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Marketing investigations on the concomitant variables of both service quality and relationship marketing are very scarce. Hence, the purpose of this study is to examine the customers’ perception of the Takaful (Islamic insurance) in relation to service quality and relationship marketing. More importantly, the examination of the impact of both service quality and relationship marketing on corporate image is further established. Accordingly, corporate reputation and customer loyalty were further evaluated, along with these respective interactions.

A self-administered survey was conducted from 350 Malaysian customers of Takaful products and services. The purposive sampling was used to collect data from the existing customers of Takaful service operators in the Klang Valley, an area in Malaysia. The questionnaire was constructed through measures of PAKSERV for service quality, as well as other measures related to relationship marketing and other constructs in this study. Structured equation modeling was used in the analysis of data.

The current study is the first one of its kind to examine perceptions of customers of relationship marketing and service quality as predictors of corporate image, which drives corporate reputation and ultimate customer loyalty from the perspective of the Takaful industry in Malaysia. Service quality dimensions (tangibility, reliability and personalization) and relationship marketing dimensions (Islamic ethical behavior and structural bond) positively influence corporate image of the Takaful organizations. Moreover, customer loyalty can be predicted, mainly through corporate reputation as well as corporate image.

The present study is focused on the existing Malaysian Takaful customers as the population frame. Accordingly, future research studies may evaluate the same model, but perhaps in another different cultural context where the Takaful industry can grow and expand in other countries, including Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Pakistan. More importantly, the same variables may be verified to different service industries in future studies, especially those constructs related to relationship marketing because many products and services at present can be attained without face-to-face interactions through online transactions without having brick and mortar businesses.

It is important for Takaful service operators to focus on connecting the social and financial bonds to ensure the fulfilment of customers’ needs. They also need to improve the qualities related to tangibility, reliability and personalization to be able to increase their market share, especially in this present highly competitive market. Indeed, Takaful generally provides financial protection and risk management; nevertheless, the religious and ethical values need to be embraced in totality unlike conventional insurance, which has the element of gambling, uncertainty and the imposition of interest. Hence, this study aims to assist the Takaful operators toward achieving corporate reputation and apparently customer loyalty for them to remain relevant in this industry.

The model used in this study is based on the cultural context of Malaysia from the perspective of the Takaful industry. It attempts to explain customer loyalty through the incorporation of service quality and relationship marketing dimensions, where it is associated with the elements of the values of Islamic ethics especially in business transactions. More importantly, these dimensions were put together to identify its impact on corporate image, corporate reputation, and ultimately, customer loyalty, thus illustrating a distinct set of outcomes of the present study.

This paper examines the national solidarity in Brunei Darussalam during the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequential impact on younger generations. Utilising Emile Durkheim's solidarity theories, I examine how young people's social media use builds on state discourse in the pandemic. I contend that a shift towards an organic society is visible through a social cohesion that is based on differentiated roles. I argue that the citizenry plays a vital role in the forward momentum toward Industrial Revolution (IR) 4.0, which illustrates that solidarity cannot be forged as a top-down directive. By prompting economic and creative divisions of labour, the local use of social media in a public health crisis has shown the government a new way to foster solidarity. Significant implications for youth as future leaders of the nation are discussed.

Helping others use information and communication technologies (ICTs), such as mobile phones, can be beneficial for individuals and communities. In urban refugee communities, displaced and living far from home, collective behaviors with mobile phones can generate a sense of belonging. The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential for these offline behaviors to generate a sense of community among urban refugees.

Using quantitative evidence, the authors examined the relationship between collective behaviors, such as sharing or helping with a mobile phone, and sense of community. The authors analyzed survey data collected from urban refugees in Rwanda via multiple regression to test hypotheses related to the impact of collective behaviors on sense of community, as well as the mediating role of ICT self-efficacy and gender.

The findings suggest that collective behaviors with mobile phones have a positive relationship with sense of community, driven primarily by providing assistance as compared to sharing. ICT self-efficacy was positively related to sense of community. However, collective behaviors' impacts differed by gender, suggesting that social dynamics influence this relationship.

While the extant literature highlights the various roles of mobile phones in refugees' lives, less is known about the social aspects of use and its potential to help overcome isolation by fostering a sense of community. The authors extend this literature to a novel context (urban refugees in the Global South), testing a model that incorporates other factors that may play a role (e.g. self-efficacy and gender). These findings are valuable to urban refugees, due to difficulties in re-building a sense of community and increased ICT access.

Globalization introduces new challenges related to increased levels of diversity and complexity that organizations cannot meet without capable global leaders. Such leaders are currently lacking, so a theory-based approach to global leader development is needed. A critical intermediary outcome that enables competent global leadership performance is global leader self-complexity, defined by the number of unique leader identities contained within a leader's self-concept (self-differentiation) and the extent to which the identities are integrated with the leader's sense of self (self-integration). This research aims to generate and test a theory of the development of global leader self-complexity through identity construction during international experiences. In Study 1, I gathered qualitative data through retrospectively interviewing 27 global leaders about identity-related changes following their international experiences. Using a grounded theory approach, I developed a theoretical model of global leader identity construction during international experiences, which I empirically tested using quantitative data in Study 2. Specifically, I tested the hypothesized relationships through structural equation modeling with cross-sectional survey data from a sample of 610 global leaders. Findings from both studies indicate global leader identity construction during international experiences primarily occurs through interacting with locals and local culture over a sustained period, motivated by appreciation of cultural differences and resulting in increased global leader self-complexity. These results advance understanding of the global leader self-complexity construct (i.e., what develops) and global leader development processes (i.e., how it develops). Additionally, the findings have practical implications for global leader development initiatives.

With team-based structures replacing traditional hierarchical systems, the purpose of this paper was to explore the concept of shared leadership and its impact on improving team performance. The five underlying mechanisms that form the components which drive shared leadership, namely (1) trust, (2) empowerment, (3) age and maturity, (4) fair reward, and (5) dispositions and beliefs, provide readers with a practical understanding of how to attain, maintain, and regain shared leadership for the performance of teams in organisations today. In addition, a focus on shared leadership in other team contexts, such as sport, unconventional and multicultural environments is also discussed to aid the progression of shared leadership research and broaden its application beyond traditional business and managerial contexts.

Global Mindset (GM) is a multifaceted construct that has received broad interest among practitioners and academics. It is a fragmented construct at this point in time, due to definitional overlap with other constructs such as global leadership and cultural intelligence. This overlap has created complexity for research that attempts to understand GM in isolation. Lack of clear boundaries in defining and conceptualizing this construct challenges researchers who are attempting to capture fully what constitutes GM. Our work seeks to better understand and explain what underlines the individual GM construct and how does this impact the development of global competencies in individual managers.

We systematically review and analyze the individual GM literature thematically to provide an overview of the extant research from a broad array of scholarly sources dating from 1994 to 2017. Our work offers a thematic analysis that provides a visual guide to GM by tracking the corpus of individual-level GM studies. We categorize the research according to its theoretical groundings and basic concepts and proceed review how GM has been operationalized at the individual level and measured. Next, we integrate major dimensions in the GM research and propose a framework to enhance understanding of the phenomenon. Finally, we discuss the implications of our review for the development of GM for practitioners, coaches and trainers.

The ability to effectively engage in cross-cultural interactions is imperative for leaders in our increasingly globalized world. Those who possess certain key psychological resources are more likely to engage in cross-cultural interactions successfully. Psychological resources include cross-cultural hope, efficacy, resilience, and optimism, which together comprise cross-cultural psychological capital (CC PsyCap). Previous research has indicated that CC PsyCap predicts cultural competence, yet the pathways underlying this relationship remain unexplored. We examined the relationships among CC PsyCap, engagement in cross-cultural interactions, stress during cross-cultural interactions, and cultural competence. The hypothesized relationships were tested using a sample of 135 undergraduate students (76% female) participating in study abroad programs. Participants completed measures of cultural competence, CC PsyCap, engagement, and stress approximately one month into their study abroad. Structural equation modeling analyses indicate that CC PsyCap and stress influence cultural competence directly and indirectly through engagement level during cross-cultural interactions. Furthermore, the results suggest that CC PsyCap indirectly influences engagement through stress during cross-cultural interactions. We discuss the implications of these results for people preparing to enter cross-cultural environments.

The business world today is witnessing ever-growing disruption. This study highlights corporate social responsibility (CSR) as an effective strategy for firms in disrupted industries to consider in order to differentiate themselves and to increase their chance of survival facing disruption.

In this study, the authors test the hypotheses using a multilevel modeling (MLM) design to capture the group and intergroup effects at the industry level and at the firm level. The empirical analysis is based on a panel sample of 1,193 firms over the 10-year period from 2010 to 2019.

The empirical analysis indicates that CSR has a positive impact on corporate financial stability and the effect is especially significant for firms in disrupted industries. Further investigation suggests that this positive effect largely runs through traits of the social pillar, such as human rights, employee relations, customer protection, product responsibility and community impact. The results are robust after controlling for other firm-specific characteristics and after addressing endogeneity concerns.

This study examines whether, and through which channel, CSR helps enhance corporate financial stability and mitigate bankruptcy risk in disrupted industries. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first attempt to explore the use of CSR as an effective strategic response to disruption. Further analysis indicates that the social capital built through CSR plays an important role in helping enhance corporate financial stability.

This paper presents recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy, providing an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering various library types, study populations and research contexts.

This paper introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations, reports and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2020.

The paper provides a brief description of all 440 sources and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.

The information may be used by librarians, researchers and anyone interested in a quick and comprehensive reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

The aim was to explore the existing literature on emotion and strategic leadership in a systematic review and to synthesize it into a theoretical model. A literature review on emotion in connection to strategic leadership was undertaken. After adhering to the search strategy and exclusion criteria, 46 peer-reviewed texts consisting of articles and relevant book chapters remained. The texts were analyzed according to the grounded theory method (GTM) to generate a new theoretical model and a core variable was identified, organizational emotion shaping. The model attempts to show how the interaction of individual and organizational framing factors with the strategic leader's tasks and challenges lead to emotion shaping internal and external of the organization. Suggestions for future research were formed and suggestions of practical implications were given. This literature review and theoretical integration offers a starting point for potential areas of further exploration.