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The purpose of this paper is to identify some well-set instruments in Islam that can efficiently alleviate poverty, solve social problems and reduce social inequality through a new operational framework called “Islamic social business (ISB)”.

This is a conceptual research that is based on Al-Quranic principles as well as contemporary social welfare philosophies, such as, augmented stakeholder theory, social enterprise and social business. Al-Quran, Al-Hadith and existing traditional and Islamic literature are consulted for this study.

The study proposes an efficient system of Islamic wealth sourcing and management to make the process of poverty alleviation sustainable. Other social problems for disadvantaged people, such as, health-, shelter-, literacy- and environmental-related issues are also addressed in the proposed system. The study identifies the inefficiency in the current practices and makes some propositions that are in conformance with Islamic principles and implementable by Islamic institutions all over the world. The authors propose a theoretical framework and operational propositions for ISB.

In following this study, social policymakers, Islamic financial institutions, Islamic social enterprises and Islamic charity organizations will find organized guidelines to initiate “new entities” or “reshape existing entities”.

The study will be effective in solving social problems, alleviating poverty and reducing social inequality.

This is the first study that identifies all the potential Islamic sources of funding and the efficient management thereof through ISB. The study also proposes an ISB model and makes several propositions for different types of ISB.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of service quality, customer’s satisfaction and religiosity on customer’s patronage decision toward health insurance products. The paper also assesses the influence of religiosity on customer’s patronage decision. The influence of customers’ satisfaction as mediation between service quality and customer’s patronage decision was also measured.

A structured questionnaire was developed and administered to a sample of 200 respondents. This research applied the exploratory factor analysis, the confirmatory factor analysis and the structural equation modeling to test the proposed hypotheses.

The findings indicate that customers’ religiosity behavior has a significant influence on customer’s patronage decision for selecting health insurance products. The results also indicated that the role of customer’s satisfaction as a mediator in between the relationship of service quality and customer’s patronage decision is significant.

This research is a cross-sectional study consisting of 200 respondents. In addition, the elements of the sample were Malaysian customers using health insurance products and services.

This study suggests that customers of health insurance products are more concerned with perceived service quality and perceived satisfaction. The role of religiosity also plays a dominant role. As a result, managers of the health insurance service providers need to focus more on benefits of service varieties centered toward their target customers in order to gain higher patronage decision of health insurance products.

The study sought to address the gap of religiosity aspects in health insurance products through intensive literature and offer a conceptual framework that tested service quality, customer’s satisfaction and religiosity in one integrated model under the perspective of health insurance industry. More importantly, it also examines the influence of religiosity on patronage behavior, thus shedding insights into the opportunities for understanding consumers in detail.

Enhancing retailing service quality (RSQ) serves as a basic strategy for gaining competitive advantage in the retailing industry and enables retailers to make a loyal customer base. The purpose of this paper is to propose and empirically investigate a comprehensive mechanism for enhancing customer loyalty to retail stores via service quality practices. This study suggests information on retailers can be the antecedent of the RSQ and its dimensions, thereby proposing a comprehensive mechanism for enhancing customer loyalty to retailers.

The data were collected using questionnaire surveys from 2,375 customers of three main supermarkets in Sri Lanka. After testing the measurement model, two structural models were run to test hypotheses.

The findings showed that the RSQ positively influenced customer loyalty. From all the RSQ dimensions, the store’s physical aspects, personal interaction and policy had a significant influence on customer loyalty. The findings also demonstrated that information on retailers contributes to enhancing a customer’s favorable evaluation of the supermarket’s physical aspects, personal interaction and retailing policy.

This study was conducted with supermarket customers in one country using the cross-sectional data. Hence, the model should be replicated among retail customers in other countries with the longitudinal data.

Practically, this study recommends to retailers which dimensions of service quality they need to focus to enhance customer loyalty to their business. The study furthermore recommends certain dimensions that need to be emphasized while retailers design their promotional and communication programs.

Information on retailers has been suggested as an antecedent for enhancing supermarkets’ service quality practices. Thus, this study proposes a comprehensive mechanism for enhancing customer loyalty to retailers via service quality practices.

While the relationship between military expenditure and economic growth during the Cold War period is well-researched, relatively less is known on the issue for the post-Cold War era. Equally how the relationship varies with respect to exposure to conflict is also not fully examined. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the causal impact of military expenditure on growth in the presence of internal and external threats for the period 1990-2013 using data from 70 developing countries.

The main estimates are based on the generalized method of moments (GMM) regression model. But for comparison purposes, the authors also report estimates using fixed and random effects as well as pooled cross-section regressions. The regression specification accounts for non-linear effect of military expenditure allowing for interaction with conflict variable (where distinction is made between external and internal conflict).

The analysis indicates that methods as well as model specification matter in studying the effect of military spending on growth. Full sample estimates based on GMM, fixed, and random effects models suggest a negative and statistically significant effect of military expenditure. However, fixed effects estimate becomes insignificant for low-income countries. The effect of military spending is also insignificant in the cross-sectional OLS model if conflict is not considered. When the regression model additionally controls for conflict, the effect of military spending conditional upon (internal) conflict exposure is significant and positive. No such effect is present conditional upon external threat.

One important limitation of the analysis is the small sample size – the authors had to restrict analysis to 70 low and middle-income countries for which the authors could construct post-Cold War panel data on military expenditure along with information on armed conflict exposure (the later from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, 2015).

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first paper to examine the joint impact of military expenditure and conflict on economic growth in post-Cold War period in a sample of developing countries. Moreover, an attempt is made to review and revisit the large Cold War literature where studies vary considerably in terms findings. A key reason for this is the somewhat ad hoc choice of econometric methods – most rely on cross-section data and rarely conduct sensitivity analysis. The authors instead rely on panel data estimates but also report results based on naïve models for comparison purposes.

In Indonesia, the Islamic Economics and Finance Sector is growing rapidly, but the literature on Islamic financial literacy is still minimal. This study aims to show research opportunities with the theme of Islamic financial literacy, especially inclusive Islamic financial planning through bibliometric analysis of Scopus and connected papers.

A comma separated value (CSV) file containing more than 2,000 references meta data was used for analysis on Vos Viewer in the period of 1963–2020. The grouping of network visualization maps is done using six keywords, namely, “Financial Literacy,” “Financial Inclusion,” “Islamic Financial Literacy,” “Financial Planning,” “Personal Finance” and “Household Finance.”

The findings complement the keywords that are generally used as references in the formation of theories regarding inclusive Islamic financial planning. After combining the “ris” file from the connected paper, the most used terms are financial knowledge, financial education, financial behavior, financial decision-making process, financial inclusion, risk sharing and financial discourse.

The proportion which planned to be applied in Indonesia will differentiate the inclusive Islamic financial planning framework from what has been done before. This study outlines the basis of the relevant literature review in the theme of Islamic financial literacy research, especially inclusive Islamic financial planning.

The purpose of this paper is to examine consumers’ perceptions and their behavioural intentions in selecting an internet broadband service in Malaysia by inspecting young users’ perceptions, in respect of the technical, functional and experience economy perspective.

A survey methodology using questionnaires was adopted to solicit the required information from 400 existing, as well as potential users. Data were analysed through exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling.

The research shows that in selecting an operator's service both technical and functional qualities are highly mediated by young consumers’ perceptions in explaining their behavioural intentions. The paper also finds that the experience economy variable has a direct effect, which is more dominant on young consumers’ behavioural intentions than the indirect effect through perception, which implies a partial mediation.

The study focused on young users’ perceptions and the implicative behavioural intentions in selecting a broadband operator within the Klang Valley area in Malaysia. Thus, it may not be generalized to all young consumers’ around the world.

This study identifies the perceived attributes of quality and experience economy as well as generalizing the young consumers’ buying intentions in selecting an internet broadband operator in Malaysia.

This research contributes to the existing literature because the study of the behavioural aspects of young consumers is of great importance for marketers to identify the consumers’ ultimate choice in internet broadband selection in Malaysia.