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The purpose of this study is to evaluate the real estate investment performance portfolio decision-making of the insurance firms by the National Housing Fund (NHF) Act in reducing the housing deficit in Nigeria. The insurance companies' gross premium, real estate investment and return on investment trends for the period 2014–2019 were evaluated, to determine the extent of their investment in real estate in Nigeria, this ought to have reduced the shortfall in housing.

Both primary and secondary sources were used. Cronbach’s alpha was used for testing the reliability. The Friedman mean rank with Chi-square was used for different types of real estate investment properties and for reasons for investing in real estate by insurance companies in Nigeria. The test for normality was conducted using the Shapiro–Wilk and Spearman correlation for the significance. The percentage and the data envelopment analysis frontier model were used for measuring performance and efficiency.

The results showed that the majority of real estate investments made by insurance companies were in commercial and land buying and reselling and that their performance was below average. However, their motivation for investing is not toward the NHF Act but rather for diversification and increasing their capital.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies in Nigeria that looked at how well insurance firms have performed investing in real estate as required by the NHF Act. However, the new Act, the National Housing Fund (Establishment) Act of 2018 which was put on hold due to flaws, affected data availability beyond 2019.

The purpose of this study is to examine the factors that influence people’s behaviour in paying zakat, explore their perceptions of the institutions, examine the factors that influence their trust and analyse the impact of trust on their behaviour in paying zakat to the institutions.

A questionnaire was distributed to 740 potential Zakat payers in the Federal Territory, Malaysia. In designing the questionnaire, a systematic literature review, focus group discussions and pilot study were conducted. Descriptive analysis and partial least squares structural equation model were used with SmartPLS software.

The result shows that trust, intention to pay zakat and age of the respondents have statistically significant impacts on people’s behaviour to pay zakat through institutions. Intention to pay zakat is influenced by attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control. In addition, the main common concerns expressed were lack of awareness of the importance of paying zakat, lack of transparency in zakat administration, especially in collection and distribution, and inefficiency in administration and distribution. Moreover, trust in the institutions could be established if the institution is able to fulfil its mission of collecting and distributing zakat to the entitled Asnaf and improve their welfare, as trust not only has a direct impact on people’s behaviour, but also strengthens people’s intention and influences their behaviour to pay zakat to the institutions.

This study focuses on a specific geographical area and zakat institution; hence, the study’s generalisability is limited. The use of self-reported and cross-sectional data may introduce bias and fail to capture the dynamic change of trust, intention and behaviour across time. The proposed solution of leveraging digital platforms may provide numerous hurdles and obstacles for adoption by the zakat institution.

This study shows the significant role of trust in influencing people’s intentions and behaviour in supporting organisations. Therefore, it can serve as an indicator of the performance or success of a particular institution. Thus, there is a need to find strategies to gain people’s trust by improving their ability, integrity and benevolence in performing their tasks.

Audit firms have a strong historical tradition of professionalism, but they are also commercial entities. This study aims to investigate the relationship between auditor cash compensation and office-level financial performance.

This study uses proprietary compensation expense and financial performance data from audit offices in China. Using the ordinary least squares regressions, this study tests the association between per capita compensation and office-level financial outcomes.

This study provides evidence that audit offices offering higher compensation achieve more profitable performance, as reflected in increased market share, higher return on assets and greater operating profit margins. Mechanism tests suggest that reductions in auditor turnover, driven by compensation incentives, partially account for this performance improvement. Additional tests show that the benefits of compensation incentives are particularly pronounced in audit firms licensed to conduct listed firm audits or when accompanied by staff training and technical development. Furthermore, both partner-level and staff auditor compensation significantly enhance office-level financial performance. The results might be of interest to both practitioners and regulatory bodies.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the relationship between auditor cash compensation and audit-office profitability. The findings highlight important policy implications for audit firms seeking to retain high-caliber auditors and maximize their economic benefits through human capital investments, including compensation, education, training and technical development.

This paper aims to explore whether academic librarians at the Universities of Technology (UoTs) in South Africa have the pedagogy and digital skills to implement a digital pedagogy approach for online teaching.

A mixed-method approach in the form of a sequential explanatory design was selected to explore the topic in which the quantitative was followed by the qualitative phase. Instruments used included an online questionnaire and semi-structured interviews to explore the pedagogy and digital skills of academic librarians at UoTs in South Africa.

The quantitative results and findings revealed that academic librarians lacked the pedagogy and digital skills for online teaching. Similarly, results and findings in the qualitative phase also showed academic librarians lacking these skills for online teaching. Consequently, the results and findings derived from both phases were triangulated and the cohesive nature of the data was absolute.

(i) Library schools include an elective module covering pedagogy and teaching with technology for librarians; (ii) library professional bodies create opportunities for academic librarians to develop pedagogy and digital skills; and (iii) higher education libraries need to create knowledge-sharing opportunities to improve the pedagogy and digital skills of academic librarians with teaching portfolios.

Higher education libraries and library schools must promote the teaching identity of academic librarians by helping them improve their pedagogical and digital skills for online teaching.

This topic requires further exploration as academic librarians are fast becoming integrated into the teaching and learning agenda of institutions globally.

The current study is novel in that it explores the pedagogical and digital skills of academic librarians at UoTs in South Africa for online teaching.

The purpose of this paper is to examine push and pull factors influencing assigned expatriates’ (AEs) decision to remain in their host countries indefinitely as long-term migrants.

In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 individuals from different developed countries on renewable visas in their host country of Malaysia, having arrived initially as AEs. Interview data were analyzed using a thematic analysis approach.

The findings highlight push and pull factors and suggest that AEs’ decisions to become long-term migrants can be attributed to three contextual factors: personal, organizational and country.

This study provides insights for human resource managers to understand potential motivating factors that might influence an AE to consider remaining indefinitely in their host country as a long-term migrant, thus terminating their contract with their MNC employer.

This is among the first empirical studies in the field of international business on AEs who subsequently became long-term migrants in a host country. Moreover, it highlights the possible change in expatriates’ temporary status. It contributes to global mobility literature by examining how in highly skilled professionals, the pursuit of a long-term professional career and lifestyle improvement correlates with a “privileged” position in a host country.

Social media usage has been documented to affect the psychological well-being of its users. This study aims to examine how social media overload influences cognitive fatigue among individuals in Malaysia.

This study employed a comprehensive research framework based on the stressor-strain-outcome (SSO) model to examine how perceived overload affects social media cognitive fatigue through emotional exhaustion and anxiety. Survey data were gathered from 451 social media users in Malaysia, and data analysis was performed using PLS-SEM.

The findings revealed that information overload, communication overload and interruption overload are antecedents of emotional exhaustion. Communication overload, interruption overload and cognitive overload were identified as antecedents of anxiety, while emotional exhaustion and anxiety were confirmed as predictors of social media cognitive fatigue. However, pathway analysis indicated no relationship between emotional exhaustion and anxiety.

Our study contributes to the literature on media technology and media psychology by examining the psychological mechanisms (emotional exhaustion and anxiety). The findings offer implications for service providers, practitioners and social media users, as they facilitate measures and strategies to mitigate the adverse effects of social media while elevating psychological well-being.

The present research examines an underlying mechanism outlining how features of the influencers’ content influence the consumers’ urge to buy impulsively through the mediation of trust. Moreover, the moderating role of persuasion knowledge is also investigated in this study.

By employing persuasion theory and social capital theory, this study develops a framework that is tested on 251 social media users. The PLS-SEM modeling technique is employed for data analysis.

Results indicate that vicarious expressions and informational value are the two main characteristics of the influencer’s content, which develop trust in influencers’ posts and instigate an UBI. In addition, trust in influencer posts serves as a mediator between content characteristics and UBI. However, no moderating role of persuasion knowledge was found.

The present study offers an inclusive understanding of how marketers can strategically use influencers by leveraging the influential power of their content.

This study aims to identify the significant scientific actors, reveal the intellectual structure and explore essential features for future research direction in Sharia governance studies.

The study applies a hybrid review combining bibliometric analysis and content analysis. It uses Rstudio (biblioshiny), VOSviewer and Microsoft Excel to analyze 457 articles published in 206 journals indexed by Scopus and/or Web of Science during the period of 1985 until the end of 2022.

The paper discovered four distinct streams of Sharia governance studies: structure of Sharia governance, Sharia governance and risk management, Sharia governance and sustainability and the effect of Sharia governance toward firm’s financial performance. Furthermore, it derives and summarizes 26 main research questions for future studies.

In terms of theoretical implications, the finding contributes to the general literature on Sharia governance by conducting bibliometric analysis and content analysis. In terms of practical implications, this study suggests that Sharia governance should be strengthened by the management of Islamic banks and other Islamic-based businesses.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the early studies using a hybrid review on the topic of Sharia governance, allowing future researchers in this field to capture the trends and progress of current literature as well as the research gaps to be filled in by future researchers.

The study aims to investigate the push, pull and mooring effects toward switching intention to halal tourism.

This study is a quantitative study by accommodating a convenience sampling approach and google form media as a medium for distributing questionnaires. The object of this study is 420 Muslim tourists who have visited at least once in halal tourist attractions in Indonesia. The data were processed using a partial least squares structural equation modeling approach using the SmartPLS 4.0.

The results of the study indicate that the push factors (low service, low satisfaction and low trust), pull factors (future expectation, alternative attractiveness and Sharia compliance) and religiosity have a positive and significant influence on the switching intention in tourism. In contrast, social influence has an insignificant effect on the switching intention toward halal tourism.

This study only accommodates Muslim and domiciled respondents in Java Island, Indonesia.

Improving service quality and information, particularly related to the needs of Muslim travelers (such as the availability of halal food, prayer facilities, and so on), is highly recommended as a differentiating strategy that can enhance brand equity for halal tourism providers. The government and halal tourism stakeholders can collaborate with various parties, such as universities or associations, to organize seminars, public lectures and training programs.

This study expands the understanding of the key determinants of switching behavior to halal tourism destinations. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first study to examine switching behavior to halal tourism and the first study to use push-pull-mooring theory in the context of halal tourism.

This study aims to explore which relational factors are crucial for accelerator-based start-ups to achieve high financial performance and whether innovation levels influence this relationship. Utilizing fsQCA and drawing from the resource-based view (RBV), we analyze 128 start-ups in a Spanish accelerator, split by innovativeness, to understand the impact of relational and human capital factors on performance.

The study uses fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to investigate conditions leading to high financial performance among 128 start-ups in a Spanish accelerator, divided by innovativeness. Four key factors are analyzed: social capital, social competence, resource mobilization and entrepreneurial ecosystem support. fsQCA examines complex relationships between these factors and financial performance.

Relational and human capital factors significantly impact start-up financial performance, varying with innovativeness. Highly innovative start-ups benefit from social competence and networked support, while less innovative but profitable start-ups rely on resource mobilization skills. The study highlights the contingent value of these factors, showing that unique configurations drive financial success.

The paper enhances the RBV in entrepreneurial contexts by highlighting the critical role of relational resources and their configurations. It suggests social competence and networked support are crucial for highly innovative start-ups, while resource mobilization is key for less innovative ones. These findings encourage nuanced theorizing of start-up success strategies, considering varying innovativeness levels and their impact on performance.

This study enhances understanding of the relationship between relational factors and financial performance in accelerator-based start-ups, considering innovation levels. It provides insights into how different configurations of social capital, competence, resource mobilization and ecosystem support lead to success. It underscores the importance of considering the contingent value of relational factors for start-up growth.