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Human resource management; Employee benefits management.

It can be used at undergraduate or postgraduate level for students at institutions of higher learning taking courses related to employee benefits management or human resource management.

The case is about the intention of Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) in purchasing health insurance for its employees in early 2011. For this purpose, a tender for group medical Takaful for UUM staff was placed in two major Malaysian newspapers on 20 February 2011. Then, after the tender closing date, a report was prepared and sent to the bursar of UUM, En Amron, on 28 April 2011. Ten companies had submitted their tenders; thus, En Amron had to identify the optimal group medical Takaful offered by the tenderers, so that he could put forward his recommendation to UUM tender committee board for its consideration and approval before the matter was brought to higher authorities for endorsement and implementation.

This teaching case will enable students to explain the reasons why an employer provides health insurance, to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of providing health insurance programme as non-contributory and contributory plans, to conduct company and plan assessment in making decision to purchase group medical Takaful and to evaluate either to purchase group health insurance directly from life insurer or to engage insurance broker.

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The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of satisfaction (SAT) and trust (TRS) on word of mouth (WOM) and buying decision (BD) for Sharia life insurance in the Muslim society of Indonesia.

The research design was taken from 386 Muslim customers who held Sharia life insurance policies using the approach of purposive sampling in four cities in Indonesia, namely, Jakarta, Surabaya, Makassar and Medan. The hypothesis testing used structural equation modeling.

The research results show SAT and TRS have effects on WOM. Moreover, WOM has a significant effect on the BD of the customers of the Sharia life insurance product.

This study focused only BD of customers who bought Sharia life insurance products, so the results cannot be generalized to other types of Sharia insurance. Therefore, future research could consider other Sharia insurance products, such as Sharia general insurance.

In relation to the testing of SAT and TRS on WOM, this study examined the influence of the two variables on WOM and BD. This study can serve as reference for Sharia life insurance companies when formulating promotion strategy.

This study justified the strong association between SAT and TRS for WOM and BD in Sharia life insurance in an integrated way.

This study aims to determine whether the relationship between the Muslim community and moneylenders is important even though the practice of moneylenders is clearly forbidden in Islam. This study examines a model consisting of two major theories, namely, the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and marketing theory, and the existence of the religiosity variable as a moderator.

This study uses a structural equation modeling (SEM); SEM was chosen because it has effectiveness in revealing estimates of direct and indirect effects and shows moderating values. Manual questionnaires were distributed to 385 Acehnese who use loan shark services.

The combination of TPB and marketing theory constructs has a significant influence on the intention to use loan shark services. Then, the existence of the word-of-mouth variable significantly mediates the relationship between service and subjective norms and the intention to use loan shark services. In fact, the position of the religiosity variable has a significant negative effect on the intention to use loan shark services, and in terms of the moderating effect, it has been demonstrated that religiosity weakens the relationships between the services provided by loan sharks and the intention to use loan shark services.

This study has several limitations. First, sampling is still limited and can still be expanded. Second, it is difficult to get data and there are people who refuse to be sampled. Third, this study succeeded in capturing the phenomenon of the behavioral intentions of people who have a religious spirit but are still associated with moneylenders.

This research provides material implications for the Aceh Government, especially in managing public funds. Indeed, Aceh is a productive province that has produced policies and regulations that encourage the Sharia economy; it is just that the use of social funds and Islamic philanthropy in Aceh has not been maximized, which has led to the growth of a network of moneylenders. Because of this, Aceh, which has been successful in producing the law for Islamic financial institutions, should also be successful in destroying the moneylender network by synergizing to create alternatives and financial solutions for the community, especially the lower and middle classes.

This research explains that the level of religiosity can dampen and reduce the intention to use loan shark services; therefore, it is important for the community to understand the dangerous impact of using loan shark services and expand the role of community leaders in socializing the idea of lending money to loan sharks.

Due to the lack of studies on the behavior of Muslims using the services of moneylenders, therefore, this study provides new knowledge of the literature on the economic behavior of Muslim communities who continue to use the services of moneylenders. This study develops TPB theory and marketing theory in one model and involves the religiosity variable as a moderator.

This study aims to identify and describe possible innovations available to the takaful industry in Indonesia by considering demographic characteristics and geographical conditions. Indonesia has a predominantly Muslim population, and thus, presents good potential for the takaful market.

This study uses a qualitative, descriptive, literature-based method to discuss innovation strategies in the takaful industry. This method is appropriate for reviewing particular conditions and phenomena by analysing information and data drawn from existing literature.

Market, product and process innovations are chosen as the strategies appropriate to expanding the takaful market in Indonesia. Strategies are described, which could be used to implement these innovations by influencing the community to participate in takaful, and thus, to expand the takaful market.

The innovation strategies described are adapted to the demographic characteristics of Indonesia and so cannot necessarily be generalised to other countries with different environments.

By considering customer demographic and geographical conditions, the takaful industry should choose the types of innovation that will suit the community characteristics and environmental conditions of Indonesia.

The study specifically discusses innovation strategies in the takaful industry by describing the socio-economic conditions of Indonesian society. Takaful companies in Indonesia can use the results to determine the types of innovation they pursue based on the customer demographic and geographical conditions faced.

The purpose of this study is to develop a model to understand the relationships among technology, organizational and environmental (TOE) contexts, intention to adopt cloud computing (IACC) and actual usage of cloud computing (AUCC) in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia as a developing country. More specifically, this paper seeks to explore the mediation effect of IACC on the relationship between TOE context and AUCC.

A positivist research approach was selected for this study. Drawing largely upon the TOE framework, this study uses survey data from 209 Malaysian SMEs. Structural equation modelling (SEM) based on partial least squares (PLS) was used to assess the structural relations of the research model.

The results of the structural model show that data security, technology readiness, top management support, competitive pressure and innovativeness are the most significant factors in predicting the adoption of cloud computing in Malaysian SMEs. Further, the results indicate that intention to adopt cloud computing can play a mediating role between TOE factors and the actual usage of cloud computing.

The focus upon Malaysian SMEs may diminish the generalizability of the findings. This study provides profound insight into the management and foundation of cloud computing, different types of cloud services and deployment models that could facilitate the management of enterprise strategic resources and contribute to the performance improvement. This study also provides another important implication for practitioners regarding the absolute necessity of value drivers’ identification within enterprise and understand the causal relationships, which are vital in driving those values.

This study provides several practical guidance for practitioners in deploying cloud services which are most suitable option for their specific technology requirement in their enterprise to enjoy the full benefits of their intangible assets. Another significant implication of this study lies in the fact that it may require a different emphasis on nature and adoption design when there is a higher level of stress on technology-related and cloud computing resources.

This study contributes to the extant literature by developing an integrative model to identify how a wide set of contextual factors can determine the intention to adopt cloud computing and, in turn, influence the actual usage of cloud computing in SMEs in Malaysia as a developing country.

FOR the correct and intelligent use of plastics, it is just as important to be able to identify each one as it is in metals to be able to tell aluminium alloys from magnesium alloys or mild steel from high tensile steel, or in timbers to discriminate between birch, spruce and mahogany.

Government is the biggest spender on cloud computing technology but a very limited study and data sets are available to assess the cloud adoption trends in government organizations in India. As India is ushering towards “Digital India” it becomes essential for the government to embrace the cloud to enhance governance and meet the citizen expectations. This paper aims to discuss the evolution of cloud computing (Meghraj) in government organizations by examining the various information technology (IT) and cloud policies, thereby focusing on the policy gaps. The second part of this study assesses the cloud adoption trend by analyzing adopted cloud services, deployments models, leading sectors in cloud adoption and cloud approach. Eventually, in consultation with experts, a conceptual framework for cloud adoption in the government organizations of India is developed for wider cloud adoption.

The authors reviewed various IT/cloud policies and related literature to find the policy gaps for slow cloud adoption in government organizations. Authors have researched to collect the data from the various government procurement portals and analysed the tender and contracts of 500 organizations for cloud requirements to infer the cloud adoption trends. Based on the review of policy gaps, adoption trends and by consulting the experts a conceptual cloud adoption framework has been developed for wider cloud adoption in government organizations.

This study can be a pathfinder where the most innovative findings are about the cloud adoption trends in the government organizations in the time frame from 2013 till 2020. Several key findings are – the public cloud are the most widely adopted, infrastructure as a service model is the most used services, the majority of the applications migrating to the cloud are legacy applications, the leading sector in cloud adoption are – IT, transport and education. It is observed that the pandemic Covid-19 has acted as a catalyst and accelerated cloud adoption in government organizations. Eventually, a conceptual cloud adoption framework has been suggested addressing the policy gaps, deficiencies, overcoming the gaps and their related outcomes for the wider cloud adoption in the government organizations.

The findings of this work highlight the cloud adoption trends in government organizations which can prove vital to the policymakers. This work will assist policymakers, government organizations, researchers, IT professionals and others interested in analyzing the state of cloud adoption. The conceptual cloud adoption framework developed endeavours to uncover the policy gaps, suggest the gap resolution mechanism and outcomes which may assist the organization for wider cloud adoption. This research work effectively connects the policies to practice by stimulating the interest in understanding the policies, strategies and thereby creating the enabling environment for cloud adoption. This study provides feedback on cloud adoption trends which can assist in policy refinement and further strengthen policy/strategies.

As of date, there is limited data available for cloud adoption in government organizations. This work uniquely presents the cloud projections which helps to gain insights on cloud adoption trends in government organizations. This study is the first of its kind, focusing on cloud adoption in the unexplored government sector. This study provides a comprehensive summary of adoption statistics, policy analysis and practice in government organizations of India.

In cloud computing, banking knowledge with business intelligence (BI) will be a better option for the users, and the users do not have an overall picture of the whole thing until the entire job is completed.

Although the constraints are costly, complex, inflexible and integrated BI infrastructures, it helps to combine the banking and electronic commerce (EC) application data. Furthermore, this paper explores cloud computing infrastructure as a potential remedy for data processing issues.

A modern cloud computing with artificial intelligence, environmental climate to shorten periods for BI delivery, rising the expense of BI programs relatively with traditional BI of EC applications, provide customers with the ability for quicker rollout and better flexibility to incorporate research and to improve the performance, accuracy and efficiency.

In the technological world of today, the new era of BI analytical data management has been established with certain restrictions on the adoption of BI.

This study aims to investigate the factors influencing the adoption of cloud accounting (CA) in Oman’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The research model is developed based on relationships between technology, organisational and environmental contexts.

This study used a questionnaire to collect data from a sample of SMEs in Oman’s information and communication sector. In total, 300 enterprises were selected, and the questionnaire was distributed to the executives. The questionnaires valid for analysis were 159. The collected data were analysed using structural equation modelling through analysis of a moment structures software.

This study tested seven factors, namely, support from top management, firm size, infrastructure (technology readiness), security and privacy, compatibility, competitive pressure and relative advantage. The results revealed that compatibility has a significant impact on the adoption of CA.

This study suggests the mangers in SMEs should play a more decisive role in identification of technological, organisational and environmental factors that affect the success of implementing CA in a comprehensive model.

This study constitutes a management strategy that helps the enterprises in light of limited economic resources and concerns about the use of cloud services to make the appropriate decision in adopting CA.