Search results

This paper aims to report the development of an Islamic service quality scale that is derived from the literature, verbal protocol method interviews, and survey. Design/methodology/approach

Verbal protocol interviews were conducted with 24 men and 12 women from Indonesia. A pilot testing of the questionnaire was conducted with four Indonesian students. The items were further refined and pilot tested with six Indonesian students. Exploratory factor analysis and reliability analysis (n

The results indicate a robust measure of Islamic service quality: general Islamic values, Halal/Haram, attention to Islamic religious activities, honesty, modesty, and humaneness and trustworthiness. Future researchers can apply the Islamic service quality measure to Muslim consumers in other countries. Successful service providers need to be cognizant of the intrinsic roles played by Islamic values and practices among the Muslim consumers.

Major limitations include the recall ability of consumers during the verbal protocol method of interviewing, potential blending of Islamic values and Javanese culture, and the extent of separation of state and religion. Future researchers can apply the Islamic service quality measure to Muslim consumers in other countries.

Successful service providers need to be cognizant of the intrinsic roles played by Islamic values and practices among the Muslim consumers.

This paper contributes to the extant literature on Islamic marketing by developing a unique measure of service quality that is pertinent to Muslim consumers.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the influence of customer trust, religious commitment, customer’s knowledge on customer intimacy and its impact on relational commitment and repurchase intention, especially in Sharia banks in Indonesia.

This study was conducted in Sharia Banks in Jakarta Bogor, Tangerang Bekasi (Jabotabek) area. The population of this study covered all bank customers. Because of the large population, the researchers took samples of the population. The partial least square (PLS) analysis tool was also appropriate to be used to analyze data from smaller samples. In total, 100 respondents were selected using a snow bowling sampling technique in August–September 2017.

Higher customer trust enhances the customer intimacy. Stronger religious commitment also strengthens the customer intimacy. It has been confirmed that customer intimacy enhanced the relational commitment among clients in Sharia banks in Indonesia. The results show that high customer knowledge is able to encourage customer intimacy, and high customer intimacy is also able to encourage repurchase intention. On the other hand, it was found that customer knowledge was not directly able to increase the intention of repeat purchase. However, from the mediation test (indirect effect) is seen with high customer knowledge, supported by the high customer intimacy, it can indirectly increase the high repurchasing intention.

There are some research gaps that were considered as the theoretical foundation and research framework in this study. The focus of this study was on the role of customer intimacy in mediating the influence of trust and religious commitment on relational commitment. Based on the empirical review, this study attempted to develop customer intimacy antecedents by testing religious commitment, which becomes the originality of this study. This study was done based on some empirical results indicating that the antecedent of customer intimacy still varied while it needed to be immediately developed. Furthermore, the inconsistencies in the correlation between customer intimacy and relational commitment were later re-examined in the context of Islamic banks. It was assumed that the test would result in different findings as the test was done in a different countries and institutions.

This chapter provides a comprehensive examination of the diverse strategies employed in various Asian regions to address family planning. Beginning with an in-depth analysis of family planning programs in South Asia, this chapter offers a comparative overview that highlights the unique characteristics and outcomes within this dynamic context. Furthermore, this chapter employs case studies to explore the multifaceted influences of religious beliefs, legal frameworks, and sociocultural factors on family planning practices. By delving into these complexities, it offers a nuanced understanding of the challenges and successes in different Asian regions. This comparative exploration equips policymakers and practitioners with valuable insights to inform more effective and culturally sensitive family planning initiatives.

This study aims to elucidate the value creation process within a culturally diversified museum (CDM), which aims to achieve social inclusion, i.e. bridging the social divide between mainstream and minority communities, through the integration of CDM’s and visitors’ resources. Using service logic (SL) theory as the theoretical lens, we aim to unveil the CDM’s unique service provider and customer (visitor) resources, the corresponding resource integration process that explains value co-creation and co-destruction and the resultant value outcomes for social inclusion.

A case study of an Australian CDM is used, involving various qualitative data sources, including depth interviews, focus groups, visitor book content analysis, on-site observation and participation in the CDM’s events and forums.

The findings provide insights into the unique CDM and visitor resources that are integrated to achieve value outcomes that foster social inclusion. However, the results suggest that alongside value co-creation, co-destruction can unfold, causing a (mis)alignment with the aim of the CDM to bridge the social divide between mainstream and minority communities.

This study’s findings offer salient implications for CDMs and similar service providers that enables social inclusion and policymakers.

This study contributes to the service domain by highlighting the importance of the alignment between provider and customer resources to co-create value within a culturally diversified context. That is, CDMs can learn from the misalignment of their resources and those of their visitors to improve their resource offerings and achieve greater social inclusion outcomes in the future.

Immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees living in Europe face a number of challenges in accessing or using health information and healthcare services available in their host countries. To resolve these issues and deliver the necessary services, providers must take a comprehensive approach to better understand the types of health information and healthcare services that these individuals need, seek and use. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to develop that comprehensive approach.

In this paper, a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed publications was performed, with 3.013 articles collected from various databases. A total of 57 qualifying papers on studies conducted in Europe were included in the review after applying the predefined inclusion and exclusion requirements, screening processes and eliminating duplicates. The information seeking and communication model (ISCM) was used in the analysis.

The findings revealed that while many health information and healthcare services are accessible in Europe for immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees, many of these individuals are unaware of their existence or how to access them. While our findings do not specify what health-related information these groups need, use or seek, they do suggest the importance and value of providing mental health, sexual health and HIV, as well as pregnancy and childbirth information and services. Furthermore, according to our results, health information services should be fact-based, easy to understand and raise awareness about healthcare structure and services available in Europe for this vulnerable population.

This study has a range of practical implications, including (1) highlighting the need for mental health and behavioural health services and (2) stressing the value of addressing cultural context and religious values while investigating (health) information seeking of people with foreign background.

This is one of the first studies to systematically review and examine the behaviour of immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees in relation to health information and healthcare services in the European context.

When post-secondary education (PSE) in Africa is viewed in terms of growth rather than total enrolment the region tops the list of impressive trends. Between the years 1985 and 2005 the countries of sub-Saharan Africa experienced the largest growth of PSE involvement of any region with total enrolment increasing fourfold. The insatiable student demand is being met by a proliferation of large-scale and small-scale religious denominations establishing post-secondary education. The current chapter provides a categorical, multi-levelled analysis of the growth of religious providers in sub-Saharan Africa. Particular attention is given to the activities and rationales of stakeholders who play a part in the establishment and continued operations of religious PSE. Using Marginson and Rhoades’s (2002) glonacal agency heuristic, the networks between stakeholders and their varying degrees of influence on regional PSE are described and discussed. The findings suggest that PSE in the region is being widely provided by small-scale denominations establishing religious training institutions. But the influence of this PSE is mainly limited to local communities.

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.

This exploratory study aims to examine female Muslim immigrant patients’ expectations of physicians’ religious competence during clinical interactions.

In total, 101 female Muslim immigrants in Ottawa, Canada, completed an eight-item survey measuring patients’ expectations of physicians’ religious competence during clinical communication.

Results from the independent samples t-tests and one-way ANOVA suggested that female Muslim immigrant patients in this study expected their doctors to be aware of Islam as a religion and be sensitive to their religious needs, especially food/dietary practices during clinical communication. Although the participants did not differ in their expectations of physicians’ religious competence based on age, educational level, employment status and income level, they differed based on their frequencies of visiting doctors and their ethnic/cultural origin.

This study fills a gap in the literature by advancing understanding of religious competence during clinical interactions from female Muslim immigrant patients’ perspective. The findings can contribute to developing religiously competent and accessible health-care services for religiously diverse populations.

Social origins theory proposes that countries cluster around different models according to how public welfare spending affects nonprofit sector scale (Anheier & Salamon, 2006; Salamon & Anheier, 1998). This article confronts these assumptions about a liberal, corporatist, and social democratic model with results from a comparative analysis of highly industrialized countries with extensive welfare arrangements. We focus on nonprofit sector employment in relation to total employment in the welfare field, including education and research, health, and social services. Explanatory factors are public welfare spending, share of income from donations, and religious homogeneity. Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) (Ragin, 2000) is applied to sort countries in types. The results show that the consequences of public sector welfare spending on nonprofit welfare employment vary depending on other social conditions. In liberal countries, low public sector welfare spending results in a small nonprofit share of employment. The preconditions are low religious homogeneity and large shares of nonprofit income from donations. In other Western European countries, the size of public sector welfare spending is inversely proportional with the size of the nonprofit share of employment, depending on religious homogeneity. The Nordic countries have the highest religious homogeneity, and largest public welfare costs, and accordingly, the smallest share of nonprofit welfare services. However, a similar “crowding out” pattern can be found in the presumably corporatist countries such as France, Austria, and also to some extent in Germany and Italy. In the other end of the line, we find the Netherlands, which is the clearest example of the presumed corporatist pattern in this sample. Religious homogeneity comes into play in both the liberal and the Western European causal constellation in accordance with Weisbrod's theory of government failure/market failure (Weisbrod, 1977), which indicates that this factor is more important for nonprofit welfare regimes than previously thought.

This research aims to examine the buffering effect of a firm's religious association on customer reactions to a service failure.

Two scenario-driven studies containing religious and non-religious reasons for a store closing were conducted.

The results from Study 1 suggest that a religious affiliation safeguards against negative reactions to failures related to store policies (see Hoffman et al., 2003). Customers are more likely to forgive transgressing firms when service failures are associated with religion, regardless of attitudes toward the religious group. A follow up study supports the first, even when no specific religion was identified in the scenario, the service failure involved a firm that closed weekly, and a non-student sample was used.

While the results provide support for the buffering effects of a religious affiliation against a particular type of service failure – temporary service interruptions due to the observance of religious holidays and celebrations, future research should test the robustness of this effect on technology failures and rude treatment by employees.

This paper is the first, to the authors' knowledge, to test the effect of a firm's religious affiliation on customer perceptions of frontline service encounters in general and service failures in particular.