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The purpose of this study was to investigate whether including an Islamic appeal in a culture-neutral product advertisement has a positive effect on consumer attitudes to the advertisement leading to higher purchase intentions while considering religious affiliation and religiosity as moderating factors of the relationship.

Conditional process analysis was applied to examine the mediation of the relationship between ad version and purchase intention through attitude to the advertisement as well as the moderating role of religious affiliation and religiosity among 819 consumers within the Dubai market.

The analysis in this paper revealed that including an Islamic appeal in an advertisement does not have a positive effect on attitude to the advertisement or purchase intention, neither for Muslim consumers in general nor for Muslim consumers with high levels of religiosity. Conversely, including an Islamic appeal has a significant negative effect on the purchase intentions of Christian consumers within the Dubai market, as well as on those consumers who did not state their religious affiliation.

Marketers should reconsider the use of Islamic appeals in product advertising, especially in relation to the promotion of culture-free products within diverse expatriate populations such as that represented by the Emirate of Dubai.

This study sheds light on the underexplored role of religious affiliation and religiosity in relationship to consumer behavior within the field of Islamic marketing in a major retail hub in the Middle East.

Much of what we learn from empirical research is based on a specific empirical model(s) presented in the literature. However, the range of plausible models given the data is potentially larger, thus creating an additional source of uncertainty termed: model uncertainty. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of model uncertainty on empirical research in HRM and suggest potential solutions to deal with the same.

Using a sample of call center employees from India, the authors test the robustness of predictors of intention to leave based on the unfolding model proposed by Harman et.al. (2007). Methodologically, the authors use Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) to identify the specific variables within the unfolding model that have a robust relationship with turnover intentions after accounting for model uncertainty.

The findings show that indeed model uncertainty can impact what we learn from empirical studies. More specifically, in the context of the sample, using four plausible model specifications, the authors show that the conclusions can vary depending on which model the authors choose to interpret. Furthermore, using BMA, the authors find that only two variables, job satisfaction and perceived organizational support, are model specification independent robust predictors of intention to leave.

The research has specific implications for the development of HR analytics and informs managers on which are the most robust elements affecting attrition.

While empirical research typically acknowledges and corrects for the presence of sampling uncertainty through p-values, rarely does it acknowledge the presence of model uncertainty (which variables to include in a model). To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first study to show the effect and offer a solution to studying total uncertainty (sampling uncertainty + model uncertainty) on empirical research in HRM. The work should open more doors toward more studies evaluating the robustness of key HRM constructs in explaining important work-related outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of religious salience on consumer purchase intentions in the multicultural environment of the UAE, more specifically on the willingness of a Muslim consumer to purchase a product labelled or packaged to include an Islamic appeal, i.e. an appeal with a heightened religious salience. While some attempts have been made in the literature to examine the impact of religious salience on purchase intentions, research amongst Muslim consumers remains under-explored.

The authors used a randomized survey experiment administered to 148 Emirati educated female nationals. The survey consisted of pairs of advertisements, where each advertisement promoted the same product and the same brand, varying on whether they included an Islamic appeal or not in the labelling, packaging or slogan. The respondents were asked about their attitude to the different versions of the advertisements, as well as their willingness to purchase the product. The authors used causal mediation analysis to explore the mechanisms through which causal effects on purchase intentions are determined.

This study shows that including an Islamic appeal, and therefore increasing the religious salience in product promotion, leads to higher purchase intentions amongst Muslim consumers. The authors also identified a number of additional moderating factors that influenced the consumer’s purchase intentions, such as product and/or brand awareness and the type of product being promoted, as well as the nature of the artefact that was included in the ad as the Islamic appeal. Finally, the causal mediation analysis suggests that Islamic appeals increases product attractiveness, which in turn leads to higher purchase intentions.

This paper investigates the effect of religious salience on consumer behaviour and their purchase intentions. This paper makes an empirical contribution to understanding consumer behaviour with particular relevance to retail hubs with a majority Muslim population.