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Islamic microfinance schemes are designed and developed with the primary intention of poverty alleviation and fulfillment of the Islamic law requirements. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of religiosity, religious leader’s endorsement, social influence and income on the intention to apply for Islamic microfinance among Muslims in Malaysia.

This study is based on a public survey to collect primary data from various states in Malaysia. Then, structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to analyse the data set.

The results of SEM indicate significant roles for religiosity and religious leader’s endorsement as religion-based factors on intention to apply for microfinance products. Moreover, social influence (peer-pressure) is influential on the financial decision-making process. The authors also examined the moderation effect of gender on these relations and found that females, in comparison to males, tend to be more influenced by religious leader’s endorsement and social influence. On the other hand, male with higher religiosity tend to favour Islamic microfinance products more than females.

Findings of this study are new in many aspects, most importantly as it sheds light into the role of religiosity and religious leader’s endorsement on the decision-making process in microfinancing services.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of service recovery dimensions on customer satisfaction and, subsequently, on customer loyalty in the context of the hotel industry.

A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to 500 respondents who had the experiences of staying in the hotels in Malaysia. The structural equation modelling technique was used to study the relationship between the model and the developed hypotheses.

The findings revealed that service recovery dimensions are significantly related to customer satisfaction and have a positive relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.

As the main sector in the hospitality business, hotels play a vital role in the tourism industry. Therefore, the developments in tourism and hotels go hand in hand, as they are mutually dependent on each other. With significant yearly developments in the tourism industry and at a constant rate, hotel operators should reconsider their business strategies to achieve customer loyalty and sustain their businesses. In view of that, the findings of this study not only benchmarks better hotel services but also provides an improved understanding of service recovery that will effectively aid hotel operators in handling service failures; otherwise, customer dissatisfaction may occur if poor service recovery strategies are implemented.

The intense competition in the service industry has driven companies to place extra attention on service recovery so as to ensure continuous success. With a yearly significant development in the tourism industry at a constant rate, hotel providers (one of the major beneficiaries) are driven to reconsider their business strategies to achieve customer loyalty and sustain their business.

The purpose of this paper is to document a gap between generation X and Y’s behavior toward decision making for hiring a professional financial planner in context of an emerging country.

This research is based on a public survey in Malaysia on the effect of five major contributing factors (namely, awareness, acceptability, affordability, accessibility and assurance) on the decision to hire a professional financial planner. The study further shed light into the difference among the influential factors among generation X and Y.

Although awareness, acceptability, affordability and assurance have demonstrated significant effect on decision making in general, their impact varies among different age groups. Results of moderation tests on the role of age suggest that for Gen X, the determinant factor is only their acceptability of the financial planning service. However, awareness, affordability, acceptability and assurance are critical factors for Gen Y respondents. In contrast to Gen Y, the Gen X respondents tend to have more awareness toward their needs for financial planning; they have gained enough experience to assess the credibility of the planner and test their assurance; and have higher earnings to afford the financial planners services.

Findings of this study are novel as it provide first hand picture from an emerging market in South-East Asia. Moreover, the study documents generation gap in financial decision making process.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the impact of organizational commitment (OC) on the intrapreneurial behaviour of the employees in higher educational institutes (HEIs) of Pakistan.

This paper opted the empirical study using the survey approach. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the questionnaires completed the Deans/Head of Schools, professors and associate professors of the 20 public HEIs of Pakistan located in the capital city, Islamabad. In total, 500 structured questionnaires were sent to the Deans/Head of Schools, professors and associate professors. A total of 306 responses were received.

Affective commitment (AC) and normative commitment (NC) has a positive and significant impact on the intrapreneurial behaviour while continuance commitment (CC) is negatively associated with the same behaviour.

This empirical study will contribute to the theoretical knowledge on intrapreneurship and OC in the public sector HEIs, which has been neglected in entrepreneurship research.

This study aims to provide a foundation for the performance-focused micro-entrepreneurship development program; hence, this study is designed to investigate the effect of selected entrepreneurial competencies on micro-enterprise income and assets in Malaysia.

This study adopts the cross-sectional design, and the quantitative data was collected from 300 randomly selected micro-entrepreneurs from the list of participants of several micro-enterprise development programs offered in Peninsular Malaysia.

Findings revealed that micro-entrepreneur’s commitment competency and opportunity recognition competency have a significant positive effect on micro-enterprise income, whereas only opportunity recognition competency has a significant positive effect on the net worth of micro-enterprise assets.

This study examined the effect of key elements of entrepreneurial competencies on micro-enterprise income and asset, which provides the foundation for a performance-focused micro-entrepreneurship development program designed to enhance the performance of micro-enterprises in Malaysia.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of five-factor model of personality on organizational commitment in the higher educational institutes of Pakistan.

Quantitative methodology was adopted to measure the impact of personality on organizational commitment. A structured questionnaire was e-mailed to the faculty members of the social science department of higher education institutes. SmartPLS software was used to run the structural equation modeling technique.

The findings showed that extroversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness are positively linked to affective commitment (AC), and neuroticism and openness has negative association with AC. Furthermore, extroversion and agreeableness were found to be negatively linked to continuance commitment. A negative link between neuroticism and continuance commitment while no relationship between conscientiousness, openness, and continuance commitment was found.

Results have several implications for the personality and commitment literature. First, study provided comprehensive empirical evidence regarding the dispositional basis of organizational commitment notably; the authors found that the Big Five personality traits as a whole are significantly associated with organizational commitment. Second, the current findings underscore the role of agreeableness in shaping organizational commitment. Agreeableness was the strongest predictor of both AC and continuance commitment. Agreeableness may be especially relevant for predicting employee outcomes that are reliant on strong interpersonal or social exchange relationships. As such outcomes are becoming more and more critical in employee, group, and organizational effectiveness.

In general, findings show that Big Five traits play an important role in understanding employee commitment to the organization. Consistent with previous studies on personality traits in the workplace, practitioners will benefit from considering all of the Big Five traits in their selection systems.

The purpose of this paper is to establish and test the role of religiosity, ethnicity, individual basic values, and consumer innovativeness in influencing consumer acceptance of novel products. This paper specifically addresses: the driving force of religiosity and ethnicity and mediating roles of individual basic values and consumer innovativeness in influencing acceptance of novel products.

A questionnaire was constructed and distributed to 700 respondents in the urban area of Malaysia based on convenience sampling. The data collected data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Findings show that religiosity and ethnicity are the main drivers that influence the acceptance of new products. Specifically, religiosity and ethnicity have negative relationship with openness to change (stimulation, self-direction, and hedonism) and positive relationship with conservation value (traditions and conformity); conservation values have negative effects on consumer innovativeness and acceptance of new products; openness to change values show the positive relationship with innovativeness and acceptance of new products; openness to change and conservation value mediate the relationship between religiosity and consumer innovativeness; conservation value mediates the relationship between ethnicity and consumer innovativeness; and consumer innovativeness mediates the relationship between individual basic values and acceptance of novel products. The model has been able to explain 34 percent of the variance in acceptance of novel products.

Different from previous research that often focussed on demographic and observable (e.g. age, race, religion) antecedents of innovation acceptance, the current research emphasized on the influence of behavioral and psychological characteristics (e.g. religiosity, ethnicity, values and innovativeness) on the consumer acceptance of novel products.