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HRM, training, strategic HRM.

The case is designed for undergraduate and graduate level business students (BBA and MBA) in human resource management, organizational behavior, strategic HRM, corporate leadership and general management. The case provides an overview of the importance of diffused HRM practices in developing countries on the basis of standardized rules and cultural values defining these rules. The case presents the situation of HR management practices in SIH, Islamabad on the basis of different styles followed by HR managers to develop an egalitarian model aspired on the basis of local values but at the same time is on the line of international standards.

In Shifa, It was observed that locally trained HR managers could better synchronize employees' aspirations with standards of diffused model as compared to foreign trained managers. It was found that the former group of professionals appreciated local values; therefore they considered these values while following standardized rules and regulation; whereas the latter group took it as a bunch of obsolete concepts which had nothing to do with employee management practices in urban/modern organization. Therefore, positive perception of locally trained managers' about the indigenous' wisdom and its consideration in employee management decisions enabled them to play a proactive role in developing cultural fit HR practices, besides winning the support of both, management and the workers. This also allowed them to “maintain balance” between local aspiration and international standards of operations. Although SIH is unique in terms of its mission, services, organization, and its use of technology, it is believed that this unique case may provide useful insights for organizations in similar situations. Many of the difficulties faced by SIH either support or help to understand situations prevailing of other organizations working in the context of Pakistan. For instance, any public or private organization or multi-national corporation following Western (diffused) HR model to regulate workforce in the local setting can get benefit from this research.

The teaching objectives of the cases are apprehend the importance of diffused HRM practices in developing countries context. importance of indigenous wisdom of flexibility and culturally fit HR practices as a proactive approach towards HR issues handling the case of Mr Shahbaz and Ms Aysha Ahmad. Importance of social networking and controlled personalized models for employee regulation, e.g. case of Mr Abid Elahi.

Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

Muslims living in multi-religious societies are considered more conscious about the permissibility (Halal) of products and thus the majority of Halal research in the non-financial sector was conducted in multi-ethnic societies. Nonetheless, the global trade is changing the way we perceive the origin of products and brands and their permissibility under Islamic Sharia laws. This apparently has serious implications for international companies operating in food, cosmetics and pharmaceutical products. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of Muslim attitude towards Halal products, their subjective norms and religiosity in predicting intention to choose Halal products.

A structured question was designed to elicit consumer attitude, subjective norms, intention to choose Halal products and degree of inter and intra personal religiosity. Data were collected from 180 adult respondents using a convenience sampling method. Only 150 responses were deemed suitable for further analysis, yielding a response rate of 83 per cent. Stepwise regression analysis was used to test the proposed model.

The results indicated that theory of reasoned action (TRA) is a valid model in predicting intention to choose Halal products. The results further indicate that subjective norms (β=0.455, p, 0.001), attitude towards the Halal products (β=0.265, p, 0.001) and intra personal religiosity (β=0.167, p, 0.001) positively influence attitude towards the Halal products. Interestingly, subjective norm appears to be the strongest of all the predictors for choosing Halal products.

The data collected for the current study investigate global attitude towards Halal products. It would be interesting if future researchers examine consumers ' attitude towards specific Halal products for specific product categories.

It is argued in this research that the presence of strong attitude towards Halal products in Muslim consumers might play an important role in exclusion or inclusion of brands, based on their conformance to Halal requirements.

The paper extends the applicability of the theory of reasoned action model by investigating the role of inter-personal and intra-personal religiosity in intention to choose Halal products.

The purpose of this paper is to review the existing state of research on “Halal” branding and to propose and empirically test the framework for understanding the purchase intention for “Halal” branded products in Indian context.

The research design is cross-sectional in nature; convenience sampling and snowball sampling is done, and completely filled 288 questionnaires are considered for testing the conceptual framework. Structural equation modeling is used to assess the fit of framework. The study has incorporated attitude as a mediating variable in relation to purchase intention for “Halal” branded products. The originality of the research is based on responses collected from the respondents in the form of online and offline questionnaires.

Findings of the direct and indirect effects in the study show that attitude has a full mediation effect on purchase intention, i.e. in the presence of attitude as a mediation variable the direct effect of subjective norm and religiosity is insignificant and the effect caused through attitude is significant.

In a country like India, which enjoys a sufficiently good percentage of Muslim population (14.2 per cent), an understanding of attitude provides enough scope for marketers to strategize techniques to reduce dissonance of non-availability of “Halal” brands.

Research is atypical, as it has focused on the mediation effects of attitude toward “Halal” branded products with the help of cosmetic range of products.

The purpose of this paper is to add to the body of knowledge about attitude and intention to choose a Halal product. Despite the importance of the Halal cosmetic market for both producers and consumers, the existing literature focusses on Halal food products, and only a limited number of studies exist about Halal cosmetic products. This study assesses the effects of knowledge and religiosity on attitudes towards Halal cosmetics products, as well as the effect of those attitudes on the intention to buy the Halal cosmetic products. This study also investigates the existence of differences between consumers’ attitudes towards Halal cosmetics and Halal food products.

This study used a self-administrated questionnaire with closed-ended questions. The questionnaire was distributed using non-probability convenience sampling. At the end of data collection period, a total of 110 usable questionnaires from Muslim respondents over the age of 18 years old were used for further analysis. To assess the relationship between knowledge, religiosity, attitude and intention, a structural equation modeling technique was used. And to investigate the difference between attitude and intention for Halal cosmetic and Halal food products, the pair sample t-test were applied.

The findings of the study show that the relationship between knowledge and attitude is insignificant, but there is a significant positive relationship between religiosity and attitude. From the lens of theory of reasoned action (TRA), this study indicates that there is a positive relationship between attitude and intention to choose Halal cosmetic products. This study also found a significant difference between consumers’ attitudes towards Halal cosmetics and attitudes towards Halal food products, as well as consumers’ intentions to choose Halal cosmetics and intentions to choose Halal food products among Malaysian consumers. Moreover, the results indicate that Malaysian consumers have more positive attitudes and intentions towards Halal food products than towards Halal cosmetic products.

Because the sample of the study is limited to consumers from one country (Malaysia), it is suggested that the future studies choose their samples from consumers in different countries.

The results of the study give implication to firms competing in the cosmetic industry. Religiosity is one of the main factors that should be taken into account in promoting their cosmetic products. Also, as the relationship between attitude and intention to choose Halal cosmetics is similar to the relationship for Halal foods, marketers may try similar ways to promote both the products. However, the attitude and intention to choose Halal cosmetics is still lower than Halal foods.

The result of this study provides an insight for the Malaysian consumers to realize whether knowledge and religiosity have any relationship towards consumers’ attitudes towards Halal cosmetic products. The results also provide information to consumers that they are more likely to have stronger attitudes towards Halal food products than the cosmetic products. This study will be significant to the consumers, the importer and exporter, the producer and marketer and the researcher as well as the government.

This study is the first study which has assessed the antecedents and consequence of consumers’ attitude towards Halal cosmetic products in one model. Moreover, this research is among the first attempts to investigate the significant difference in Malaysian consumers’ attitude and intention between Halal cosmetic and food products.