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The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between Halal food certification (HFC) and business performance. This study argues that Halal food certificate implementation positively influences business performance.

A total of 210 Halal certified food manufacturing companies in Malaysia participated in the study. Data were gathered through a structured questionnaire and were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling technique.

The study proved that HFC has a positive relationship with operational performance. Additionally, operational performance mediates the relationship between HFC and financial performance. Altogether, this signifies that Halal food certificate implementation positively influences business performance.

By linking HFC and business performance, managers may be aware of the significant role of HFC in influencing operational and financial performance. It would entice more food companies to become Halal certified that opens up an opportunity to a lucrative Halal food industry. It also empirically justifies that a religion-based food certification has the ability to influence business performance, consistent with other established food standards such as ISO 22000 or HACCP.

Although numerous studies have concentrated on well-established food certifications, the expanding Muslim population, rising demand for Halal food, and lucrative Halal food market have raised the attention on HFC research among academicians and practitioners. This research is able to highlight the importance of implementing HFC among food companies as it could potentially lead to superior business outcomes.

The main argument behind this paper is learning in the digital age should not be restricted to creating digital infrastructures for supporting current forms of learning nor taking schools in their current form as God-given, natural entities, but changing current forms of education by developing new frameworks and socio-technical environments for making learning an integral part of life. The authors provide a framework for this argumentation as well as a call-to-action for research on the co-evolution of learning, media, and learning organizations.

This paper theoretically and argumentatively explores the core assumption that the digitalization of society results in challenges and opportunities for learning and education based on fundamental transformations (Collins and Halverson, 2009; Fischer et al., 2020).

The digital age greatly enhances the opportunities and supports the necessity for “making learning a part of life”. But while the growth of technology is certain, the inevitability of any particular future is not. The impact of schooling goes beyond that new information about computers, the Internet, and social media are integrated into the schools of today. The transformation of schools needs to be informed by an understanding of the impact of mindset formation that will determine people's approach to learning for the rest of their lives. The authors’ framework is focused on moving “beyond gift-wrapping” by not only fixing and existing systems but to change them and not only reforming but transforming them.

It is the authors’ hope that this article will be of interest to many stakeholders (including learners, teachers, curriculum designers, technology experts, parents, and politicians) and provide a foundation for an ongoing debate and informed actions for “Making Learning a Part of Life” in the digital age.

The digitalization of society results in challenges and opportunities for learning and education. This paper describes exemplary transformations from current to future practices. It illustrates multi-dimensional aspects of learning which complement and transcend current frameworks of learning focused on schools. While digital technologies are necessary for these transformations, they are not sufficient. The paper briefly illustrates the applicability of the conceptual framework to the COVID-19 pandemic. It concludes that design opportunities and design trade-offs in relation to digital technologies and learning should be explored by envisioning the cultural transformation that are desirable for making learning a part of life.

This paper is based on the work conducted at the symposium “Rethinking and Reinventing Learning, Education, and Collaboration in the Digital Age—From Creating Technologies to Transforming Cultures” that took place in Engeltofta outside of Gävle, Sweden in September 2019. The symposium invited scholars in collaborative analysis of design opportunities and design trade-offs in relation to digital technologies and learning and explored design strategies for systematically and proactively increasing digital technology's contributions to learning and collaborating. The paper first provides a condensed introduction of a conceptual framework summarizing current practices, their problems and promising alternatives. Multi-dimensional aspects of learning and lifelong learning will be briefly described as promising future alternatives to school learning. Examples of transformative practices are supporting the major argument of the paper that creating new technologies is an important prerequisite to address the fundamental challenge of transforming cultures. The unanticipated but fundamental event of the occurrence of COVID-19 will be briefly described to provide further evidence for the need and the applicability of our conceptual framework for rethinking and reinventing learning, education and collaboration in the digital age.

The paper provides a condensed introduction of a conceptual framework summarizing current practices, their problems and promising alternatives. The framework includes multi-dimensional aspects of learning and lifelong learning as a promising future alternative to a focus on school learning.

This paper describes exemplary transformations from current to future practices. It illustrates multi-dimensional aspects of learning which complement and transcend current frameworks of learning focused on schools.

Halal is an emerging business sector and is steadily gaining popularity among scholars and practitioners. The purpose of this paper is to critically evaluate and review the reported literature in the broad area of Halal using bibliometric technique and network analysis tools. Moreover, this paper also proposes future research directions in the field of Halal.

This paper employed a systematic review technique followed by bibliometric analysis to gain insight and to evaluate the research area associated with Halal. Furthermore, data mining techniques are used for analysing the concerned article title, keywords and abstract of 946 research articles obtained through the Scopus database. Finally, network analysis is used to identify significant research clusters.

This study reports top authors contributing to this area, the key sub-research areas and the influential works based on citations and PageRank. We identified from the citation analysis that major influential works of Halal are from the subject area of biological science and related areas. Further, this study reports established and emerging research clusters, which provide future research directions.

Scopus database is used to conduct a systematic review and corresponding bibliometric study; the authors might have missed some peer-reviewed studies not reported in Scopus. The selection of keywords for article search may not be accurate for the multi-disciplinary Halal area. Also, the authors have not considered the banking/financial aspects of Halal. The proposed four research clusters may inform potential researcher towards supporting the industry.

The novelty of the study is that no published study has reported the bibliometric study and network analysis techniques in the area of Halal.

The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) has been mediating the South Sudan conflict since 2013. IGAD’s intervention in South Sudan is anchored on its founding norm of peaceful settlement of regional conflicts and in reference to the principle of subsidiarity, under the Africa Peace and Security Architecture (APSA). However, it is puzzling how violence continued unabated even as conflict parties negotiated and signed numerous agreements under the auspices of IGAD. The parties to conflict seem unwilling to implement the 2018 peace agreement, which is arguably un-implementable. Yet, it appears that IGAD mediators were privy to this situation all along. The question that then arises is why IGAD would continue engaging in a mediation process that neither ends violence nor offers a promise of a resolution? Drawing out on empirical data, this paper argues that IGAD’s organisational structures and functionality are key to understanding and explaining the South Sudan phenomenon within broader discourses on peace and security regionalism in Africa. This paper suggests the need to pay attention to the embeddedness of political power dynamics in the structures and functionality of Africa’s Regional Economic Communities (RECs), such as IGAD, as one of the ways to (re)thinking and (re)orienting norms and practices of regional conflict management within the APSA and in pursuit of the “African solutions to African problems.”

Data for this paper was obtained through document reviews and 39 elite interviews. The interviews were conducted with representatives of IGAD member states, bureaucrats of IGAD and its organs mediation support teams, conflict parties, diplomats and other relevant experts purposively selected based on their role in the mediation. The physical interviews were conducted in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, with others conducted virtually. Analysis and presentation of findings are largely perspectival, highlighting coexistence of contending peacemaking ideas and practices. The discussions centre around inter-linked themes of IGAD’s conceptions of peace and approaches to peacemaking as informed by its structural and functional designs.

Findings illustrate the complexity of the peace process and the centrality of power politics in IGAD’s peace and security arrangements. In view of the findings, this paper echoes the need for enhanced and predictable collaborative framework between IGAD and the African Union (AU) as central to the operationalisation of the APSA and pursuit of the African solutions to the African problems. Hence, this paper suggests transforming IGAD’s political program into a robust political bureau with predictable interlinkages and structured engagements between IGAD’s heads of state and government and the APSA’s Panel of the Wise (PoW).

The study is based on empirical data obtained through the researcher's own framed questions, and its argument is based on the researcher's own interpretations innovatively framed within existing theoretical framework, particularly hybrid peace theory. Based on the findings, this paper makes bold and practical recommendations for possible workable collaborative framework between IGAD and the AU under the APSA framework

The purpose of this paper is to identify sensing, seizing and reconfiguring routines of dynamic capabilities that enable digital transformation in firms.

A qualitative approach is used. Representatives from a firm going through digital transformations are interviewed, and focus groups have been carried out with a consultancy firm experienced in giving advice to firms going through digital transformation.

Six routines identified as relevant specifically for digital transformation are identified. These are cross-industrial digital sensing, inside-out digital infrastructure sensing, digital strategy development, determination of enterprise boundaries, decomposition of digital transformation into specified projects and creation of a unified digital infrastructure.

The authors provide direction for managers on how to approach digital transformation. In relation to previous research, the authors provide more specific guidance regarding how to reconfigure the organization in digital transformation.

The paper uses a novel context for digital transformation and complements the very few studies available using dynamic capabilities to understand digital transformation.

The purpose of this paper is to study factors that affect the success of technology parks in terms of fostering entrepreneurial firm formation, growth, and financing.

Based on a new international dataset of technology parks (tech parks) from 13 countries (eight developing countries and five developed countries), the paper relates the success of technology transfer to the legal environment within which the tech park operates, as well as the characteristics of the tenants in the tech park and the services provided by the tech park.

The data indicate entrepreneurial success is more likely to be facilitated when there is better legal protection offered to companies in the jurisdiction within which the tech park is located, when there is a greater presence of foreign university- and government-affiliated companies in tech parks, and a smaller presence of foreign private companies in tech parks, particularly foreign subsidiaries. The data further indicate entrepreneurial success is more likely when tech park tenants have greater testing/analysis focus, and when tenants have less assembly- and service-focussed activities. Also, entrepreneurial success is more likely to be facilitated by tech parks with on- and off-site technology licensing offices that promote trade shows, provide access to funds for commercialization and distribute information on the R&D outcomes of tech park tenants.

The data offer insights into efficient design of tech parks. Coarse measures from survey data are limitations yet offer scope for further examination in future research.

The paper provides guidance for entrepreneurs and their investors in terms of ways maximize value in terms of entrepreneurial growth and financing from selecting appropriate tech parks.

This study aims to perform a systematic review of the dialectics and telematics strategy for regulating religion during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study also analyzes some important issues related to religions, state, and society.

A critical literature review was performed to complete this study, using media, institutional, national, and international reports, as well as recent and previous studies during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Religion was one of the social entities that had a crucial effect on the COVID-19 pandemic. The new system in the form of social distancing affects its performance. Furthermore, the response of religion in Indonesia is unique when its status is considered as the largest Islamic country in the world. Therefore, this study attempts to analyze and demonstrate the dynamics of relationships between actors, religion, and state in the process and strategy of religious regulation.

This study was carried out using a single methodological approach.

This study provides input to both religion and the state (government) in building a synergy of constructive responses to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It provides input to society in understanding the critical intersection between religion, state, and society.

This may be the first academic study that analyzes the problems of the process of regulating religion in the context of COVID-19.