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The aim of this study is to examine the level service quality from the perspective of food manufacturers. Malaysia is gearing towards becoming a major player in the world Halal market. Its Halal certification is under the jurisdiction of the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (JAKIM). The process of awarding Halal certificates involves not only an official site inspection of production plants but also the examination on the Halal status of raw materials. In 2007, JAKIM only approved 75 percent of the total number of applications for Halal certification.

A total of 547 small and medium‐sized enterprise manufacturers in Malaysia represented the population for this study. SERVQUAL gap analysis was used to measure the gap between clients' expectations and their perceptions of JAKIM's services.

The results of the analysis indicate that the biggest gap was in the empathy dimension, followed by responsiveness, reliability, assurance and tangibles. The results show that JAKIM had not met food manufacturers' expectations in all five service quality dimensions, especially the empathy dimension.

Practical implications extend to food policy decision makers involved in JAKIM to develop and formulate appropriate strategies to meet the needs of its clients more effectively.

JAKIM could design training programs by emphasizing on the issues of human factors in service delivery, in particular the requirements of customer care, work ethics and human relations skills. Training in customer relationships is important and this applies to employees at all levels.

This study aims to investigate the attitude and consciousness of Indian Muslims toward halal and also to indicate the alertness of Muslim students about halal in their daily life.

A total of 500 respondents were selected for the study from the State of Andhra Pradesh in India, by stratified random sampling method; of which 300 were general Muslims and 200 were Muslim students. Self-administrated questionnaire and personal interviews were administered to garner the data, which were analyzed with SPSS (version 21.0) and GRETL, and the research hypotheses were tested with Z-test for proportion and Pearson’s chi-square test.

A total of 92 and 98 per cent of respondents from the general Muslim community and Muslim students, respectively, agreed that they do not have proper exposure to halal. In addition, 89 per cent of general Muslims believe that the halal concept is very significant to Muslim consumers as against 95 per cent students. A total of 98 and 96 per cent of the selected two classes of respondents, respectively, are intended to know more about halal.

The respondents in this research were general Muslims and Muslim students from Andhra Pradesh. The results of this research are, therefore, only applicable to the sampled community. Hence, generalization of the findings to the whole Indian Muslim population or to other areas of Muslim communities should be avoided.

This research results proffer most precious and ingenious information to the corporate sector, Islamic religious organizations and educational institutions specially involved in formal Islamic education. Based on the snowballing trend of Muslim population from the present 250 million to the whopping 340 million by the end of this century, it is an inspired decision to target this lucrative segment which provide alluring profitability particularly food, cosmetics, medicines, etc., with Halal certified products. Specially, Islamic religious organizations also have an enormous onus to enhance the ken of this community on the matters comprehensively germane to Islam in general and about halal and haram in particular.

This is the first ingenious effort aimed to investigate the attitude and awareness toward halal among general Muslims and Muslim students. This is a pioneering attempt on halal of Indian Muslims which is lucrative for both corporate sector and to the academia.

This paper aims to view the role of religiosity in moderating the relationship between ego-defensive function of Muslim consumers’ and attitude toward advertising of controversial product. There is a rising concern among Muslim consumers’ with regards to the halal status of many food outlets in Malaysia. This came out because many food operators do not understand what halal really means. Many of them are from Kopitiams food and beverages industry.

Survey method was used for the purpose of data collection in April 2014, and quantitative approach has been used as well. This study applied functional theory of attitudes to support this framework. Respondents consisted of 375 Muslim consumers’ in Malaysia.

The paper provides empirical insights about how religiosity moderates the relationship between ego-defensive function and consumer attitude toward advertising. Consumers with a high level of religiosity are more likely to respond less favorably toward the advertising, while consumers who have a low level of religiosity are more likely to respond more favorably toward the advertisement. In addition, it can be postulated that religiosity reduces negative effects of ego-defensive function.

The fact that religious groups are more organized, equipped and motivated to register their concern, demands better understanding of such groups by marketers. To avoid any controversies, or potential business loss, a better understanding of what could ignite their reaction seems to be an appropriate preventive strategy.

Only a few studies directly examined the influence of religion on marketing communication. The effects of religion on the advertising of controversial products remain largely unstudied to date. Therefore, this paper fills the gap in the research area.

This study aims to test and explain the implementation of the green marketing mix (GMM) strategy, based on an environmental orientation (EO) in increasing the competitive advantage (CA) of the real estate developers or companies in Indonesia.

This study was conducted at real estate developer companies in several cities in Bali, i.e. Denpasar, Gianyar, Buleleng, Singaraja and Tabanan of Bali Province, Indonesia, registered as a member of Real Estate Indonesia. Bali was chosen as a province with a very rapid growth of the property sector than other provinces in Indonesia. This study is about census research. The sample unit is a real estate developer in Bali whose scope of operation project is at least 20 hectares, which means the scale of the property business is middle-class and upper-class companies. The unit of analysis was developer companies in Bali, whereas the respondents were the General Manager, CEO or owners of the company. The respondents were chosen so that each question in the questionnaire could be filled correctly and accurately.

EO has a positive but insignificant effect on CA. On the other hand, EO has a positive and significant influence on the GMM strategy. Furthermore, the results show that the GMM strategy has a positive and significant effect on CA.

The originality of this study is evident from the effort to deepen the analysis and the results of the hypothesis testing of previous studies; hence, this study uses a GMM strategy for real estate developers as a service company. The mapping of the previous research is done uses variables related to current research. This study seeks to develop a model from some previous studies aimed at enriching the results of research for further development.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the importance of the understanding of the halal business from an Islamic perspective. Business use of the Quranic and fiqhi word halal is now conspicuous because of the penetration of halal product ideas not only into the food products but also into the pharmaceutical, cosmetic, leisure and entertainment industries.

This paper evaluates the Islamic authenticity of the prevailing halal business initiatives. Toward this evaluation, explains the frame of reference and shows the Islamic ethical excellence of business enterprises. This framework is based on the Quranic injunctions and instructions regarding usury (riba), intoxicants (khamr), trade with mutual consent (taradim minkum) and trading during Friday prayer (Jumuah), which have direct or indirect implications for the management of business enterprises. Then, it describes and evaluates two cases, namely, halal chicken and Sharīʿah-compliant hotel. Materials for these cases are obtained through an internet blog and literature review.

The evaluation reveals that these halal business cases are overwhelmingly product-centric and they violate or neglect people’s rights. On the scale of ethics and social responsibility, while they largely maintain legal responsibility, moral and spiritual responsibilities hardly draw their attention. Hence, a need for a fundamental reorientation of halal business thought is suggested in the conclusion.

The findings may serve as a useful input for halal business owners in improving their practices to confirm with all moral and spiritual standards of Islamic business conduct, and not the only product. These standards have significant implications for equitable growth in a society and a blissful eternal life.

The topic of product-centric halal business has not been fully explored and understood by its stakeholders. This paper aims to give insights to an overwhelming trend toward equating halal products with the whole of the halal business.

Much has been written about the importance of external integration for the integrity of food products. To achieve food integrity, all actors along the supply chain have to be fully integrated and comply with an assurance system or process. The more complex the supply chain operations are, the greater will be the need for integration. This research paper investigates the impact of external integration on compliance with halal standards, as an example of product integrity within the food industry.

A survey of 1,000 food manufacturers was conducted. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to test the effect of external integration on compliance with halal standards.

The results showed that there were links between halal assurance system and external integration. Nevertheless, it was discovered that only customer integration mediated the relationship between the halal assurance system and product quality and production cost.

The practical implications of the findings extend to managers in the food industry who might pursue supply chain integration as a structure to achieve excellence. The findings suggested that the deployment of a halal assurance system has a positive effect on operational performance. Furthermore, the results show that managers who wish to implement the halal assurance system should carefully invest in an external integration strategy, depending upon the operational performance improvement intended.

This research is one of the first studies to investigate the effects of external integration on halal food in general and is the first empirical investigation of the effect of safeguarding halal integrity on operational performance.

The purpose of this study is to create and manage halal brands as valuable business assets based on a proposed halal Brand Personality dimension in the micro-spectrum of halalan (lawful) Tayyiba (good) concept in Malaysia. The chances of using Brand personality attributes as a mechanism to get the primary dimensions of halal branding attributes are high.

Methods of interviews and surveys were conducted based on personality traits to construct key dimensions and attributes of the halal Brand Personality. A structured interview with seven halal certification experts from The Malaysian Department of Islamic Development (Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia – JAKIM) and factor analysis method were based on non-probability, basic sampling using questionnaire surveys on 135 personnel from the Department of Islamic Affairs, Terengganu (Jabatan Hal Ehwal Agama Islam Terengganu, Malaysia – JHEAT) that were involved directly or indirectly in monitoring halal certification.

The author aims to cultivate a theoretical framework for the halal Brand Personality. The paper introduces five dimensions, namely, Purity, Excitement, Safety, Sophistication and Righteousness.

The extraction of the five factors that contribute to the halal Brand Personality has been considered to be an assurance and screening process for halal products and services. It embodies values that are not just for Muslims but for everyone.

This study aims to investigate the effect of religiosity, government support, consumer demand, the expectation for higher revenue and competition intensity on Indonesian small and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs) intention to adopt halal practices.

This study used a quantitative approach and surveyed 228 SME owners through electronic media and direct contact. The study then applied the structural equation modeling to evaluate the relationship between constructs. This study also conducted some modifications on the hypotheses structured to obtain the best model.

This study found that religiosity, government support and expectation for higher revenue have positive and significant effects on SMEs’ intention to adopt halal practices; conversely, consumer demand and competition intensity do not have significant effects.

While in Indonesia, many studies have been conducted on consumers as subjects concerning halal awareness and they revealed a positive effect on the intention to consume the products, still, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, there are no studies targeting producers, especially SMEs, as the research subjects. This study had fulfilled some gaps on contributing factors that encourage the adoption of halal practices on the producers’ side, especially on SMEs. Therefore, this study provided insights into how to bridge the producers’ and consumers’ interests regarding halal fulfillment. The findings also provided input on the policy formulation at the early stage of halal policy implementation.

The purpose of this study is to propose a halal cluster concept to better organise production and trade of halal food.

This paper builds further on previous work published in the Journal of Islamic Marketing on halal food supply chains and value chains. A cluster analysis is conducted on the Malaysia and Dubai halal cluster to provide a better understanding of their halal cluster models and sustainability.

Food production and trade has been described as the weak link in the halal value chain. To guarantee availability of and access to halal food, a new paradigm is required in better organising the production and trade of halal food through halal clusters. A halal cluster model is proposed based on five pillars, namely, Muslim consumer, education and research, halal integrity network, halal supply chain and enablers.

This conceptual paper proposes a halal cluster model to scale up the production of halal food for the world. However, more empirical research on halal purchasing, halal network development, halal trade and halal parks is needed to support the development of these halal clusters.

To better address today’s issues in the halal industries (ingredients, certification, logistics, etc.), there are evident benefits of producing in strong halal clusters, hereby providing easy access to halal ingredients and access to attractive Muslim markets.

As halal is going through an evolution, towards a halal supply chain and value chain, new business models are required. It is the first study investigating halal clusters.