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This study focusses on the underlying needs of Muslims to adhere to the tenets of their religion and to guide their behaviours accordingly. These requirements, for the purpose of travelling, constitute halal tourism. As Muslim-minority nations, such as Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, began to market their own brands of halal tourism, there are concerns of whether their current practices are able to meet the requirements of Muslim travellers. Thus, this study aims to understand the main needs and concerns of Muslim travellers when they visit Muslim-minority countries.

Interviews were conducted on selected Muslim travellers who recently visited one of the following destinations, Japan, South Korea or Taiwan. Applying the process theory of travel, service marketing perspective and Muslim religious needs, the study’s conceptual framework served as the basis for crafting interview questions, selecting the participants and explaining the findings.

Muslim travellers are mostly concerned with the need to perform daily prayers and to find halal food at the point of need, and willing to conduct extensive research on the destination prior to their visit. Muslim travellers’ experiences in these Muslim-minority countries are generally met with their expectations, although further socialisation with the locals is needed to induce greater overall satisfaction with the destinations.

Understanding the current practices of halal tourism is critical so that improvements can be implemented in the industry.

Key preparations, expectations, actual experiences in the destinations and reflections of Muslim travellers provide in-depth insights into their needs and concerns when travelling in Muslim-minority countries. The emergent religion-based dimensions in service experience, such as availability of social agents and halal food at the point of need, extend the conceptualisation of perishability and heterogeneity in service marketing literature.

“Starting up a new company” and “development of technology-based venture”.

The target audiences for this study are advanced business or non-business undergraduate students and MBA students taking courses of entrepreneurship, management of innovation and organization theory and design.

Yeayyy.com was a private limited company based in Bandar Baru Bangi, Selangor, a township located about 30 km south of Kuala Lumpur. It was founded by Mr Hazmin in early 2010 with a seed funding of RM150,000 (about US$50,000). By the end of 2014, its core businesses include developing mobile application (app), software and website, as well as conducting information technology (IT) training. The company had developed its own animation cartoon, Oolat Oolit, and had commercialized several mobile app inventions. These mobile apps include a Jawi (traditional Malay writing system) app, mobile games and Facebook apps which were compatible with most mobile operating systems. Since its inception, Yeayyy.com had aspired to follow the footsteps of the internationally acclaimed Malaysian home-grown animation production house, Les’ Copaque, which had produced the popular Upin Ipin series. Similar to Les’ Copaque, Yeayyy.com also planned to commercialize its in-house characters into TV series and to market related merchandises, along with its collaborative partner, CikuTree Studio. However, by the end of 2014, the company’s seed funding had depleted, thus forcing Mr Hazmin to strategize for the company’s future.

Understanding the process of entrepreneurship and technology-based venture development enables case analysts to apply the concepts in many situations involving business opportunities and company development.

CSS:3 Entrepreneurship.

Uzbekistan, a former Soviet Union state whose population is 96% Muslim, is aiming to penetrate the global halal market. Since 2016, its government has been committed to establishing a halal economy, purportedly comprising halal product exports and inbound halal tourism services. Given that a conducive halal ecosystem is a critical condition for creating and sustaining a viable halal economy, the current condition of the halal industry in the country must be diagnosed. For this purpose, we developed a diagnostic framework based on the halal principles and the Viable System Model (VSM) to identify the existing players and stakeholders in the halal industry ecosystem in Uzbekistan and their respective roles and functions, as well as the information flows amongst them.

The study utilised the qualitative methodology with the data gathered mainly from in-depth interviews with industry experts and consumers in Uzbekistan.

The findings revealed that the country has considerable potential to develop its halal tourism market due to its beautiful landscape, rich history and cultural heritage, which is supported by a full-fledged development policy. Uzbekistan's industrial sector exhibits substantial readiness to serve the Muslim market; however, the country lacks a specific policy for the development of the halal manufacturing export industry.

Our findings generate emergent themes that are relevant to the operations and future viability of halal industry of a Muslim country in a transitioning economy. These emerging themes further strengthened existing conceptualisation of the Viable System Model in terms of the elements of the environment and the function of policymaking in contributing toward a system's viability. Implications of the findings and suggestions for future research are also provided.

The area of focus is on internationalization strategies, specifically on developing suitable strategies to support an internationalization initiative of a new medical device company.

This case is designed for final year undergraduate and MBA students. It is suitable for courses of organizational management, organization theory and design, strategic management, and international business as well as international marketing.

GranuLab, a medical device company that produced the synthetic bone graft substitute GranuMaS, aspired to be a high-growth company. To achieve this aspiration the company had made plans for internationalization, which include penetrating the ASEAN, Middle East, Latin American, and African markets within the next five years. By December 2010, GranuLab had completed the construction of its new manufacturing facility in Shah Alam, about 30km from Malaysia's capital city of Kuala Lumpur. This manufacturing facility had the capability to produce high volumes to support the company's high growth plan. However, the company's internationalization processes had taken longer than expected and this has led to a low business volume. By mid-2012, the company was forced to make a quick decision as it had suffered a year and a half of operations losses. GranuLab had to formulate a strategy as to how to position GranuMaS and penetrate the targeted markets. Failure to internationalize would incur even greater losses and might hinder the achievement of its high growth aspiration by 2015.

This case is designed to stimulate case analysts' thinking into providing recommendations for the appropriate internationalization strategies to be adopted by the management team to ensure that the company could succeed in achieving its goals. The case will expose students to the concepts and theories of strategic management, international business, international entrepreneurship; and facilitate the development of students' abilities to apply those concepts in managerial situations.

Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

This study aims to evaluate the effect of the combination of tempeh and red ginger flour in hypercholesterolemic rats.

Sprague Dawley male rats (n = 30; body weight 150-200 g) were randomly divided by five groups (n = 6), consist of negative control (K−) group: group fed by normal diet (laboratory standard diet laboratory, 4.35 kcal/g, 0% cholesterol); positive control (K+) group: group fed by high cholesterol diet (5.28 kcal/g, 12.1% cholesterol); Treatment 1 (P1) group: group fed by high cholesterol diet and treated by tempeh flour (TF) 1.9 g/200 g body weight; Treatment 2 (P2) group: group fed by high cholesterol diet and treated by red ginger flour (RGF) 0.036 g/200 g body weight; and Treatment 3 (P3) group: group fed by high cholesterol diet and treated by a combination TF 0.95 g/200 g body weight and red ginger 0.018 g/200 g body weight. The lipid profiles and malondialdehyde (MDA) were assessed.

The combination of tempeh and red ginger has successfully exerted the total cholesterol (121.9 ± 3.41 mg/dL; p < 0.01), triglycerides (TG) (89.3 ± 2.94 mg/dL; p < 0.01), low-density lipoprotein (39.1 ± 1.59 mg/dL) and MDA (2.0 ± 0.24 mg/dL; p < 0.01) lower than the other treatments. Also, the combination of tempeh and red ginger treatment appeared the highest high-density lipoprotein concentration (63.4 ± 2.26 mg/dL; p < 0.01) compared to the other treatment groups. Total cholesterol and TG were predicted as the increasing of MDA concentration.

The combination treatments successfully improved the lipid profiles and MDA. Furthermore, the combination of tempeh and red ginger could be effective in supporting therapy as the hypolipidemic condition.

Developing and communicating a positioning strategy covering issues on market positioning, product lifecycle, product differentiation strategies and developing the marketing mix strategies in order to compete with competitors.

Advanced undergraduate and MBA student, taking courses of marketing management, strategic marketing, and brand management.

GranuLab is a private limited company based in Shah Alam, about 30 km from Malaysia's capital city of Kuala Lumpur; it was a producer of synthetic bone graft substitute GranuMaS. GranuMaS was launched in the Malaysian market in late 2010. At that time, the company aimed to capture 50-70 percent of the Malaysian bone graft substitute market by the end of 2015. However, by the end of 2012, GranuLab was experiencing low sales and the company had suffered a two-year loss due to manufacturing at low capacity. GranuLab also faced stiff competition from multinational competitors that had penetrated the Malaysian market earlier with competitive product offerings. The pressure to increase the sale ofGranuMaS was mounting for Mr Romli Ishak, the Managing Director of GranuLab, Mr Fadil Dalal, the new General Manager of Marketing, and GranuLab's management team. This is especially so since the company's contract to supply GranuMaS to government hospitals under the Ministry of Health (MOH) program would end soon. These situations forced the company to make a quick decision. In December 2012, Mr Romli and his team pondered upon the best strategy that the company should pursue to achieve its objective of being a dominant player in the Malaysian bone graft substitute industry. This teaching case is designed to stimulate case analysts' thinking on positioning a medical device product in a market which was already conquered by established multinational companies.

Understanding of the concept of product positioning, product lifecycle, marketing mix strategies, and social exchange theory, enables case analysts to extend the concepts to analyzing many other products and services in organizational settings.

Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.