, mixed and private-funded projects in Bangladesh. The suggestions regarding preventing these delay factors obtained through the opinions of expert stakeholders can help reduce the effect of these delays in the context of Bangladesh and in countries where the similarity in construction environment prevails.

Previously, studies on construction delays in Bangladesh focused mainly on identifying the delays using qualitative analysis techniques. This study is based on a unique methodology of integrating quantitative research on delay factor identification and qualitative research on preventive measures following the opinions gathered from expert stakeholders in the construction sector.

The main issue is whether customers prefer convenience over Shariah compliance or the opposite when they decide their Islamic banking needs. The purpose of this paper is to explore why customers adopt Islamic banking products and services: Shariah compliance or convenience?

Using convenience sampling, 310 respondents’ data were collected through online survey. For testing the fit and hypotheses of the proposed model, AMOS 25 software and Smart-PLS 4.0 software have been used.

Attitude, Islamic value and convenience have significant determinants of Islamic banking products and services. Shariah compliance has no direct or indirect influence on neither intention nor actual behaviour to adopt Islamic banking services. Furthermore, gender has no such differential effect on the adoption.

Managers and marketers of Islamic banks may benefit from the findings of this study, which demonstrate fresh insights regarding the factors which help in strategy formulations to promote Islamic banking services.

The growth of Islamic banks, branches and windows is remarkable in both Muslim-majority and Muslim-minority countries in the world. This paper postulates the behavioural finance studies in Islamic banking and finance research stream by extending the theory of planned behaviour of Ajzen (1985) as all the three new constructs (Islamic value, convenienc and Shariah compliance) are statistically fit for further studies. However, only Islamic value and convenience are the two significant factors which drive customers to take decision in the proposed model. This study gives insights to the bankers and authority about the consumer behaviour.

Lean Manufacturing Systems (LMS) gained popularity among manufacturers globally. However, their efficacy in developing and least-developed countries remained noticeably understudied. Motivated by this research gap, the researchers of this study designed a quantitative study with a structured survey technique to investigate its context-specific impact on the apparel industry of a developing country. Hence, this study aimed to examine the relationship between LMS and elimination of waste (EOW) and operational performance (OP) and comprehend how the EOW mediates the relationship between an LMS and OP within the apparel industry of a developing economy.

The researchers collected data from 227 garment companies in Bangladesh. These organization-level data were then analyzed using the structural equation modeling approach with AMOS 20.0 software to examine the direct and indirect effects among EOW, LMS and OP.

The findings of this study suggest that EOW has a direct and significant effect on OP. This research also revealed that EOW has a partial mediating effect on the relationship between LMS and OP.

This research focused on a single industry administering self-reported data and cross-sectional design, limiting generalizability and causal inference.

LMS and directing efforts towards EOW can significantly improve the operational performance of apparel companies by reducing lead times and costs, improving quality and increasing productivity.

These findings can provide useful insight to managers, practitioners and future researchers to understand the relationship between EOW, LMS and OP to optimize their production processes and improve OP in the apparel industry.

This research intends to investigate the determinants that affect consumers’ purchase intention of electric vehicles (EVs) in Malaysia using an extended theory of planned behaviour (TPB).

Survey data were collected with a sample size of 306. The research used SmartPLS 4.0 structural equation modelling tool to analyse the data. Reliability and validity tests (discriminant and convergent validity) were used and subsequently assessed the measurement and structural models. Mediation analysis was conducted to identify the role of the latent constructs.

The findings indicated that a green purchase attitude plays a complete mediation role in the effect of environmental knowledge on the purchase intention of EVs. In the same notion, the effect of price perception and availability of charging facilities on the purchase intention of EVs passes completely through perceived behavioural control. However, the subjective norm was an insignificant mediator of the impact between government support and EV purchase intention.

This paper helps to examine the latent constructs that impact purchase intention using environmental knowledge, government support, price perception and the availability of charging facilities. Successful green marketing and a sustainable consumerism framework are seen as a booster to promote the usage of EVs in Malaysia.

An extended TPB model has been employed in this research to study the effects of the above-mentioned constructs. The results show that most of the extended constructs are significant in explaining the purchase intention. The empirical results address the gap in the consumer green attitude and provide insight into this area of study.

The factors for higher education institutions’ (HEIs) project management failure have been studied for several years. One of the issues is a lack of tools to combine their knowledge infrastructure capabilities (KIC) with project management (PM) to examine these infrastructures and monitor maturity. There are several project management maturity (PMM) models available. However, there are just a few empirical studies that support the three knowledge infrastructure capabilities and PMM integrations. As a result, the current research aims to suggest a new conceptual model, KIC-knowledge management (KM), and assess a research model that includes the three knowledge infrastructure capabilities as a prerequisite to elevate the PMM.

Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is used to evaluate the proposed research model. The study’s hypotheses were also examined using a sample of 352 respondents from PM departments at ten Yemeni public universities.

The study found that if the three key knowledge infrastructure capabilities integrate into the PMs, then it will help HEIs to perform project tasks more effectively and efficiently. Also, it will improve the PM maturity level if all the three capabilities positively effect PMM.

The study findings cannot be generalized to other industries because the collected date were with the Yemeni public universities’ context. Also, the new proposed model can be assessed in various sectors to increase the validity of the model. One more thing, future academics can conduct qualitative research study to validate again the proposed model.

Project managers can develop and improve their organization’s effectiveness and performance by focusing on these findings and using the developed model. Also, the findings of this study can be used as a benchmark for evaluating initiatives and knowledge-based governmental entities.

It is an opportunity for knowledge-based governmental entities particularly and other organizations to elevate most of projects to achieve a supreme level of maturity. Also, this study will assist employees to understand the relationship between KICs and projects within HEIs in Yemen.

This paper is among the first to empirically study the impact of the three knowledge infrastructure capabilities toward PMM. It links between two important domains: KM and PM.

This study examines the relationship between HR practices and millennial employee retention in the tourism industry in Bangladesh. It investigates the moderating role of the work environment in the relationship between HR practices and employee retention in the industry.

The researchers used non-probability judgemental sampling to collect 384 questionnaires through a survey of millennial employees. Partial least square-based structural equation model (PLS-SEM) was used to analyse the data.

The results reveal that HR practices included in this paper have significant relationships with millennial employee retention in the tourism industry in Bangladesh, except employee participation in decision-making. In addition, the results show that the work environment only moderates the relationship between two HR practices (compensation, training and development) and millennial employee retention.

The results suggest that managers in tourism organisations must develop HR practices and foster a positive work environment to retain millennials.

This is the only study that examines the moderating role of the work environment on the relationship between five selected HR practices (training and development, job security, performance appraisal, employee participation, compensation) and millennial employee retention. Previous studies used fewer HR variables.

Based on self-determination theory (SDT), this study aims to investigate the motivational antecedents of faculty members’ continuance intention of using online teaching platforms. For this purpose, we introduced a model incorporating basic psychological needs satisfaction (BPNS) and different motivational mechanisms.

Using a survey study of 312 faculty members, we examined the model by structural equation modeling (SEM).

The SEM results revealed a positive correlation between BPNS and continuance intention. Additionally, we illustrate the importance of different types of extrinsic motivation. By presenting an alternative model, we demonstrate that the initial-use-identified regulation (one type of extrinsic motivation) has an association with continuance intention (CI). However, this association loses significance if BPNS is present within the model. Moreover, we determined that there is no significant relationship between initial-use external regulation (another type of extrinsic motivation) and faculty members' CI for online teaching. Lastly, the results revealed that pre-use amotivation and intrinsic motivation impact CI through initial-use BPNS.

The results suggest that decision-makers at educational institutions should consider that extrinsic motivation has different types with different impacts and that BPNS has a vital role in faculty members’ intention to continue using online teaching platforms.

This study is novel because it reveals some details of extrinsic motivation effects by offering a model that combines BPNS and different types of motivation in two stages. It is important and rare that we concentrate on the almost neglected issue of faculty members’ motivational perspectives in online teaching, while the literature mainly focuses on students’ perspectives.

This paper examines the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the economic growth of Afghanistan over the period 1990 to 2019.

This study uses an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) to measure FDI’s impact on economic growth and determine the short- vs long-run relationship.

The results show that the F-bound cointegration test confirms the long-run relationship among the variables. The long-run and short-run results reveal that foreign direct investment has a significant negative impact on economic growth in the long run. However, domestic investment and labour force have a significant and positive impact on economic growth in the long run. Moreover, the impact of trade openness on economic growth is insignificant in the long run, while it has a significant negative impact in the short run.

In this study, we contribute to this research area by analysing the function of FDI in economic growth from Afghanistan’s experience and perspectives. This is the first study empirically examining this relationship in Afghanistan while considering other selected macroeconomic indicators. This paper could greatly benefit policymakers in Afghanistan by guiding the formulation of FDI policies that would spur its economic growth and development.