Search results

The purpose of this paper is to offer an alternative conceptualisation of commercial insurance that is based on service thinking and compares it to the ideas flowing from goods thinking that currently appears to be a dominant mindset.

When deliberating on commercial insurance, Muslim jurists and scholars followed a misleading route of logical reasoning that is based on comparing insurance to other approved commercial contracts within Islamic Law. In this paper, the author questions such reasoning by contrasting the framework of service thinking to that of goods thinking.

The alternative framework proposed in this paper repositions commercial insurance as a unique type of service (rather than a good). It shows that commercial insurance can be seen as a bundle of benefits, which unfold in a gradual, intermittent, sporadic manner depending on the circumstances. This mode of a servicing relationship focuses on harm removal rather than the opportunistic actualisation of unfair monetary gain. Insurance premium is conceptualised as an availability fee, while compensation payout is recast as the restoration of value.

Muslim jurists and marketing practitioners can use this framework to further scrutinise the permissibility of different varieties of commercial insurance in the contexts of both Muslim and non-Muslim majority countries. As service thinking radically repositions the essence and structure of commercial insurance, the views on the relevance of “gharar” and “riba” may undergo significant re-conceptualisation. Moreover, the design of takaful options can be improved on this basis.

Service thinking can better elucidate a positive societal role of commercial insurance that is in accord with the societal and Islamic maxim of harm removal. Some objections to commercial insurance relate to public policy failures. Well-regulated commercial insurance industries can substantially contribute to the economic development of impoverished societies.

This paper exemplifies compelling power as well as potential of the discipline of Islamic marketing in contributing to significant debates concerning the permissibility of modern commercial options.

This study aims to examine the factors that influence peer-to-peer online host advertising effectiveness (POHAE). The study posits that POHAE is a multidimensional construct supported by emotional appeal, information completeness, advertising creativity and social responsibility practices influencing purchase intention and positive word of mouth. Perceived value is hypothesised as the moderating variable for the relationship between POHAE and purchase intention.

Quantitative data were collected from New Zealand through a quasi-experimental survey. A total of 95 people participated in the experiment. The study uses one-way repeated measures design ANOVA to test Hypothesis 1 and MEMORE model to test the effects of mediation and moderation for repeated measures.

Results are significant to the study model. ANOVA results show that the assumption of sphericity is not violated: Mauchly’s W, Greenhouse–Geisser, Huynh–Feldt estimates are equal to one, suggesting that the data are perfectly spherical. The mediation and moderation effects for repeated measure designs are also significant. The tests are based on 95 per cent Monte Carlo confidence interval and 20,000 bootstrapping samples.

This study enhances the hierarchy of effects theory (HOE) (Lavidge and Steiner, 1961), which posits that consumers respond to a specific marketing communication through three components: the cognitive component, which is measured by an individual’s intellectual, mental or rational states; the affective component that refers to an individual’s emotional and feeling states; and finally the conative or motivational state, that is, the striving state relating to the tendency to treat objects as positive or negative. This study observes significant paths from POHAE to purchase intention and word of mouth. Limitations include a small sample size (95) and not regressing the POHAE variables individually on purchase intention and word of mouth.

Given the absence of a brand, as in the Airbnb host advertisement, attention should be given to writing the adverts effectively. Advertising creativity does not only hold for graphics and personal pictures but also for the hosts who need to be creative in crafting their advertisement text. Elements such as social responsibility practice and creativity should also not be overlooked.

This study provides insights on how to effectively communicate with potential customers in a peer-to-peer marketplace.

This study provides an insight into peer-to-peer marketplaces on the importance of marketing communication strategies by providing more attention to writing advertisement texts. It is important to understand the variables that influence consumers’ motivation in responding to Airbnb online advertisements.

This paper aims to explore marketing practices related to online halal maternity wear by examining the characteristics of halal maternity wear promoted to Muslim women (Muslimah) and how these differ between sponsoring websites.

A qualitative content analysis of 24 websites promoting halal maternity wear to pregnant customers was undertaken.

Several issues related to the availability and promotion of halal maternity wear online, particularly when addressing the needs of Western Muslim women, were found. Successful marketing solutions to the problems of halal maternity wear require solving a number of tensions arising at the intersections of the following distinctions: mahram versus non-mahram settings, crude versus stylish fashion and the normative perceptions of immodesty versus modesty.

Careful research and attention need to be taken before promoting and targeting products as appropriate for Muslimah maternity wear. Those brands that display the requisite skills and knowledge necessary to determine whether a product meets the needs of modesty, fashionability and local climate/weather conditions in their maternity lines have much to gain from the Muslimah maternity market.

The availability of maternity wear that makes Muslimah feel comfortable and satisfied with their appearance will contribute to a positive pregnancy body image. Positive pregnancy body image is associated with positive pre and postnatal infant attachment by the mother, which in turn leads to beneficial outcomes for mother and baby.

Research to date has focused on Islamic fashion in general, with a dearth of research on Islamic maternity wear. This paper addresses the gap by focusing on maternity wear and associated marketing practices, from the Islamic point of view.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the tendencies of liquid consumption in Muslim communities and analyse its impact on Muslims’ consumption practices from the holistic perspective. Liquid consumption refers to a transient and less-materialised mode of consumption that requires both minimal attachment to possessions and hybrid ownership.

This is a conceptual paper that is based on the distinction between Islam as a holistic perspective and Islamic practice as it is applied in different contexts and situations. The Continual Drift Adjustment (CDA) framework of Muslim consumers’ behaviour is developed to be deployed as an analysis framework.

The CDA framework maintains that some problematic cases of Muslim consumption behaviours indicate the drift towards disbalance. Depending on their nature, liquid consumption practices can have different impacts on the drift. Liquid consumption practices underscored by instrumental dissemblance, intellectual insecurity and spiritual scepticism intensify the drift, whereas the incorporation of spiritual sincerity, faithful submission and existential gratefulness into practices and behaviour helps to attenuate the drift.

This research contributes to the theory of liquid consumption by incorporating the religious perspective. Liquid consumption in Islam is a complex area of research, specifically considering the ambivalent meanings of liquidity in Islamic thought.

Marketers of liquid consumption solutions must be aware of these offerings’ double-edged impact on the well-being of Muslim communities. Muslim consumers should be guided towards spiritual sincerity, faithful submission and existential gratefulness in the best way possible, although it must be noted that the customary techniques of marketing would lean towards stimulating the disbalance.

This research is unique because it deals with a topic that has not been researched in the Islamic marketing discipline to this date.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the perceptions of food anti-consumption in fast growing markets within an emerging economy context of Turkey.

Recently posted customer comments, complaints and suggestions related to the selected fast-food chains were examined from the following domains: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Sikayetvar.com. These comments were reviewed, assessed and classified by four trained independent raters. After examining the comments one-by-one the raters arrived at the final (triangulated) decision regarding the comment’s category after an iterative process including cross-examination.

Reasons for fast-food avoidance were primarily linked to customers’ negative past experiences (experiential avoidance). Identity avoidance, moral avoidance and interactivity avoidance.

The paper adds to the anti-consumption literature by examining the food avoidance framework of Lee et al. (2009) in an emerging market context. New categories were identified for reasons of food avoidance which have not been identified before in the anti-consumption literature such as interactivity avoidance.

Marketers of beauty products capitalize on consumers’ perception of beauty to enact a price placebo effect through setting high prices to insinuate a superior performing product. Yet, in the context of growing alternative beauty movements emphasizing inner beauty and self-acceptance, little is known on how the effect of price on a product’s perceived effectiveness and satisfaction is bounded by different modes of beauty conceptualization (BC). Hence, this study aims to investigate how distinct perceptions of beauty impact the effectiveness-based and satisfaction-based price placebo effects in Muslim-majority markets such as Turkey compared to markets largely driven by Western values such as New Zealand.

This research is based on a quasi-experimental factorial design based on the manipulation of the level of price for a beauty product and the observation of the extent of BC. The sample included 144 participants from Turkey and 147 participants from New Zealand.

This research finds that the manipulation of the price (low vs high) equally activates the effectiveness-centered price placebo effect in both countries. When expectations are taken into account, the (satisfaction-based) price placebo effect is non-existent in New Zealand, while in Turkey the higher price leads to an opposite effect: a significant decrease in satisfaction. It is also found that the effect of price on effectiveness is moderated by BC. In both countries, the price placebo effect is activated only when consumers narrowly conceptualize beauty, while this effect does not hold for broad conceptualizers. The effect of BC on the price placebo appears to be stronger in New Zealand in comparison to Turkey.

Marketing managers’ awareness of different perceptions of beauty and how these may influence the price placebo effect in different cultures would allow them to decide what strategies are most appropriate for different groups of customers. For example, by pursuing the movement toward inner beauty and its broad conceptualization, high-end brands are likely to compromise opportunities to capitalize on the price placebo effect. On the other hand, this alternative perspective may cultivate profound satisfaction in the long-term.

The price placebo effect disappears when people conceptualize beauty from a broad (inner) perspective. This suggests that public policymakers, to counteract the negative effects of misleading marketing and to create fair exchanges, must promote broad BC in society.

This study contributes to the body of the existing research on price placebo by offering unique insights into the boundary conditions of the price placebo effect underscored by BC in two distinct cultural-religious settings. Also, it proposes two different variations of price placebo, namely, effectiveness-centered vs satisfaction-centered. From a methodological point of view, it is the first project in the Islamic marketing discipline that applies the Islamic perspective on causality.

Highlighting the need for a profound move towards desecularisation of Islamic scholarship, this conceptual paper aims to clarify the concept of causality from the Islamic marketing research perspective and extends a number of suggestions for improving theory building and hypothesis development in the field.

The approach taken is largely conceptual. In addition, this study collates the stated hypotheses in the articles published in this journal in the past five years and analyses the structure of causal statements to uncover key tendencies.

The review of historical and current views on causality indicates that most commentators agree that assuming the existence of the necessary connection between cause and effect is misleading. The Islamic traditions based on occasionalism and modern science agree that causal statements reflect, at best, probabilistic assumptions.

This paper offers a number of insights and recommendations for theory building and hypothesis development in Islamic marketing. By following the occasionalism perspective and the notion of Sunnah of Allah, researchers will be able to build methodologically coherent and genuine Islamic marketing knowledge.

Correctly stated and tested hypotheses can be used by public policymakers to enforce effective consumer and market policies.

This paper tackles a complex issue of causality in Islamic marketing research which has not hitherto been discussed well in the literature. This research is also a unique step towards developing pioneering avenues within the domain of Islamic marketing research methodology.

The purpose of the article is to propose and develop a distinct perspective in Islamic marketing research through fusing the Islamic paradigm and the macromarketing theory.

This is a conceptual article that is based on intellectualising and reflecting on differences in understanding what marketing is and what role it plays in society.

The article reveals some commonality of purpose between the macromarketing discipline and Islamic macromarketing, while the latter field of inquiry offers a unique outlook to a number of domain-specific issues.

The characterisation of Islamic macromarketing will open new avenues for future research and will make researchers more theoretically sensitive to ontological and epistemological assumptions that underlie marketing investigations. The limitation of the present discussion is that Islamic macromarketing may not have yet emerged as a separate discipline. Additionally, research on genuinely macromarketing issues in Islamic contexts is very sparse.

Muslim practitioners and managers are to realise that the means and ends of marketing are better understood if viewed from a broader perspective of marketing's impact and consequences on society. By adopting the Islamic macromarketing perspective, public, societal institutions, business stakeholders, and managers will find a better platform to cooperate on maximising the realisation of hasanah (excellence) for all.

This article contributes to the discipline by introducing and characterising a potentially new field of marketing inquiry.