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Islamic finance and Halal product sectors are thriving successfully. This chapter is a general review of the perception of Asian consumers on Islamic finance and Halal sectors in the global Halal economy.

The first section will briefly describe the Halal concept in both Islamic finance and Halal industries, and the growth of both sectors in Asian countries. The second part highlights the review of Asian consumers’ perception towards Islamic finance products and Halal products.

The review found that the consumers’ perception towards the Islamic finance products and Halal products is distinctive. This is due to the diversity of Asian countries in terms of geography, religion, culture, ethnic, school of thoughts (madzahib), income per capita and government’s involvement.

The third part of the chapter concentrates on planning towards Halal marketing, which involves the move and future challenges in different layers of industries to gear up and strengthen the Halal economy.

This chapter explores how traditional femininity as a form of emphasized femininity influences single mothers’ decisions to be involved in romantic relationships. It explores how women negotiate the boundaries of emphasized femininity in making their choices related to involvement in romantic relationships.

The data for this study were collected by conducting in-depth interviews with 30 Malaysian Tamil women. They were selected using a purposive sampling method. The main criterion of selection was that participants were Malaysian Indian single mothers identifying Tamil as their mother tongue. Latent and manifest content analyses were used to scrutinize the interviews.

Single mothers identified their responsibilities qua mothers as the most important part of their life. Many have remained single because they were concerned about the well-being of their children. Other than that, many single mothers chose not to be involved in a romantic relationship because it may be stigmatized by their family or community. Involvement in a romantic relationship is seen as a transgression from the notion of traditional femininity, which is a form of emphasized femininity in Tamil society. Motherhood and karpu (chastity) are seen as central to the traditional notion of femininity in Tamil society.

This study contributes to the understanding of how emphasized femininity in a minority group in Malaysia influences single mothers’ decisions about romantic relationships. Furthermore, there are very few studies in Malaysia focusing on the experiences of single mothers from minority ethnic communities.

This study investigates the effect of corporate governance mechanisms and country-level factors on the extent of Internet Financial Reporting (IFR). We used a sample of 106 listed firms from five African countries. A financial reporting disclosure index was used to compute the aggregate IFR scores, which are made up of two components: content and presentation. Our results indicate that IFR relates to board size, firm size, country-level governance, economic development and index return. These results evidence the predominance of country-level factors over firm-specific factors in explaining the extent of IFR in Africa. It also shows that corporate governance mechanisms via board practices are insufficient to explain IFR in Africa. By further extending our analysis into the two components of IFR, we find that factors affecting the content and presentation dimensions are different. This study is among the first to investigate the extent of IFR in several African countries and adds to the existing evidence that has mainly focussed on firm-specific factors.

This chapter analyzes the role of grassroots organizations as natural helping systems for women’s empowerment in the rural areas of central Mexico. For almost three decades, productive projects have been the preferred strategy by the Mexican government in order to alleviate extreme poverty and promote women’s empowerment. Even if the impact of productive projects on women’s empowerment has been limited, grassroots organizations are created in order to have access to financial resources that have promoted the collective dimension of women’s empowerment. Through semi-structured interviews and participatory observation, this study retrieves the experience of women’s leadership, frustrated by changing public policy, local corruption, and political use of the social policy. In those difficult circumstances, grassroots organizations are fundamental tools for women’s well-being as they promote a specific understanding of empowerment, where family, community, and relatedness are values more important than competition and individualistic achievements.

Like several of its neighbouring countries, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has seen a move away from an oil-based economy towards a knowledge-based economy in recent decades. Research productivity in the Kingdom is increasing quickly along with international collaborations. Nonetheless, postgraduate research at universities in KSA is a relatively young domain, which certainly is a core factor in the evolving research management structures in the country.

Going forward, increased openness in research, along with continuing significant investment into higher education and research both by the government and the strong private sector points to a need for refined research governance and policy frameworks with designated expert research management staff developing and facilitating the underlying processes to enable Saudi institutions to engage at the forefront of academic research.

The global economy has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has placed greater responsibility on companies to fulfill their obligations to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) amid the crisis. This chapter investigates the role of a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) attributes in improving a firm's CSR in the emerging economy of Jordan and how the COVID-19 pandemic modifies this relationship. Using a Jordanian sample of 655 firm-year observations during the 2014–2021 period, the research results show that older CEOs, well-educated CEOs, CEOs' remuneration, and CEOs' ownership positively correlate with CSR reporting. However, long-tenured CEOs are associated with lower CSR initiatives. The subsample analysis findings also validate the significance of CEO attributes in improving CSR practice during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the prepandemic period. These findings are beneficial for the regulatory setters to understand better whether CEO attributes are linked to engagement in CSR-related information. This research is among the limited number of studies that have explored how CEO attributes impact CSR reporting for the stakeholder's welfare. Moreover, it uniquely concentrated on contrasting the findings before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Students with extensive supports needs (ESN) often require pervasive and intensive supports to access the full benefits of educational programming. In this chapter, the authors describe the application of both established and innovative technologies for promoting equitable access and opportunity for these students. They provide guidance for the use of technology across the areas of academic instruction, social communication, behavior supports, daily living, and employment.

This chapter aims to extend the knowledge and understanding on the role of halal ports in halal logistics. Halal logistics is a relatively new area in supply chain management. It refers to the process of managing the logistics operations such as fleet management, storage/warehousing, and materials handling according to the principles of Shariah law in ensuring the integrity of the halal products at the point of consumption.

This chapter studies how, in halal logistics, ports play an important role as the main processes of delivering halal products to the end consumers should be performed through their gateway. At port, the logistical handling of goods is performed through four systems, namely, transfer, delivery/receipt, ship, and storage.

The halal control and assurance activities conducted at transport, terminal, and warehouse should be clearly inspected in preserving the halal status of the products, thus enhancing the halal supply chain performance. Such activities include having a dedicated halal warehouse and transport, use of tertiary packaging in shipment as well as segregation of halal products from non-halal products to avoid contamination.

This chapter also highlights the issues and challenges of adopting halal logistics faced by the industry. The issues and challenges discussed in the literature includes disunity of halal certification, high cost and low demand of the halal processes, inadequate Shariah compliant personnel and lack of a general and worldwide acceptable halal compliant process.

The chapter concludes with recommendation to perform qualitative research and case studies at specific ports in order to assess the role and implementation of halal ports in their supply chain processes.

This chapter provided systematic and comprehensive analysis on trawl fisheries management and conservation measures in the Straits of Malacca. Detailed analysis is conducted on Malaysian fishery management framework particularly domestic country's trawl fishery status, legal structure, input-control strategies, ecosystem protection plan, pollution, law enforcement, and complementary measures that designed to reduce and prevent overfishing in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of Malacca Straits. Gaps and challenges found in existing trawl fisheries literature are presented followed by recommendations for improvement in the management and conservation of trawl fisheries.