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As opposed to conventional promotional methods, Word-of-Mouth (WOM) communication, especially when negative, significantly shapes customers’ repurchase decisions and preferences. Therefore, this study aims to examine the interplay between negative WOM and bank service failures, with a focus on the mediating role of customer switching intentions and the moderating role of switching costs in this relationship.

Using an online semi-structured questionnaire survey, a dataset comprising 411 responses was gathered from retail bank customers in China. This dataset was subsequently analyzed using SPSS PROCESS.

Consistent with the social exchange theory, our study revealed a significant relationship between service failure and both bank customers’ intention to switch and negative WOM communication. Additionally, we observed that switching intentions significantly influence negative WOM communications, acting as a mediator between service failures and negative WOM. Furthermore, our findings indicated that switching costs moderate the direct effect of service failures on negative WOM and moderate the indirect effect of service failures on negative WOM through switching intentions.

This study provides significant policy implications aimed at minimizing bank service failures and subsequent negative WOM communications among bank customers.

This study empirically investigates the role of service failures in promoting negative WOM communication, demonstrating a partial mediation effect of switching intentions in this relationship. Moreover, the study highlights that switching costs moderate service failures’ impact on customers’ switching intentions.

How parents experience school governance is increasingly shaped by its changing requirements as well as their positioning by leaders and policy makers within a marketised education system. In order to make sense of these experiences, they are situated within a wider policy context in which both neoliberalism and increased centralisation are juxtaposed. Policy has a significant influence on leadership, yet the relationship between them is complex, and while the impact of the former on the latter is clearer, this is less so in terms of the extent to which governance (as a form of leadership) shapes policy, and this is explored further in this chapter. It considers the prescriptive nature of current policy and how this not only hinders the ability of governance to influence policy but facilitates and reproduces the neoliberal ideology underpinning it. The implications of neoliberalism and increased centralisation, with their associated policy technologies, such as performance management and accountability for school governance are considered, including the underrepresentation of certain parents and the ‘professionalisation’ of governing boards. Through a critical exploration of this professionalisation of governance, this chapter makes an original contribution to our understanding of the complex relationship between leadership and policy. It uses Foucault’s work as a conceptual framework, drawing on his tools of governmentality, discipline and surveillance. It has significance not only in terms of governance in the school system in England, but within the wider global policy context in which the influence of both market-oriented policies and centralised policies is evident.

This study investigates the factors influencing the intention to use Islamic Debt Financing (IDF) among owners-managers of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Morocco.

We developed and validated a comprehensive model that examines the key behavioral elements affecting attitude towards IDF, entrepreneurial achievement motivation, and IDF usage intention. Entrepreneurial achievement motivation was assessed as a mediator in the relationship between attitude towards IDF and usage intention. Gender and Islamic religiosity were examined as moderators through Multi-Group analysis. Utilizing data from 266 Moroccan MSMEs, we applied structural equation modeling for empirical evaluation.

Results revealed direct relationships with financial literacy, risk perception, and cost perception negatively affecting attitude toward IDF. Financial suitability is inversely related to attitude toward IDF. Entrepreneurial self-efficacy and subjective norms positively influenced entrepreneurial achievement motivation. Attitude toward IDF positively impacted entrepreneurial achievement motivation, and both attitude toward IDF and entrepreneurial achievement motivation were linked to the intention to use IDF. Empirical findings indicated that entrepreneurial achievement motivation partially mediates the relationship between attitude towards IDF and usage intention. Multi-group analysis revealed a significant moderating effect of Islamic religiosity on three out of nine structural relationships.

This study is primarily limited by the absence of a longitudinal examination tracking real usage behavior. Moreover, data collection focused on analyzing the behavioral intention to use Islamic debt-based financing products, excluding equity-based financing instruments. Finally, our proposed model concentrates on establishing usage intention solely based on demand-side factors without explicitly integrating supply-side consideration.

Our findings contribute to a deeper understanding of IDF adoption behavior and have the potential to support the development of more effective public policies, targeted promotional campaigns, and impactful financial education programs for MSMEs in similar markets.

This paper represents the first attempt to address MSMEs’ apprehensions regarding Islamic debt-based financing products in the MENA region.