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This paper uses the case of Islamic banking in Amman, Jordan, to assess the wide moral range of expectations, levels of satisfaction, and means of evaluating banks’ “Islamicness.”
Abstract
Purpose
This paper uses the case of Islamic banking in Amman, Jordan, to assess the wide moral range of expectations, levels of satisfaction, and means of evaluating banks’ “Islamicness.”
Design/methodology/approach
The information is gathered from interviews conducted during over 21 months of ethnographic research and one month in participant observation and research access as an intern at the Middle East Islamic Bank (MEIB) in Amman, Jordan.
Findings
I found three modes for evaluating “Islamicness” when actors decide whether or not to become customers of Islamic banks.
Research implications
These modes demonstrate that Islamic banking is no longer the cultural protectionism of a relatively homogeneous community of Muslims. Rather it is a fraught and tense field for actors’ debates about types of moralities in the markets and modes of moral assessments of “Islamicness.”
Originality/value
The amplification of the individual and individual choice and authority in the moral assessments of Islamic banking may ultimately serve to unseat prior dichotomous theoretical framings of morality’s presence or absence as “Islamic” or “not Islamic” and “good” and “bad.” By unleashing to individuals the construction of morality in the markets, moral rights and wrongs, and moral evaluations, fragmentation of moral consensus in market practices will occur.
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The study examines the effects of religious identity, practices and beliefs on Muslim Americans' perceptions of discrimination and the extent to which religion might shape the…
Abstract
Purpose
The study examines the effects of religious identity, practices and beliefs on Muslim Americans' perceptions of discrimination and the extent to which religion might shape the perception of discrimination differently within Muslim race/ethnic groups.
Design/methodology/approach
Study data were obtained from the 2011 Pew Survey (N = 1,033), a nationally representative sample of Muslim adults 18 years old and older living in the United States. The sample weights with the exclusion of non-response cases were used for bivariate analyses. For multivariate analyses, multiple imputation procedures were employed to impute missing values on all variables.
Findings
Muslim Americans with high levels of religious practices are more likely and Muslim Americans with strong belief in religious tenets are less likely to report experiencing different forms of discrimination. Black, Asian and other/mixed race Muslims with high levels of religious practices report higher rates of discrimination than their white coreligionists. Within group comparison shows that the pure extrinsic group reports higher rates of perceived discrimination than the pro-religious, pure intrinsic and non-religious groups.
Originality/value
The study emphasizes varying effects of religious factors on different Muslim American groups in perceived discrimination and suggests researchers challenge a common perception of viewing religion as a “master status” for the Muslim identity.
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Tom McLean, Tom McGovern, Richard Slack and Malcolm McLean
This paper aims to explore the development of the accountability ideals and practices of Quaker industrialists during the period 1840–1914.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the development of the accountability ideals and practices of Quaker industrialists during the period 1840–1914.
Design/methodology/approach
The research employs a case study approach and draws on the extensive archives of Quaker industrialists in the Richardson family networks, British Parliamentary Papers and the Religious Society of Friends together with relevant contemporary and current literature.
Findings
Friends shed their position as Enemies of the State and obtained status and accountabilities undifferentiated from those of non-Quakers. The reciprocal influences of an increasingly complex business environment and radical changes in religious beliefs and practices combined to shift accountabilities from the Quaker Meeting House to newly established legal accountability mechanisms. Static Quaker organisation structures and accountability processes were ineffective in a rapidly changing world. Decision-making was susceptible to the domination of the large Richardson family networks in the Newcastle Meeting House. This research found no evidence of Quaker corporate social accountability through action in the Richardson family networks and it questions the validity of this concept. The motivations underlying Quakers’ personal philanthropy and social activism were multiple and complex, extending far beyond accountabilities driven by religious belief.
Originality/value
This research has originality and value as a study of continuity and change in Quaker accountability regimes during a period that encompassed fundamental changes in Quakerism and its orthopraxy, and their business, social and political environments.
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“Synergy” in the title of this article is used in the root generic sense of “work together”. I am not really looking for something greater than the parts to emerge from the…
Abstract
“Synergy” in the title of this article is used in the root generic sense of “work together”. I am not really looking for something greater than the parts to emerge from the conjunction of corporate management and orthopraxis — although I would be delighted if it were to come about. In point of sober realism, I would settle for functional co‐existence of business process and serious concern for social justice. Put baldly, the title question could be rephrased to read:
Most of 823,000 ethnic Chinese people are living in Southern Vietnam among distinct dialectical groups. Each maintains its own pantheon of gods; the majority worships standardized…
Abstract
Purpose
Most of 823,000 ethnic Chinese people are living in Southern Vietnam among distinct dialectical groups. Each maintains its own pantheon of gods; the majority worships standardized Thien Hau. The Hakka in Buu Long are the only group that worships the craft-master gods. This difference creates a challenging gap between the subgroups and reveals the unorthodox nature of the Hakka’s traditions. The purpose of this paper is investigate the continuous efforts to achieve “evolving standardization” and solidarity through the charismatic efforts of the local Hakka elites in Buu Long by their liturgical transformation.
Design/methodology/approach
The study further discusses the multilateral interaction and hidden discourses by applying Watson’s (1985) theory of standardization and orthodoxy as well as Weller’s (1987) concept of context-based interpretation.
Findings
Truthfully, when facing pressures, the Hakka in Southern Vietnam decided to transform their non-standard worship of the craft masters into a more integrative model, the Thien Hau cult, by superimposing the new cult on the original platform without significant changes in either belief or liturgical practice. The performance shows to be the so-called “the caterpillar’s spirit under a butterfly’s might” case.
Research limitations/implications
The transformation reveals that the Hakka are currently in their endless struggles for identity and integration, even getting engaged in a pseudo-standardization.
Social implications
This Hakka’s bottom-up evolutionary standardization deserves to be responded academically and practically.
Originality/value
The paper begins with a setting of academic discussions by western writers in this area and then moves on to what makes the practical transformation, how does it happen, and what discourses are hidden underneath.
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Ali Ramazani and Mahdi Kermani
Due to economic growth and increasing the population of Islamic societies in the world, marketing studies have become more essential in these societies. This paper aims to study…
Abstract
Purpose
Due to economic growth and increasing the population of Islamic societies in the world, marketing studies have become more essential in these societies. This paper aims to study the relationship between Islamic religiosity and conspicuous consumption in Mashhad, the second-most populous city in the Islamic Republic of Iran, as a case of Islamic societies in the Middle East.
Design/methodology/approach
The data were collected by a survey of 534 respondents in Mashhad and stratified random sampling was applied.
Findings
Unlike the majority of former investigations, the results showed that there is a positive relationship between Islamic religious commitment and conspicuous consumption. Furthermore, gender, social media and income are important factors in explaining the extent of conspicuous consumption.
Practical implications
Luxury companies can use the results of this research to invest in Islamic countries where there is a great demand for luxury items. Additionally, it is recommended for these companies to use the potential opportunity of social media which is extremely popular in Muslim countries to advertise their products to a large population at a low price.
Originality/value
The results of this study can challenge the conventional understanding of the relationship between Islamic religiosity and conspicuous consumption. According to the results of this paper, in the Middle East Islamic rich countries, it seems that Muslims have a positive attitude toward conspicuous consumption, although Islam disapproves consuming excessively by the notion of Israf.
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Yerkesh Kozhbankhan and Aidana Kaldybekova
In the Kazakhstani context, the instrumentalization of the Muftiate as a social engineering tool is particularly pertinent, as it stands out as a unique channel for the political…
Abstract
Purpose
In the Kazakhstani context, the instrumentalization of the Muftiate as a social engineering tool is particularly pertinent, as it stands out as a unique channel for the political, moral and cultural shaping of Muslims. This study aims to outline the role of the Muftiate, its historical background and recent restructuring process. It focuses on the ideological practices and religious discourses of the Muftiate.
Design/methodology/approach
In Kazakhstan, as a result of reforms in the religious sphere, which were started in 2011, the scope of activity of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Kazakhstan (the Muftiate) has entered a new phase and become an important ideological tool within national policy. It has emerged as a civil society institution that will centralize the process of Islamization and instrumentalize the importance of Islam to create a new fantasy of unity and solidarity.
Findings
Thus, it discusses how Muftiate fabricates the correct forms of action and the correct form of thought. The theory of “ideological state apparatuses” (ISA) of the French philosopher Louis Althusser should be considered as a theoretical framework of this study. This approach not only gives a theoretical definition of the Muftiate but also allows us to determine its position in society and outline three different dimensions of the practice that it performs.
Originality/value
The study demonstrates how the Muftiate as an ISA actualizes various concepts, ideas, beliefs or images in which Muslims live their imaginary relations to the real world and transforms Muslim individuals into ideological subjects, thus enabling them to become apparently free bearers of the ideology.
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The purpose of this paper is to present Latin American liberation theology, a contextual theology, as a radical perspective to inform and critique accounting and issues of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present Latin American liberation theology, a contextual theology, as a radical perspective to inform and critique accounting and issues of accountability.
Design/methodology/approach
The notion of sacred and secular is explored as a dualism that limits theological insights at the socio‐political level. By rejecting dualism, liberation theology presents an alternative ontological stance.
Findings
Studies in critical accounting have focussed on the repressive nature of accounting. This paper provides critical accounting with a theological insight that has the potential to inform an emancipatory or enabling accounting project.
Originality/value
Enabling accounting has been studied from the perspective of gender, class, ethnicity and environment. Adopting liberation theology as a critical perspective provides a means of critiquing extant accounting practice from the episteme of the economically marginalised and a Christian mandate for who to enable and why
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The chapter presents womanist musings about the author’s journey and growth as a Black woman scholar-advocate committed to socially just and antiracist scholarship. Using…
Abstract
The chapter presents womanist musings about the author’s journey and growth as a Black woman scholar-advocate committed to socially just and antiracist scholarship. Using autoethnography, the author has synthesized her personal experience as a mother of a child diagnosed with cancer, with her professional endeavors as the founder Golden Moms (a peer support organization where majority of the mothers and their children are White) and with my work as doctoral student, to challenge White privilege in the academy.
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