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The paper aims to study the consequences of the development of Islamic marketing on the social construction of Muslim religious identities.

The paper uses Max Weber's ideal-type methodology to analyze actors and strategies in Islamic marketing, as represented by their self-presentation on French-, English- and Arabic-language web sites.

First, the paper argues that by conflating values and preferences, rational choice theory fails to recognize an essential function of values, which govern the relationship between the personal and the social. Second, it describes the emergence of brand markets within traditional Muslim commodity economies. Third, it uses these distinctions, between the personal and the social and between commodity and brand economies, to construct four ideal types of Muslim economic actors: “collectivists”, “differentialists”, “integrationists”, and “entrepreneurs”.

The choice of web sites to survey Muslim economic and religious actors favors producers over consumers, religious specialists over laypeople. Future research should include protocols designed to test ways in which Muslims negotiate the conflicting demands of religion, society and economics in their daily lives.

In contradistinction to studies that emphasize the influence of Muslim consumer demand on the development of goods and services, this paper shows that economic conditions, notably globalization and market segmentation, affect the way Muslims construct their religious identities.

To show that the inability to adapt to a series of crises caused by business development is one of the principal causes of failure for all organisations and that one of the primary components in small business success must be the managerial competence of the principal actors, inevitably the owner‐manager.

This paper examines the divergence between the prescribed and assumed models of entrepreneurial behaviour provided by contemporary management theorists and the real, observed and reported behaviour of small business practitioners and owner‐managers. It reports on case study examples and highlights the dichotomy between expected and actual behaviour in typical management situations.

The paper suggests that the almost egotistical attitude displayed by many entrepreneurs, constitutes an abuse of the trust and the power placed in the hands of small business owner‐managers and that in extreme instances, the abuse of entrepreneurial power may lead directly to the failure of the small firm.

Many surveys of small business failure and sub‐optimal performance often suggest situational and operational causes and explanations. This paper offers a different perspective for future research because the cause may be seen to lie with the apparently non‐rational behaviour of the entrepreneur or owner‐manager who does not adhere to the “rules” and expectations of classical management theory.

The relationship between religiosity and female labour market attainment has been widely investigated for the USA; however, no comparable study has been undertaken for the Canadian context. The purpose of this paper is to redress this critical oversight of the literature by examining the impact of religiosity on Canadian female labour supply, both at extensive and intensive margins.

Using data from the Canadian Ethnic Diversity Survey, the authors consider all the measurable dimensions of religiosity, for the pooled sample, as well as by religious group. A wide array of control variables is included in the regressions to insure the reliability of the estimates.

The authors find that overall religiosity inversely relates to female labour supply in Canada. When the impact of religiosity is assessed on a by religion basis, it is revealed that Protestant females are penalized, by far the most.

The result is comparable with the pattern uncovered in the USA for Conservative Protestant females. Unlike what can be expected, no statistically significant difference is detected between religious-nones and Catholics, suggesting a convergence of gender ideologies.

The investigation reveals interesting patterns that not only contribute to the current state of literature, but also motivate future research. Fairlie and Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition techniques are also used to further explore attainment gaps among the religious groups.

Many entrepreneurs are able to manage their businesses within relatively contained and familiar geographical and cultural circles. With a world economy shrinking every day amid a flood of digital information, todayʼs entrepreneur is increasingly confronted with opportunities to consider new ways to secure vendors and recruit customers. Many unfamiliar possibilities emerge. Should the entrepreneur venture beyond “comfortable” surroundings to consider international connections? Specifically, what about China? How practical is this fetching business temptation of larger markets and lower-cost subcontractors? What are the social, trade, financial, and political issues? Should a “China strategy” be a true entrepreneurial offensive, or rather a defensive response to competition? Is this “China strategy” the promise of yet another entrepreneurial nirvana? Or is it perhaps again a case of “Be careful of what you wish for; it may really come true?”

The war in Iraq, the threat of terrorism and the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic have made international business activities increasingly difficult and risky. The worldwide economic downturn and slow growth in domestic markets are forcing companies to depend more than ever on overseas trade. SARS emerged in China in November 2002 and has spread to 26 countries. The SARS epidemic has caused the most severe economic crisis in Southeast Asia since the wave of bank failures and currency devaluations that swept the region five years ago. The SARS epidemic has prompted health officials to implement travel advisories and restrictions, in order to defer nonessential travel to regions of Asia with large numbers of SARS cases. They are enforcing quarantine and isolation measures in major cities to try and limit the spread of SARS. The President of the United States has signed an executive order adding SARS to the list of communicable diseases that can be quarantined. A major disruption in China could paralyze just‐in‐time supply chains and cause an economic crisis for retailers and other businesses worldwide. The SARS epidemic has caused many economists to drastically reduce their economic‐growth forecasts for Asia. New infectious diseases, such as SARS, can emerge and easily travel around the globe, infecting less‐resilient hosts and mutating because of the influence of viruses and bacteria in their new environment. Health officials are even more concerned about the pandemic disaster that hasn’t happened, but may still. However, the SARS epidemic has created positive economic benefits for some companies.

The paper aims to discuss the expectations and needs of Generation Y students for higher education specifically targeting issues relating to libraries and library management.

The paper provides a brief overview of Generation Y personality traits and characteristics. This is followed by a discussion of organizational culture, explaining how to effectively adapt to meet the expectations of the Generation Y students. Two academic libraries' programs designed to meet the needs of the new learners are discussed.

The paper recognizes the need to address the challenges of the new learners from all levels of library management and provides strategies and programs to enable positive change within the library culture.

The paper highlights generational differences of current higher educational students and library staff and provides practical solutions to enable positive change within library organizational culture.

This case explores the larger context of competition among Internet companies for market share globally, especially in the emerging Chinese economy, as well as concerns about advancing the core values of the company including user privacy. Specifically, it concerns the decision facing Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang when he is confronted with a request by the Chinese government to release the name of one of its users for alleged violations of Chinese law.

The purpose of this research study is to empirically investigate a hypothesized theoretical framework that captures the impact of brand personality congruence, brand love and brand attachment on brand loyalty in the luxury branding sector.

Empirical data were gathered from 416 millennial shoppers with incomes from US$100,000 and above (High-Earners-Not–Rich-Yet). Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses of the framework developed for the study. Dubai is chosen as the context of the study based on the fact that the luxury brands sector is one of the leading industries in the country, and has a sizeable population of HENRY's.

The findings of this study revealed that brand personality congruence is a critical determinant of brand love and brand loyalty, suggesting congruence between the consumer's personality and the brand is essential to the luxury branding sector. The study also establishes a relationship between brand attachment and brand loyalty.

This study offers new empirical support for the proposition that consumers' emotional aspects like brand personality congruence and brand love are critical for enhancing brand loyalty toward luxury. The findings from this study can provide brand managers with a guide to managing their branding strategies and understand the strategic role of these variables on communication strategies for a new emerging segment of the HENRY's customer segment.

This study contributes to luxury branding and a new segment of millennials by examining the relationship between brand personality congruence, brand love, brand attachment and its effect on brand loyalty in the luxury branding context.

Using data from 36,981 respondents to the Global Drug Survey (GDS) COVID-19 Special Edition, this study aims to compare changes, following the first “lockdown,” in alcohol consumption between lesbian, gay, bisexual and other sexual minority (LGB+) and heterosexual respondents with and without lifetime mental health and neurodevelopmental (MHND) conditions.

Characteristics and drinking behavior of respondents to GDS who disclosed their sexual orientation and past 30-day alcohol use were described and compared. LGB+ participants with and without MHND conditions were compared, and logistic regression models identified correlates of increased drinking among LGB+ people. The impact of changed drinking on the lives of LGB+ participants with and without MHND conditions was assessed.

LGB+ participants who reported that they were “not coping well at all” with the pandemic had twofold greater odds of reporting increased binge drinking. LGB+ participants with MHND conditions were significantly more likely than those without to report increased drinking frequency (18.7% vs 12.4%), quantity (13.8% vs 8.8%) and that changed drinking had impacted their lives.

This study, which has a uniquely large and international sample, explores aspects of alcohol use not considered in other COVID-19 alcohol use research with LGB+ people; and to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore alcohol use among LGB+ people with MHND conditions.