Purpose This paper aims to attempt to investigate and test the factors related to social media advertisement that could forecast the intention to subscribe to Islamic banking products in Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach The research framework used in this study is guided by the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). The questionnaire method was used to collect data from 360 social media users and partial least square (PLS) analysis was carried out for the model’s validation. Findings The analytical results showed that perceived relevance, informativeness and perceived expectancy were found to have a statistical relationship with the purchase intention of Islamic banking products via a social media platform. Practical implications The study offers a practical implication in which the findings prove as helpful means for Islamic financial institutions to discover paramount techniques to retain existing customers and at the same time encourage potential new customers to subscribe to their products. Originality/value Deficiency of research focusing on social media marketing, especially the incorporation of the UTAUT model was observed in the literature. Thus, this paper offers additional literature on social media marketing and elucidates their role in Islamic banking industry, particularly from the Malaysian context. This research is considered to be among the primary attempts to examine the drivers of social media marketing and customers’ intention to subscribe to Islamic banking products in Malaysia.

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether market conditions have an effect on investors’ propensity to herd in an emerging economy’s stock market. Additionally, given the lack of research on Islamic behavioral finance, the authors further investigate if the herding phenomenon is distinct in Islamic versus conventional stocks. Design/methodology/approach The authors used daily data for the period of 1995–2016 according to the herding behavior model of Chang et al. (2000), which relies on cross-sectional absolute deviation of returns. Findings Findings reveal the herding behavior of investors among Shariah-compliant during up and down market exits with non-linear relationship to the market return, while for conventional stocks herding behavior does not exist with linear nor nonlinear relationships during the up and down market. Furthermore, for the whole market, herding behavior only exists during upmarket with a nonlinear relationship to the market return. However, this relationship is not significant. Moreover, the results of this study are robust with respect to the effect of the Asian and global financial crisis. Practical implications The findings are useful for investors to identify which market conditions are associated with rational and irrational behavior of investors. Originality/value Most of the theoretical and empirical studies on herding behavior have focused on developed countries. Only a few studies have paid attention to the herding behavior in Islamic financial markets, particularly in the context of an emerging market such as Malaysia. This study fills this void.

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Necessity of improving employees’ performance in ministry of education in Iran was the reason of conducting this research. Authors are focused on the impact of High Performance Work System (HPWS) and the culture of organization on employees’ performance in Iran ministry of education. By conducting specified study based on distributed survey questionnaire to 162 members of ministry of education in Iran, this study aims to provide answer to the given research questions of study. The outcome of hypotheses testing illustrate HPWS significantly effects ministry members’ performance and shows strong relation between variables. Likewise, organizational culture demonstrates significant affirmative impact on Iran ministry of education members and employees’ performance. Findings of current research indicate that the ministry of education in Iran requires immediate action toward improving performance of members to obtain desired outcome. Accordingly, to the result of present study, current research attempts to provide practical concepts and illustrate limitations, suggestions for improvement of ministry and future study in this field.