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In the developing countries, formal credit has dominant role for the development of agriculture sector. It increases the farmer's purchasing power for better farm inputs and agricultural technology for high crop productivity. The main purpose of this study is to examine the influence of socioeconomic characteristics of smallholder farmers for credit demand in Sindh, Pakistan.

A cross-sectional data set randomly collected from 90 smallholder farmers in Thatta district, Sindh, Pakistan, is examined. Descriptive statistics, correlation and the OLS regression method were used to demonstrate the important factors affecting the demand for formal credit.

The results revealed that formal education, experience of farming, landholding size, road access and extension contacts positively and significantly influenced the demand for formal credit.

This study is the first, to the best of authors' knowledge, to demonstrate the influence of various socioeconomic characteristics of smallholder farmers on demand for formal credit in Sindh, Pakistan. It also illustrates the imperative contribution to the literature regarding credit access and demand to improve the agricultural productivity.

The purpose of this paper is to indicate an innovative solution to address the financing issues faced by “Micro-, Small and Medium Enterprises” (MSME) in emerging economies.

Islamic Financial Institutions (IFIs) especially Islamic banks are competing for high net worth individuals, whereas the MSME sector is largely untapped. A collaborative model for IFIs is suggested, to explore the MSME sector. Islamic Non-Banking Financial Institutions (NBFIs) are operating in these markets through their extensive gross route networks. The multistep collaborative model proposes “Special Purpose Entity (SPE)” partially owned by a single Islamic Bank or consortium and NBFI/s. SPEs can be incorporated with a defined scope, focus areas, risk profile, budget and shareholding patterns.

Risk and profit sharing instruments also known as Musharakah and Mudarabah have less than 6 percent share within total financing offered by Islamic banks globally. Risk sharing products offered by Islamic banks are not targeting this sector due to the underdevelopment of instruments, lack of knowledge and resources. Proposed SPEs can operate regionally with a concentration on specific business sectors.

The SPE model would enable Islamic banks to enter the huge MSME market while mitigating risk. On the contrary, it would enable the large segments of emerging economies (bottom 40 percent population of developing nations) to get involved and actively play their role to attain long-term development goals.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the direct and indirect influence of brand experience on a customer's brand attitude, brand credibility and customer-based brand equity. Design/methodology/approach

The data were collected from 400 users of mobile hand sets, using convenience sampling technique. Data were analysed using structural equation modelling procedure to test the proposed relationships in the model. Findings

The results indicate that the data were a good fit to the proposed model. All the paths in the model remained statistically significant. Although, Chi square test was not significant (6.10, df, 2, p

This research investigates the proposed model for a single product category. Future researchers can test the model for other product and service categories. Also, this research only explores the three most critical outcomes of brand experience; however future researchers can incorporate satisfaction, loyalty and commitment as the possible outcome of brand experience.

This study demonstrates that brand experience can directly and indirectly influence some of the most important concepts in branding literature. This model will help managers to understand how investments in different aspects of branding process lead towards brand differentiation.

This research is the first of its type that incorporates brand credibility, attitude and equity as the consequences of brand experience in a single causal model.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the influence of consumer attitude towards Halal banking on e‐service quality and e‐satisfaction, in an online Islamic banking context. The proposed model also aims to investigate the relationships among e‐service quality, e‐satisfaction, e‐trust and e‐loyalty.

A questionnaire was designed to collect data from the regular users of online services of Islamic banks in Pakistan. Convenience sampling method was adopted to collect data from the existing customers of six Islamic banks, residing in five major urban centres of Pakistan. A total of 350 questionnaires were distributed, out of which 292 returned questionnaires were suitable for further analysis. Structural equation modelling procedure was used to test the proposed research model.

The results of this research suggest that attitude towards Halal banking positively influences perceived e‐service quality and overall e‐satisfaction with the online services of Islamic banks. Furthermore, perceived online service quality enhances customer e‐satisfaction and their e‐loyalty towards the bank. Similarly, e‐trust mediates the relationship between e‐satisfaction and e‐loyalty.

This study enhances our understanding of how specific religious attitudes can positively influence consumer assessments of a bank's perceived e‐service quality and their overall e‐satisfaction with it.

Much of the previous research on Islamic banking has been descriptive in its nature. This study contributes to the existing literature by exploring the causal effect of attitude towards Halal banking on consumer perceptions about the e‐service quality and e‐satisfaction with the online services of Islamic banks.

Muslims living in multi-religious societies are considered more conscious about the permissibility (Halal) of products and thus the majority of Halal research in the non-financial sector was conducted in multi-ethnic societies. Nonetheless, the global trade is changing the way we perceive the origin of products and brands and their permissibility under Islamic Sharia laws. This apparently has serious implications for international companies operating in food, cosmetics and pharmaceutical products. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of Muslim attitude towards Halal products, their subjective norms and religiosity in predicting intention to choose Halal products.

A structured question was designed to elicit consumer attitude, subjective norms, intention to choose Halal products and degree of inter and intra personal religiosity. Data were collected from 180 adult respondents using a convenience sampling method. Only 150 responses were deemed suitable for further analysis, yielding a response rate of 83 per cent. Stepwise regression analysis was used to test the proposed model.

The results indicated that theory of reasoned action (TRA) is a valid model in predicting intention to choose Halal products. The results further indicate that subjective norms (β=0.455, p, 0.001), attitude towards the Halal products (β=0.265, p, 0.001) and intra personal religiosity (β=0.167, p, 0.001) positively influence attitude towards the Halal products. Interestingly, subjective norm appears to be the strongest of all the predictors for choosing Halal products.

The data collected for the current study investigate global attitude towards Halal products. It would be interesting if future researchers examine consumers ' attitude towards specific Halal products for specific product categories.

It is argued in this research that the presence of strong attitude towards Halal products in Muslim consumers might play an important role in exclusion or inclusion of brands, based on their conformance to Halal requirements.

The paper extends the applicability of the theory of reasoned action model by investigating the role of inter-personal and intra-personal religiosity in intention to choose Halal products.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the Malaysian Malays attitude towards offensive advertising and the reasons that make these advertisements offensive. This paper aims to explore the role of religiosity on attitudes towards controversial advertisements and the reasons why they are controversial.

This paper consists of 279 randomly selected Malay participants. Data were analyzed using means, correlations, and ANOVA.

Results indicate that those high on religiosity differ on the nature and manner of controversial advertisements from those of low religiosity. Malay Muslims when compared on their degree of religiosity differ in terms of their evaluation of offensive nature of advertisement. More important they differ more on the reason that make these advertisement offensive compared to the nature of the products.

Respondents are somewhat more skewed towards a younger population causing concern that the results might not be a true indication of all Malaysian age groups.

The original value of the research lies in its effort to examine the results from the lens of religious theology and respondent degree of religiosity.

This paper seeks to develop and test the SERVQUAL model scale for measuring Malaysian private health service quality.

The study consists of 340 randomly selected participants visiting a private healthcare facility during a three‐month data collection period. Data were analyzed using means, correlations, principal component and confirmatory factor analysis to establish the modified SERVQUAL scale's reliability, underlying dimensionality and convergent, discriminant validity.

Results indicate a moderate negative quality gap for overall Malaysian private healthcare service quality. Results also indicate a moderate negative quality gap on each service quality scale dimension. However, scale development analysis yielded excellent results, which can be used in wider healthcare policy and practice.

Respondents were skewed towards a younger population, causing concern that the results might not represent all Malaysian age groups.

The study's major contribution is that it offers a way to assess private healthcare service quality. Second, it successfully develops a scale that can be used to measure health service quality in Malaysian contexts.

This research attempts to empirically expand the Aaker's consumer based brand equity model in hybrid business firms by incorporating after sales service as a new dimension. Exploring and understanding the drivers of consumer based brand equity in a hybrid business context will help in building industry specific competitive barriers and generating brand wealth.

The data were collected from Pakistani adults using a structured questionnaire based on established scales. Convenience sampling was used to gather data from 205 respondents across the major cities of Pakistan. To test the proposed research model the data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis.

The results support the proposed five‐factor model of consumer based brand equity for the automotive industry. The results support the notion that after sales service is related but is a separate dimension of consumer based brand equity in the automotive sector.

This proposed CBBE model was tested in the automotive sector of Pakistan. However, the automotive industry is special in the sense that it builds brands at dual level. This study only investigates consumer based brand equity at marque level. Future studies can expand on this work by investigating consumer based brand equity both at marque and model levels.

The establishment of after sale services as a separate but independent dimension of consumer based brand equity for the hybrid business organizations provides a fresh reminder regarding the possibilities of new sources for building brand equity. Managers can focus on delivering excellent after sale services to build and enhance the equity of their brands in hybrid business organizations.

This study expands Aaker's brand equity model by empirically establishing after sales service as a fifth dimension for the firms operating on hybrid business model.

The trade agreements among major trading countries can open new prospects of development and growth for global economy. The policy changes by a major trading country can alter the global trade and connection patterns. The trade agreement known as Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was between 12 “Pacific-rim” countries signed earlier in 2016 indicates an upcoming and major policy change for global economy (presidential memorandum to withdraw the United States from TPP was signed in January 2017). The agreement would influence the issues related to “economic growth, employment, innovation, productivity, and competitiveness” of every partner and linked economy. This study illustrates how Asia Pacific’s major countries are interlinked with each other, the important sectors and the strength of connections. The level of interconnectedness might have been transformed within regional trade network because of varying global economic patterns and demand trends. The study focuses on the aspects related to agreement and reduction in tariffs that may change the global trading scenarios and appropriate position for region’s prominent and developing economies after implementation of the agreement.

The purpose of this study is to discover the extent to which consumers are aware of air filling in food packaging, the extent to which deceptive packaging and slack filling – which often result from package downsizing – lead to cognitive dissonance and the extent to which feelings of cognitive dissonance and being deceived lead consumers to engage in negative post-purchase behaviours.

The study analysed respondents’ reactions to a series of images of a specific product. The sample consisted of consumers of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) in the UK. Five photographs served as the stimulus material. The first picture showed a well-known brand of premium chocolate in its packaging and then four further pictures each showed a plate with a different amount of chocolate on it, which represented different possible levels of package fill.

Consumer expectations of pack fill were positively related to consumers’ post-purchase dissonance, and higher dissonance was negatively related to repurchase intentions and positively related to both intended visible and non-visible negative post-purchase behaviours, such as switching brand and telling friends to avoid the product. Furthermore, consumers with low product involvement were less likely to repurchase the brand, and were more willing to engage in visible and non-visible negative behaviours.

The key message from this study is that consumers’ post-purchase dissonance is likely to damage the firm. Although firms may initially achieve increased sales through deceptive packaging and slack filling, these practices risk damaging a brand’s reputation and consumer loyalty to the brand. Firms need to strike a balance between packaging size and content, and as consumer expectations are likely to vary across different products, individual companies should engage in market research and substantive market testing.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that investigates antecedents and consequences of cognitive dissonance experienced by consumers which was caused by perceived deceptive packaging and/or slack filling.