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This paper analyzes the welfare implications of the unequal distribution of wealth amongst the social and religious groups by studying the segregation of these groups across different occupations.

The authors use measures suggested by Alonso-Villar and Río (2017) and del Río and Alonso-Villar (2018) to compute the well-being of social groups (based on caste system prevalent in the Indian subcontinent) and religious groups due to their segregation across different regions (urban and rural) and occupations and social welfare loss of the society due to the segregation. Here social groups comprise of ST: Scheduled Tribe, SC: Scheduled Caste, OBC: Other Backward Caste and Others: other remaining castes; while, religious groups comprise of followers of Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and other religious groups.

The result shows that SC and ST groups are worse; while, the “others” group is better off due to the segregation of social groups across both regions and occupation. Similarly, in the case of religious groups, the analysis reveals that followers of Christianity are better off due to the segregation across region and occupation. It further shows that followers of Hinduism are negatively impacted while followers of Islam and other religious groups were better off due to the segregation across the regions.

Various researchers have studied the wealth inequality and unequal distribution in India over the years but did not dive further into the welfare implications of segregation of social and religious groups from wealth perspectives in India.

This paper aims to offer a systematic view of religious consumption and its iterative influences on consumers, as well as their differences in attitudes, values and behaviors.

Using a mixed-method approach – both qualitative and quantitative – the study develops religious self-transformation and self-categorization scales to empirically evaluate the hypotheses.

The convergence of consumption, self-identification and religious attitudes and behaviors proffer an essentially subjective concept useful in understanding the existential reflection and supernatural orientation that individuals may seek through consumption. Cluster analysis (based on product, services, media and practices) reveals four quadrants. The non-religious (religious) group has low (high) consumption in all four consumption categories Self-categorization (self-transformation) group has high (low) level of product consumption, but low (high) in all three other categories. This research presented four invisible identities that are visibly different in terms of life satisfaction, religious brand preference, dollars spending on religious products and monetary donation.

This research only considers one medium-size city as opposed to all types of cities. All religious affiliated and nonaffiliated respondents are included in the total sample.

The study offers new insights into the triadic relationship between religious self-identification, religious consumption, and the marketplace that can be used in branding, segmentation, targeting, positioning, and persuasive advertising, public relation and social media, and services marketing.

Religion addresses the nature of existence. In this religion–consumer–brand nexus, consumption is a way for consumers to experience and immense themselves in the sacred to solidify, communicate, transform, improve and transport who they are capitalizing on religious self-identification can affectively promote positive social change.

This work proposes four invisible identities that are different in consumption of religious products and services in terms of patterns and purposes. These groups of consumers shape the marketplace through the derived utility of their religious consumption based on their self-identification, which in turn influences their religious brand preference.

A growing interdisciplinary literature explores how people can simultaneously hold strong convictions and remain open to the possibility of learning from others with whom they disagree. This tension impacts not only knowledge development but also public discourse within a diverse and disagreeing democracy. This volume of Political Power and Social Theory considers the specific question of how religious convictions inform how people engage in democratic life, particularly across deep political divides. In this introduction, I begin by discussing how a narrow vision of religious citizens as dogmatic believers has led observers to frame religion as a concerning source of democratic distortion – encouraging too much arrogance and not enough humility. Yet this dogmatic believer narrative captures only one aspect of American religion. Juxtaposing a snapshot of dogmatic believers alongside two other snapshots of religious groups engaging in political life raises complex questions about the relationship between religious conviction, humility, and democracy in a time of deep political polarization. I argue that answering these questions requires a sociological approach that is attuned to power, context, culture, institutions, and history. At the same time, I show how attention to the tension between conviction and humility has the potential to enrich the sociological study of religion and democracy, and particularly ethnographic research across the moral/political divide.

In general, Muslims consider Islamic consumption to be a religious obligation. Previous research, however, suggests that various socio-psychological factors may influence Islamic consumption. Failure to comprehend the true motivations for purchasing Islamic products may lead to marketing myopia. This research investigates the less explored motivational factors of religious compensatory consumption, namely religious hypocrisy, religious social control and religious guilt.

This research relied on an online questionnaire. Purposive sampling yielded a total of 238 Muslim respondents. The authors employed PLS-SEM analysis with the ADANCO software to test the hypotheses.

The results reveal the following: (1) Higher religious hypocrisy leads to higher religious social control. (2) Higher religious hypocrisy leads to higher religious guilt. (3) Higher religious social control leads to higher religious guilt. (4) Higher religious hypocrisy leads to higher religious compensatory consumption. (5) Higher religious social control leads to higher religious compensatory consumption. (6) Religious social control partially mediates the relationship between religious hypocrisy and religious compensatory consumption. (7) Higher religious guilt leads to higher religious compensatory consumption. (8) Religious guilt partially mediates the relationship between religious hypocrisy and religious compensatory consumption.

First, religious compensatory consumption in this research is limited to Muslim consumers. Future research may investigate compensatory consumption in different contexts, such as Judaism and Christianity, which have some common religious tenets. Second, compensatory consumption is a complex concept. The authors’ religious compensatory consumption scale only incorporated a few aspects of compensatory consumption. Future studies may retest the authors’ measurement scale for reliability. Lastly, the samples were dominated by the younger generation of Muslims (e.g. generation Z). Future studies may investigate older Muslim generations.

First, this research illustrates how religiosity, guilt and social control may contribute to Islamic compensatory consumption. Islamic business practitioners and retailers targeting Muslim consumers can benefit from this research by knowing that Islamic consumption may be driven by socio-psychological factors, such as religious hypocrisy and guilt. As a result, businesses targeting Muslim consumers can develop marketing strategies that incorporate these religious elements while also addressing their socio-psychological issues in order to promote Islamic products. Second, Islamic business practitioners and retailers may consider the social environments in which Muslims are raised. The authors’ findings show that religious social control has direct and indirect effects on Muslims' preferences for Islamic products as a form of compensatory strategy. Islamic business practitioners may design marketing programs that revolve around Muslim families and their Islamic values. It is in line with the previous studies that suggest the connections between religions, local cultures and buying behaviours (Ng et al., 2020; Batra et al., 2021). In some ways, Islamic products can be promoted to improve the well-being and cohesion of family members and Muslim society in general. In this research, the authors argue that businesses' failures to understand the socio-psychological motives of Islamic consumption may lead to marketing myopia.

As previously stated, religion (i.e. Islam) may be a source of well-being and a stable relationship among Muslims. Nevertheless, it may also become a source of negative emotions, such as guilt, because of one's inability to fulfil religious values, ideals or standards. According to the authors’ findings, Islamic products can be used to compensate for a perceived lack of religiosity. At the same time, these products may improve Muslims' well-being. The creations of products and services that revolve around Islamic values are expected to improve Muslims' economic conditions and strengthen their faith and love toward Islam in the globalized world. Moreover, Muslims, both as majority and minority groups, face increasing social pressures. On one hand there is the (in-group) pressure to uphold Islamic values and on the other hand there is the (out-group) pressure to preserve the local values and cultures. Indeed, living in the globalized world may require certain compromises. This research calls for various institutions and policymakers to work out solutions that enable all religious groups to work and live in harmony.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to study religious compensatory consumption quantitatively. This research operationalized variables previously discussed using a qualitative approach, namely religious hypocrisy, social control, guilt and compensatory consumption. The authors designed and adapted their measurement scales to fit this context, paving the way for future research in this field. Second, this research provides new empirical evidence by examining the relationships among less explored variables. For instance, this research has proven that several aspects of religiosity (e.g. hypocrisy, social control and guilt) may influence compensatory consumption in the Islamic context. This research also reveals the mediation roles of religious social control and religious guilt that were less explored in the previous studies. To the best of their knowledge, previous studies had not addressed social control as a predictor of compensatory consumption. Therefore, the theoretical model presented in this research and the empirical findings extend the theory of compensatory consumption. Third, Muslims are underrepresented in the compensatory consumption research; therefore, this research fills the population gap. Finally, this research focuses on Islamic compensatory behaviour as the future direction of Islamic marketing. Previous Islamic marketing research had not addressed the sensitive motives of Islamic consumption, which have now been highlighted in this research.

Sociology of religion is the study of the relationship between religion and culture. Sociologists focus on the nature and structure of religious organizations and movements, leadership, the effect of religious commitment on individuals and social process or social change. Central to the discipline is the search for an adequate definition of religion and for a coherent explanation of the distinction between religious myth and social reality.

The purpose of this paper is to ground in serious empirical evidence the debate on whether the post-reform acceleration in growth has helped bring poverty down for all economic, social and religious groups and in all state or has left certain groups or states.

The paper uses unit-level data from the so-called thick rounds of expenditure surveys by National Sample Survey (NSS) in the years 1993-1994, 2004-2005, 2009-2010 and 2011-2012 and estimates the proportion of the population below the official Tendulkar line. Adequate care is taken to address the issue of sample size in reporting the estimates.

Whether we slice the data by social, religious or economic groups, by states or by rural and urban areas, poverty has significantly declined between 1993-1994 and 2011-2012 with a substantial acceleration during the faster-growth period from 2004-2005 to 2011-2012. Poverty rates among the disadvantaged social groups and minorities have declined faster so that the gap in poverty rates between them and the general population has declined. In 7 of the 16 states with large Muslim populations, the poverty rate for them is now below that for the Hindus.

Use of survey data has its limitations, especially when the sample sizes are small. The paper also does not assess the direct contribution of growth in relation to that through redistribution.

The paper presents implications for identification of the poor for the purpose of designing targeted interventions.

This is the first paper to offer up-to-date estimates of poverty by social, religious and economic groups, by states and by rural and urban areas.

Acounts of new religious movements have been almost exclusively about those which have arisen in the last two decades in the most advanced capitalist societies, and theoretical explanations of their emergence and spread have very firmly connected them with the material standard and social ethos of that type of society. Although there have been significant new developments in the religious life of Soviet society there have been no religious movements forming such a radical break with the old religious life as those found in the West. In this article I shall be concerned with firstly, giving a brief outline of those transformations which have occurred in the religious life of Soviet society. Secondly, I shall show how and why they differ from the New Religious Movements in the West. I shall investigate in some detail why the latter could not and will not in the near future, take root in Soviet society.

While former literature has shown that people have a strong tendency to seek religious support during difficult times, knowledge gaps exist in how the mechanism of religiosity works to support employees’ mental status and performance. Therefore, based on self-categorization theory, this study aims to examine the effects of employees’ intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity on building their mental toughness and mindfulness and the further formation of employees’ political skills.

Data was collected from 404 full-time hotel employees working in 34 hotels in Turkey during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in spring 2020. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the proposed hypotheses.

Results of this study show that intrinsic religiosity improves employees’ mental toughness, while extrinsic religiosity enhances employee mindfulness. Additionally, both mental toughness and mindfulness help employees to develop political skill.

This study enriches knowledge to workplace religiosity literature and expands the research scope of religion-related research in hospitality and tourism literature. Future studies are recommended to consider religious heterogeneity and longitudinal design.

To foster employee mental well-being, hotel firms should create a religious-friendly workplace and develop religion-friendly policies. Opportunities should be created within hospitality organizations for employees to develop and use their political skills in needed work aspects.

The findings of this study contribute to valuable theoretical and practical implications. To the best of the knowledge, this study is one of the first attempts to study hotel employees’ religiosity during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse to what extent religious beliefs, understood as part of an individual ' s cultural background, can explain an individual ' s willingness to work. In particular the paper links individuals’ willingness to increase their working time with their religious denomination and their religious commitment. This relationship is studied in six European countries that have different religious structures: two countries with two significant religious groups (Germany and France), two Catholic countries (Ireland and Poland) and finally, two Lutheran states (Norway and Sweden).

Using data provided by the International Social Survey Programme 2007 – “Leisure Time and Sports” module [ISSP-2007], the paper estimates ordered probit models for each country separately.

The paper finds that there is not a unique link between religious beliefs and habits and the self-declared inclination to devote more time to paid work. First, the paper finds a positive association between religious involvement and an individual ' s self-declared willingness to work in Catholic-dominated countries. Second, this relationship is less pronounced in Protestant countries, where non-religious people are less inclined towards paid work than Protestants. Third, in France, Catholics are the most inclined towards paid work, especially those with high levels of religious involvement. Finally, the paper does not find any significant difference between Catholics and Protestants in Germany.

The role of religion has been largely ignored in economics for decades. This paper adds to the growing literature on the effects of religious beliefs and behaviour on economic outcomes.

Undergraduates are expected to be future leaders responsible for business and nations. Given that sound financial decision-making is critical to their success in their careers and lives, it is important to understand the money-management behaviour of undergraduates. In the context of developing countries, the body of knowledge on money-management behaviour is dominated by functional financial literature and there is little research on factors beyond this. This study aims to fill this gap by exploring economic, social and psychological factors that influence money-management behaviour of undergraduates in a developing nation (Sri Lanka) and how undergraduates respond to these influences.

The study used a qualitative exploratory approach. Data collection was carried out using focus group discussions and individual interviews amongst undergraduates in a leading Sri Lankan state university.

The results indicate that undergraduates adopted both careful and risky money-management approaches. The subthemes, specifically identified under economic, social and psychological factors, revealed how undergraduates responded to each of these factors and the influence of contextual and cultural differences in their money-management behaviour.

Findings of the study revealed the importance of promoting innovative educational strategies to change the dependability mindset of undergraduates and to promote stress-management strategies that will assist them to enhance their personalities and creativity in making financial decisions. Theoretical and practical implications and future research directions are provided.

The literature scores in developing context are limited to exploring the existing pattern and the levels of the functional financial literacy. This study has deepened the authors’ understanding of how the developing context affects undergraduates’ response to the factors relating to their money-management behaviour. The findings from this study will be useful to government, financial institutions, educational institutions, parents and those who have a keen interest in encouraging healthy money-management behaviour in undergraduates.