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Management sciences (organizational behavior).

The case is suitable for MBA students, employees of any organization, human resource practitioners, organization administrators, human resource directors and senior line management.

The study deals with unethical or “haraam” practices at the workplace. It is based on the observation of the researchers. The business organization was selected and the behavior of employees was observed for two months. An interesting behavior of an employee was observed and the change in behavior was followed. The study describes the various factors influencing the behavior and performance of the employee and emphasis is made on the “haraam” practices of drinking alcohol and unacceptable behavior. The focus is on the performance of the employee. Major events and changes were elaborated to deduce the descriptive cause and effect results based on observation. It was found that behavior as well as performance was reduced due to “haraam” practices, which can be a lesson for other employees to follow as well as for managers to devise strategies in order to improve the most important resource of their organization, i.e. the human resource.

As this case was designed for an executive education programme, no detail regarding where it fitted into the curriculum is applicable as would be the case with cases designed for students. The case is intended to develop skills in students to creatively approach a common and wide spread problem and to think about the solution in an innovative way. The overall purpose of the case is to engage human resource practitioners (students) in creatively constructing innovative solutions to address the problem of compulsive drinking in the organizational environment.

Teaching notes are available, please consult your librarian for access.

The purpose of this paper is to improve the socio-economic condition of low-income households in Malaysia, many products and services are available, including access to working capital and enterprise development training programs. This study examined the impact of access to working capital and micro-enterprise development training programs on household income and economic vulnerability among participants of development initiatives in the eKasih (national poverty data bank) in Peninsular Malaysia.

Adopting a cross-sectional design, the authors collected data randomly from the selected 300 micro-entrepreneurs from the list of development organizations available in the eKasih (national poverty data bank) located in four states of Peninsular Malaysia. Quantitative data were collected through structured interviews with the respondents from October to November 2017.

Both the length of participation and total amount of economic loan were found to increase the household income. However, there was no positive and significant impact of total number of training hours on household income. Interestingly, length of participation was found to reduce the level of economic vulnerability, except total amount of economic loan, and total number of training hours.

Despite the overwhelming empirical evidence, the findings indicated that the impact of enterprise development training programs was inconclusive. The effect of total amount of loan on economic vulnerability was also inconclusive. Hence, both policy makers and development organizations should understand how their programs benefit the poor households that can be improved through new implementation strategies.

Environmental pollution has emerged as a major concern in the 21st century following the introduction of sustainable development (SD) by the year 2030, whereby one of the predominant goals is related to the manufacturing industry. In Malaysia, the automotive industry is acknowledged as the backbone driving for economic growth and recognised as a source of environmental deterioration. Therefore, eco-innovation is, thus, introduced as one of the efforts for minimised environmental effects, reduced social impact and firm value sustenance. In particular, eco-product innovation is one of the renowned environmental innovation dimensions and displays high adoption and diffusion rates in developed countries due to green awareness and government financial assistance. However, developing countries such as Malaysia show relatively low adoption of such practices amongst companies, whereby most of the efforts are driven by the governments, supplier and customer demands. Therefore, this paper aims to delineate the factors of voluntary initiatives undertaken by the Malaysian automotive and auto parts industry towards eco-product innovation.

The research drew from the micro-level perspective, thus using dynamic capabilities (DC) constructs and environmental management system (EMS) strategy variables. The constructs included technology collaboration, green human resources and eco-culture, while the variables denoted formal EMS and top management support. Survey data were obtained from 242 entities within the Malaysian automotive and auto parts industry, which were subjected to analysis via confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling.

The findings revealed the moderating role played by eco-product innovation for the association linking EMS strategy and sustainability development, while no moderator effects were observed between DC and sustainability development. Thus, future research can be performed in the meso and macro-level areas by using qualitative research across different sectors.

This paper explicates novel literature content, particularly for the field of eco-product innovation; it positions an empirical analysis from the micro-level perspective regarding the antecedence of DC and environmental strategy towards eco-product innovation and SD, mainly in the automotive industry.

This chapter uses an analytic procedure to uncover how Saddam Hussein made his past decisions, and the decision rule(s) Saddam adopted in choosing his actions. In analyzing Saddam, a leader who was considered one of the most formidable enemies of the Western world, this study utilizes official recordings captured at the Iraq war, which provide a reliable source of information. This chapter adds to the literature on the use of applied decision analysis (ADA) in analyzing leaders’ decisions.

Specifically, an emphasis is placed on the importance of understanding the process that led Saddam Hussein to his key decisions, in order to create his decision profile. Decision profiles describe the decision rules and models that are used by decision-makers en route to choice and can help understand and predict decisions of world leaders. I use the ADA procedure to examine key foreign policy decisions made by Saddam Hussein. Finally, after thoroughly examining each of these decisions, I attempt to uncover what decision rule Saddam used, and elaborate on the implications and recommendations of my analysis.

The role of women entrepreneurs in family businesses is becoming increasingly important, a fact that is reflected in the scientific literature. The purpose of this study is to identify the key research areas that address this issue. To this end, a bibliometric analysis has been carried out to obtain a perspective of the current situation in this field of research and to identify the key areas of research in recent years.

In this study, the analysis is performed using a literature review and bibliometric analysis techniques. The bibliographic source supporting this analysis resulted from a Scopus search of the terms gender, entrepreneurship and family business. VOSviewer was used to facilitate the analysis.

This bibliometric analysis studies the evolutionary trend of publications on gender, entrepreneurship and family business and identifies current research trends. It also identifies authors, journals and countries with the highest impact levels to enhance collaboration and learning.

It would be advisable to conduct further research with a broader bibliographic base and with other search criteria covering other aspects related to the role of women entrepreneurs in family businesses. This work can serve as a valuable source of information for future research in this field and to assist in the development of effective equality policies to address existing social stereotypes.

This research illustrates, using VOSviewer, the current growth of studies in the field of women entrepreneurship in family businesses.

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are crucial for socio-economic growth due to their significant role in creating new workforce, gross domestic product increase, innovation and entrepreneurship. This paper aims to examine financial management performance in SMEs with regard to industry, firm age and education level of owner/managers differences.

The data used in the study are collected from 188 SMEs through structured questionnaires, and three hypotheses regarding the associations are tested by using structural equation modeling.

Findings of one-way ANOVA tests indicate that performance in financial management practices has a strong and positive correlation with education level of small business owner/managers, whereas no significant difference is found regarding SMEs operating in different industries. For the impact of company age, independent samples t-test is conducted, and a meaningful difference between small- and medium-sized companies which are five years or older and younger is found.

This study shows that a significant difference for age of an SME is present between over and under five-year-old SMEs, with respect to financial management performance, which is an important finding for both small business and financial management literatures. The tests regarding the particular hypotheses about education level of SME owner/managers indicate that education level of SME owner/managers significantly impacts financial management performance.

The present study provides important practical implications. First, the importance of education level of owner/managers on SME financial performance is highlighted. Second, strong empirical support is found for the impact of company age on SME performance, which might be discussed as the importance of accumulation of knowledge of the owner/managers and the changes required with the growth patterns of the company, with increasing company age. Third, the study shows that industry differences do not exhibit a significant performance variation factor in financial management of SMEs, with respect to other demographic factors. Overall, these contributions help us better understand the financial management performance indicators in small and medium sized businesses.

This study focuses on company age, education level and industry differences with respect to financial management performance in SMEs in emerging economies, therefore provides additional empirical evidence to a research area where very few empirical studies exist.

This study aims to explore the perceptions of zakah institutions and the intention of society towards the application of blockchain technology in zakah management.

The nature of this study is qualitative, attempting to indulge into the contribution of Fintech in Islamic social finance. This study uses a mixed-method to gauge the perception of stakeholders. For the quantitative approach, a survey was carried out focussing on zakah receiver and zakah payer. The data then was analysed based on the technology acceptance model. While interview survey with multiple stakeholders (zakah institutions, JAWHAR and university) was conducted to gauge the perception of zakah institutions in using blockchain technology.

The findings of this study provide a positive view for zakah institutions to embrace the usage of blockchain in its management, however, there are several concern that needs to be addressed.

This study provides new insights to the body of knowledge especially in the zakah management system and Fintech. Besides, from a managerial aspect, this study contributes to the new practices that could be implemented in zakah institutions.

Many people lose jobs and income due to the economic turmoil and COVID-19 pandemic, which makes zakah an important Islamic social finance tool to assist in socio-economic development. It is high time for zakah institutions to implement blockchain especially during this pandemic crisis that requires a more contactless approach to ensure health and safety.

This study is important to encourage Islamic social finance institutions to embrace blockchain technology in providing an efficient service to the development of social and economic.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of implementing corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives (social responsibility, economic responsibility and environmental responsibility) on Jordanian Pharmaceutical Manufacturing (JPM) industry’s business performance.

This study follows a quantitative descriptive design. The data were collected from 116 managers working at seven JPM organizations by questionnaire. After confirming validity and reliability of the tool, the statistical analysis means, standard deviations and t-values were used to test implementation and finally multiple regressions were used to test the hypothesis.

Results show that there are relationships between CSR variables, and all the three variables are strongly related to business performance. The results also indicate that the three sub-variables together affect JPM industry’s business performance. The environmental responsibility has the highest effect on JPM industry’s business performance, followed by the economic responsibility, and then the social responsibility.

This study was directed toward pharmaceutical industry in Jordan. Generalizing the results to other industries and countries is questionable. Therefore, further research on other industries and countries will help mitigate the issue of generalizing conclusions.

CSR should be formulated clearly within JPM corporate strategy. The elements of CSR need to be integrated with the present performance management criteria, leadership development programs and organizational development programs, and a champion for CSR needs to be assigned.

The CSR initiatives should be derived from local culture and match with international initiatives because CSR is the responsibility of every person.

Still the topic of CSR is not well implemented and does not have priority by Jordanian companies; therefore, this study may be considered as one of the few studies dedicated to study this topic and create awareness about it in Jordan.

The purpose of this study is to empirically analyze the role of sukuk in the monetary policy transmission mechanism through the asset price and exchange rate channels in the Indonesian economy.

Using the monthly data from January 2003 to November 2017, this study uses a multivariate vector error correction model causality framework. To examine the role of sukuk in the monetary policy transmission mechanism through the asset price channel, this study uses the variables of consumption, inflation, interest rates, economic growth and the composite stock price index. Meanwhile, to examine the role of sukuk in the monetary policy transmission mechanism through the exchange rate channel, this study used variables of inflation, interest rates, economic growth, foreign investment and exchange rate.

This study documented that sukuk has no causal relationship with inflation through asset price and exchange rate channels. Nevertheless, sukuk has a bidirectional causal relationship with economic growth through asset price and exchange rate channels. Sukuk is also documented to have a causal relationship with monetary policy variables of interest rate and stock prices through asset price and exchange rate channels. Finally, a unidirectional causality is recorded running from the exchange rate to sukuk in the exchange rate channel.

The finding of independence of the sukuk market from interest rates provides evidence that the trading of the sukuk in Indonesia has been in harmony with the Islamic tenets.

The relevant Indonesian authorities need to enhance both domestic and global sukuk markets as part of efforts to promote the sustainability of Islamic capital market development in Indonesia.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first attempts to empirically investigate the role of sukuk in monetary policy transmission through asset price and exchange rate channels in the context of the Indonesian economy.