The environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors are used to evaluate nonfinancial performance of a firm. While some researchers state that ESG initiatives taken by a firm increase its value and performance by lowering costs and unsystematic risks, others consider it as a wastage of firm resource. The purpose of this study is to put light to this ambiguity by examining the impacts of ESG initiatives on two aspects of a firm’s success: its performance and its value. To test the study’s hypothesis, a linear model with fixed effect GLS (generalized least squares) is used on a 12-year panel data set from 2008 to 2020 of 180 listed firms categorized in 10 economic sectors operating in 22 countries. Thomson Reuters ESG Score which measures a firm’s ESG performance based on publicly available data, is used as an independent variable. As dependent variables the firm value and firm performance have been used. This study finds a positive impact of ESG initiatives on firm value and performance. It has been further observed that EU firms mostly focuses on social responsibilities of the ESG initiative due to its positive impact on firm’s performance. Then the focus is given to environmental and governance initiatives respectively. The findings have far reached significance for researchers and firm executives helping them to understand the significance of ESG initiatives and effectively allocate and utilize firm’s resources based on their importance.

The study aims to investigate the brand perception of halal product and services that influence satisfaction in determining Muslim tourists’ experience based on the brand equity and expectation-confirmation theory. A total of 395 respondents who had travelled to Malaysia were analyzed using SmartPLS approach. The results reveal that tourists’ satisfaction depends on the brand image and brand awareness; while, the religiosity is not associated with it. The study also determines that tourist’s attitude only play a role of a mediator between the brand awareness and satisfaction. The results of this study provide useful information in understanding the brand equity in halal perspective and, more particularly, propose at serving the tourism operators through offering halal services for brand equity which are mostly preferred by the Muslim tourists and attract them for subsequent visit destinations. Abbrevetions: Halal tourism service (HTS), Brand equity (BE), Muslim tourist (MT)

This empirical paper aims at measuring customer attitudes concerning Islamic banking services and how they influence their behavioural intentions to utilise them. Islamic banking has been a fast-growing sector, offering products and services according to Sharia law. Despite being the preferred choice of banking, there is a high percentage of Muslim customers who have shifted from conventional to Islamic banking. Hence, this study aims to examine factors that influence them towards the use of Islamic banking. This is cross-sectional research, where data were collected using questionnaires. A total of 490 questionnaires were received back from adult individuals who were clients of Islamic banks. The data were analyzed using the partial least squares (PLS) method. The findings indicate that ethical organisation, Islamic values, and reputation significantly impact attitudes, whereas financial literacy has no significant impact on them. Attitude is strongly related to the behavioural intention to engage in Islamic banking services. The results also reveal that attitudes mediate the effect of Islamic values, ethical organisation, and reputation on the behavioural intention to engage in Islamic banking services, but Islamic financial literacy is not associated with customers’ behavioural mindset to enjoy such services. This study provides an example of initial empirical evidence from a Muslim majority country like Bangladesh on the relationship between Islamic values, ethical organization, Islamic financial literacy, and reputation and attitudes, which in turn lead to customers’ behavioural intentions to engage in services and products of Islamic banks.

This study aims to investigate the customers’ perceptions of Islamic banking services and their impact on satisfaction and word of mouth (WOM) with others. This study designs the bootstrapping procedures using a partial least square method to test path coefficient results. Structured questionnaires were distributed among clients of Islamic banks in Dhaka city, where 377 responses were collected for data analysis. The findings revealed that there is a highly significant relationship between security and customers’ perception. Ethical responsibility and religious value have a positive and significant impact on customers’ perception whereas benefit has a negative significant impact on customers’ perception. Findings from this study also indicated that customers’ perceptions mediate the effect of ethical responsibility, religious value, benefit, and security on satisfaction. In addition, customers’ satisfaction mediates the effect of customers’ perception and WOM. These findings can promote managers of Islamic banks to build customer satisfaction and WOM with Islamic banking services, and attain competitive advantage that may lead Islamic banks to succeed in the competitive business. This study also provides new insights into customers’ WOM with others about Islamic banking services. This knowledge could assist Islamic banks to understand the customers’ perceptions that would increase satisfaction and in turn, contribute to WOM with others in determining where would be best to target marketing attention of Islamic banking services with limited resources.

Studies showed that Malaysians possess low financial literacy. Consequently, bankruptcy cases among young adults in Malaysia are rising. The government and its relevant institutions, that is, credit counseling and debt management agency, provide different training and awareness programs to minimize the bankruptcy rates. Muslims are among the majority that declared bankruptcy; hence, Islamic financial literacy (IFL) may have a considerable role to minimize bankruptcy cases by changing the attitudes and behaviors of debtors. Furthermore, studying IFL is pertinent to Malaysia because it is a Muslim-majority country with the leading Islamic banking market in the world. Therefore, this study aims to construct the theory of IFL from the sources of the Shariah and examines whether it is suitable to implement IFL in different financial awareness programs in Malaysia. The study concludes that IFL provides a comprehensive guideline for borrowers, lenders, financial institutions, and society to reduce bankruptcy. Furthermore, findings from the field study confirmed that IFL could be used in Malaysia to raise awareness among the related parties. This is a qualitative study that employed an inductive and deductive approach to review the sources of the Shariah to come out with Shariah rulings. Furthermore, this study conducted semi-structured interviews with the officials of related government bodies and agencies. It is expected that the outcome would have a direct implication on the policymakers and loaning institutions in Malaysia.