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The concept of Islamic banking (IB) as a discipline and the introduction of the full-fledged Islamic banks and Islamic windows are relatively newer developments in the banking sector in Oman. This paper aims to assess customers’ perceptions of the Islamic banks and IB windows in Oman.

Following the interpretive paradigm and an exploratory research design, data collected through personal interviews with a group of 60 respondents in two of the prominent cities in Oman were analysed qualitatively.

The study found that customers in Oman had mixed feelings about the Islamic Banks. While some of them were not sure if the banks follow the Islamic principles, a majority of them had not opened an account with the Islamic banks or Islamic windows. The study revealed some vulnerabilities in the areas of their operations, marketing practices, staff knowledge of products and customer-dealings, as well as customers’ understanding of Islamic banks, their principles and practices.

As the advent of IB is relatively new to Oman, the insights gained by this study will have wider implications for the growth of IB locally. The outcomes of this study would appraise the officials and regulators of Islamic banks and Islamic windows with customers’ perception of IB. The elimination of the identified weaknesses would help them to improve the knowledge, quality and the marketing and promotion of products and services while competing with the conventional banks.

This study is a pioneering effort to know the status of IB and customers’ motivations in Oman towards IB.

Islamic finance is becoming a core part of the financial services economy in the Middle East countries. There is a strong likelihood that Islamic finance is also driving the expansion of trade in insurance services. However, research on Islamic finance’s effect on trade in insurance services is scant. This study aims to fill this gap by investigating if Islamic finance has promoted trade in insurance services.

This study adopts the gravity modelling framework and the panel data estimation procedure in understanding the effects of Islamic finance on trade in insurance.

The empirical results reveal a statistically significant positive correlation of Islamic finance with the exports and imports of insurance services. Economic sizes (domestic and trading partners), growth in trading partners, cost of doing business, legal rights and financial freedom are other statistically significant determinants.

It makes a positive contribution to the Islamic financial services literature. Islamic finance is an integral part of the conventional banking and financial sector in the Middle East that actively fosters the expansion of insurance services that need support, given its essential role in services trade.

This study is unique as it directs attention to the role of Islamic finance in fostering trade in insurance services within an inclusive modelling framework that has been overlooked in the Islamic finance literature.

Islamic finance growth depends on factors that are crucial for fostering positive perceptions and increasing acceptance, particularly in Muslim countries. This study aims to investigate the influence of awareness, knowledge, religion and the advantages on perceptions of Shariah scholars toward Islamic banks in Pakistan and the mediating role of attitude.

The study collected data through a questionnaire from 200 Shariah scholars in Pakistan who have completed or are currently enrolled in Islamic banking and finance courses. It employed exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses using SPSS and AMOS software to analyze the data to evaluate measurement and structural models, ensuring the validity and reliability of the constructs and testing hypotheses to examine the relationships among factors and perception.

The study identified a significant influence of knowledge and attitude on perception, thus supporting H3 and H9. H2, H6 and H8 indicate an insignificant impact of awareness, religious motivation and advantage on perception. This highlights the need for Islamic banks to bridge academic and industry gaps, ensuring that their promotional efforts emphasize monitoring by Sharia committees. The research revealed significant impacts of factors on attitude, confirming H1, H3, H5 and H7. Importantly, attitude was found to play a pivotal role as a mediator between factors and Shariah scholars’ perceptions of Islamic banking in Pakistan.

By investigating the perspectives of Shariah scholars, this research seeks to provide insights into enhancing the understanding and development of Islamic banking practices within the context of Islamic principles and global financial landscapes.

This research contributes to the field by uniquely focusing on Shariah scholars’ perceptions of Islamic banking, addressing a significant gap in literature because little research has been conducted to address these issues from the Shariah scholars’ perspectives.

The adoption of Islamic banking (AIB) among customers has remained in the limelight due to its significance in the strategic marketing of Islamic banking (IB) services. Although researchers have devoted a significant effort to investigating the drivers of AIB, little is known about the exclusive barriers hampering AIB. Accordingly, this paper aims to examine the underlying barriers to the adoption of Islamic banking (BAIB) and categorize them into different research clusters using bibliometric analysis.

The data was collected from 132 articles published in Scopus database between 2007 and 2022 and analyzed using VOSviewer to explore BAIB.

The findings clustered the barriers to AIB into three groups, namely, efficiency of IB products and services (service quality, Shariah compliance level, availability of services), behavioral (knowledge and awareness, religiosity, trust and intention) and personal attributes (innovativeness, understanding of mobile/internet banking and technology acceptance) factors of Islamic bank customers.

The sample size of this study is relatively small, as the data was imported from Scopus database only to perform Bibliometric analysis. Future studies may use larger sample size by retrieving data from other databases such as Web of Science and PubMed to develop better research clusters of BAIB.

The dynamic business environment and unprecedented changes in consumer behavior require managers creating suitable conditions to foster adoption of their services and capture a better market share.

Following the findings of this research, future research avenues are identified for strategic embeddedness and global development of IB by overcoming BAIB.

Depressive symptoms are a risk factor for loneliness, while sources of perceived social support from family and friends are protective factors; however, the complex mechanisms behind these factors have not been examined among health-care employees in Portugal. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the indirect effect of perceived social support from family and friends on the association between depressive symptoms and loneliness.

Health-care employees (n = 279; 242 female and 37 male) from 12 health-care institutions in Portugal participated in this cross-sectional study. The SPSS program with PROCESS macro (Model 6) was used to test the hypothesis regarding the indirect effect analysis.

Bootstrap analysis found that family as a source of social support had an indirect effect in the relationship between depressive symptoms and loneliness. Similarly, depressive symptoms had a significant indirect effect on loneliness through the indirect role of social support from friends. Moreover, it was found that the relationship of family and friends as sources of social support mediated the association of the aforementioned variables.

The findings of this study underscore the important role of depressive symptoms on perceived social support from family and friends, leading to loneliness, which is a public health concern among health-care employees in Portugal.

The main issue is whether customers prefer convenience over Shariah compliance or the opposite when they decide their Islamic banking needs. The purpose of this paper is to explore why customers adopt Islamic banking products and services: Shariah compliance or convenience?

Using convenience sampling, 310 respondents’ data were collected through online survey. For testing the fit and hypotheses of the proposed model, AMOS 25 software and Smart-PLS 4.0 software have been used.

Attitude, Islamic value and convenience have significant determinants of Islamic banking products and services. Shariah compliance has no direct or indirect influence on neither intention nor actual behaviour to adopt Islamic banking services. Furthermore, gender has no such differential effect on the adoption.

Managers and marketers of Islamic banks may benefit from the findings of this study, which demonstrate fresh insights regarding the factors which help in strategy formulations to promote Islamic banking services.

The growth of Islamic banks, branches and windows is remarkable in both Muslim-majority and Muslim-minority countries in the world. This paper postulates the behavioural finance studies in Islamic banking and finance research stream by extending the theory of planned behaviour of Ajzen (1985) as all the three new constructs (Islamic value, convenienc and Shariah compliance) are statistically fit for further studies. However, only Islamic value and convenience are the two significant factors which drive customers to take decision in the proposed model. This study gives insights to the bankers and authority about the consumer behaviour.

With the advent of technology and internet banking, the role and value of bank’s websites have increased. Additionally, the Islamic banking boom has also increased the role of Shariah-based banking in the market. But neither web-based information nor Shariah board members have been investigated for their possible effects on the branding of Islamic banks. Against this backdrop, this study aims to explore web-based information and Shariah board as a source of branding of Islamic financial institutions (IFIs).

An interpretivism-based thematic inquiry is carried out through semi-structured interviews of 22 customers of Islamic banks.

The findings of the study highlighted the fact that customers’ perceived web-based information is in line with the Shariah objectives but showed low level of trust on that information. They assumed that the practices are not consistent with this information. Moreover, the Shariah board members were considered as brand ambassadors, and customers valued board members more than the Shariah board and Islamic bank itself. Findings further highlight the more knowledge customers have about the Shariah board members (experience, qualification, achievements, etc.) the greater is the impact on the branding of the IFIs.

This study offers a novel perspective by considering the value of web-based information and Shariah board on branding of Islamic banks. As there is no such study available in literature, up to the best of researchers' knowledge, the qualitative inquiry may suffice the study objectives and research questions.

This study aims to explore the potential determinants of customers’ satisfaction with the Islamic banking system and highlights the fact that both internal and external factors play key roles in customer satisfaction (CS) during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Primary data from six Islamic banks (Al Baraka Bank Ltd, BankIslami Pakistan Ltd, Burj Bank Ltd, Dubai Islamic Bank Ltd, Meezan Bank Ltd and MCB-Islamic Bank Ltd) were analysed using a binary logit method.

The results showed that internal factors such as hand sanitisation facilities, strict compliance with wearing a mask before entering the bank, the distance between customers and dealing officers, an organised network of branches (in terms of health safety protocols), the behaviour of dealing officers and extended banking hours contributed significantly to enhancing the satisfaction of Islamic banking customers during the pandemic in Pakistan. The results showed that high service charges on loans have a significant adverse impact on CS. Concerning external factors, the results showed that mass media platforms that can update customers about new services and customer transactions’ processing timing, the number of operational branches in the pandemic period, available parking space in front of a bank and recommendations from family and friends to open an account with a particular bank increase CS levels.

The study’s results will be helpful for the policymakers and practitioners to design such policies that can promote the Islamic banking system in developing countries such as Pakistan.

Under the pandemic situation, the present study highlights the internal and external determinants of Islamic banking customers’ satisfaction in Pakistan. The study provides a foundation for Islamic Banks to revise their policy frameworks and marketing strategies to attract customer interest and improve their satisfaction levels.

The main purpose of this paper is to study the changing consumer behavior toward broiler meat and apprise its consequences toward food insecurity.

This is a sequential exploratory mixed-method study in which qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews (n = 38) by snowball sampling. The quantitative data were collected through a questionnaire survey (n = 975) by convenience sampling. The qualitative data were analyzed through NVivo 10 software by using thematic analysis, i.e. the qualitative content analysis (QCA). The theory of consumer alienation provides the theoretical underpinning for a quantitative study. The established scales were adopted and adapted. The quantitative data was analyzed through AMOS 24 software by using structural equation modeling (SEM).

It was found that people have many reservations regarding broiler meat. Thus, consumer alienation negatively (ß = −0.10) and the subjective norm positively (ß = 0.82) affects the intention to buy broiler meat.

The ongoing consumer alienation toward broiler will force them to avoid using this cheapest protein and ultimately will lead to food insecurity in developing countries. It is recommended that people must be adequately educated about the real broiler business and its operations to counter their ongoing misperceptions.

It is the original empirical Research Work.

This paper aims to investigate the differences in patronage factors influencing “retail customers” and “institutional clients” to bank Islamically and to identify the reasons bankers perceive that their customers’ bank with them in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

A total of 237; 416; and 70 balanced responses were collected from Islamic bankers, retail customers and institutional clients of UAE, respectively. Weighted average scores were computed for ranking the selection criteria factors across the data set and paired comparison analysis was conducted to analyse the variation of selection criteria between the data sets.

Empirical results indicate that Islamic banking practitioners maintain an identical perception with retail customers in relation to the selection criteria of Islamic banking products and services, with the “Sharīʿah-compliance” factor dominating other factors under examination. With respect to the perception regarding institutional/corporate clients, Islamic bankers exhibited a divergent perception in connection with selection criteria of Islamic banking products and services and the factor “cost and affordability” and “rates and return” are prioritized above factor “Sharīʿah-compliance”.

The scope of the study is limited to a single country. Hence, the finding of this study cannot be generalized to the other regions. Although the study covers a considerable sample from each segment, still there is an avenue for improvement by covering more respondents into the survey. Consequently, the results of this study should be read with these limitations. Further, analysis of the variation among intra divisions of each segment such as Muslim and non-Muslim with respect to retail customers; the different level of management at the banks and focusing the specific sector of the industry is beyond the scope of this study. These directions provide avenues for future research.

The study provides useful insights for bankers to revisit their marketing strategies to attract and retain more clients. Hence, the findings also suggest policy recommendations for nascent Islamic banking markets to move to the next stages of maturity. The findings of this study have implications for firms’ strategic directions and future investments of organizations, especially when the competition in the industry is intense. Future studies are recommended in other countries where the Islamic financial market share is significant.

While ample perception studies have carried out in the Islamic banking industry of the UAE, studies that focus on institutional clients, especially with reference to the factors that determine the selection criteria; studies examining banker’s perception towards Islamic banks and their clients (retail and institutional); studies that reconcile the perception of bankers and customers (retail and institutional) are all inadequately covered in existing literatures. This study attempts to fill some of these significant gaps.