Purpose With a fast-growing Muslim population and consumer income, the demand for halal products by Chinese Muslims has expanded strongly. However, literature addressing Chinese Muslims’ consumption is limited, and their demand for halal products is little understood. This study aims to investigate what affects Chinese Muslims’ demand for halal products, with a focus on halal personal care products. Design/methodology/approach A survey of 500 respondents was conducted to collect cross-sectional data in northwest China. Data were processed and analysed with a logit model. Findings Apart from faithfulness, reliability of recommendations, product price, product availability and halal authenticity are most important determinants influencing the purchase of halal products by Chinese Muslims. Research limitations/implications In this study, the focus is only on Muslims from China’s Northwest. Due to various constraints, the cluster and convenience sampling methods are used. Practical implications The findings are invaluable for governments and industry bodies to form policies to better meet the burgeoning demand for halal products by Chinese Muslims. They are also very invaluable for producers and exporters who intend to penetrate the halal market in non-Muslim-dominant countries like China. Originality/value Studies on understanding the needs of Muslims in non-Muslim countries are limited. Given the sheer size of the Muslim population in China, understanding their demand for halal products and influential determinants concerning such demand adds to the literature and helps the industry to better serve and capitalise on the growing market.
PurposeFood wastage is a major contributor to pervasive world hunger. Cutting global food waste in half by 2030 is one of the United Nation's top priorities. Hence, this paper aims to provide useful insights on how individual behavior might be influenced to help reduce food wastage and hunger by identifying individual food waste determinants.Design/methodology/approachA total of 297 useable responses were obtained from a survey using a food diary method. A logit model was employed to estimate the relationship between leftovers and its determinants (preparedness to take own action, price conscious, food review, religiosity, health conscious, cost, marital status and gender).FindingsResults show that preparedness to be responsible for one's actions, depending on food reviews and being waste conscious had a significant positive relationship with food waste reducing behavior, along with being male and being married.Research limitations/implicationsThe study suggests that there is scope for policy initiatives to reduce the individual utility from discarding food and increase the individual utility from food saving activities. Penalizing individual or household food wastage through a tax will directly raise the cost of wastage and reduce the net utility from discarding food. Reducing food waste could help reduce global hunger.Originality/valueRationally, no one will have any intention to waste when buying food. Instead, in the context of deciding whether or not to leave leftover food, an individual is posited to weigh the potential utility from saving food or throwing it away. Thus, this study examines food waste behavior by utilizing economic tools, which is rare in the food waste literature.
Despite serious waste management problems in Penang Island, a recycling campaign launched in 2001 has met with little success. This may be because the campaign was not backed up with knowledge about factors that motivate recycling. This article develops a simple economic framework to explain individual recycling behaviour. A logit model that utilizes survey data drawn from a sample of 760 respondents was used to test the insights gained from the framework. As predicted by the framework, recycling was negatively related to factors that increased the private costs of recycling, such as the lack of storage space and low income. Recycling increased among respondents who recognized its benefits: they include the environmentally conscious, those who were aware of the recycling campaign and respondents in the twentyfive to thirty-five year age category. Interestingly, neither gender nor distance to recycling centres were reliable predictors of recycling behaviour.
This proposed study aims to examine how debt financing affects the working capital management (WCM) efficiency of firms in eight selected MENA countries over the period 2016-2020. This study discusses different theories of debt financing which include the trade-off theory, the pecking order theory, the market timing theory, and the agency theory (i.e., the agency theory of debt, equity, and free cash flow). Particularly, the study addresses how short-term debt, long-term debt, and total debt influence WCM efficiency. We hypothesize that there are positive relationships between the short-term debt (measured by the current ratio), the long-term debt (measured by the long-term debt to total assets ratio), and the total debt (measured by the total debt to total assets ratio) toward WCM (measured by cash conversion cycle). Firm’s specific characteristics such as the firm type, the firm size, firm’s sales growth, and tangibility were used as control variables for WCM. To achieve the study objectives, a sample of 718 non-financial listed companies on stock exchanges in countries of Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and UAE will be used over the period 2016-2020. Secondary quantitative data will be collected from the annual financial statements of firms. The multiple regression model will be used to test the study hypotheses. This proposed paper originally contributes to the extant literature in several ways. First, there were limited studies of WCM in the MENA context and the current study provided a new insight that has not been investigated before in the MENA region. Thus, it bridges the gap in the literature. However, the majority of extant WCM literature emphasized the relationship between efficient WCM and firms profitability. Moreover, this paper contributes to developing efficient WCM practices and strategies that improve the financial performance of listed companies in the MENA region
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