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A nationwide common malpractice in Zakat distribution has been prevailing in Bangladesh for the past few decades. The paper is a groundbreaking effort to investigate the perceptions of the Zakat payers about the common malpractices and to highlight whether any change in the conventional distribution of Zakat has occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic. The study also aims to extract the common perception of the Zakat payers regarding the validity of the changed practices during the pandemic.

The study adopts the qualitative research approach allowing an in-depth interview technique based on an unstructured questionnaire schedule to obtain information from the Zakat payers, complemented by the key informant interview with the Islamic Scholars. The study obtained data from Zakat payers administering a purposive sampling technique based on two specified criteria. After coding the information on three main themes, content analysis is used to examine the results.

The results reveal that although the Zakat payers dislike the common practices because of some antithetical issues, they still practice the same customs. Moreover, they apportion most of the value of Zakat in purchasing low-quality festive-motive clothes for the recipients. They are ignorant about Islamic law and the validity of such practices. According to scholars, these activities are not a pure system of Zakat provision and unable to alleviate poverty. Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, this practice shifted heavily to buying food items for the poor due to the financial hurdles they confronted during the pandemic. Although no solid argument is deduced from the participants about the exactitude of such distributional change, scholars regard the transformation as beneficial to the afflicted and the impoverished who have been hit by the pandemic, as well as not conflicting with the Zakat legislation.

The study is a novel contribution to addressing the malpractice in Zakat distribution through receiving practical information from the Zakat payers, which will help produce more in-depth research in Islamic finance. Furthermore, this research will help the government and people raise awareness about the authentic practices of Zakat distribution according to the codes of Shari’ah.

This study is a pioneering investigation since a scarcity of scholarly works attempted to identify the impact of Covid-19 on the practice of Zakat distribution and the associated perception regarding its Islamic jurisprudence. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the investigation of common malpractices of Zakat is still unearthed by no former rigorous studies in the context of Bangladesh. The present study bridges this gap and paves a pragmatic research dimension in the Islamic finance.

This study aims to systematically assess and map the evolution, themes and trends within Islamic marketing research, with a focus on identifying areas of high growth potential and guiding future research directions.

Using a bibliometric analysis and advanced structured topic modeling (STM) techniques, this research analyzes Islamic marketing studies published between 2000 and 2024. The comprehensive database search, centered on Scopus-listed publications, provides a macroscopic view of the field’s development over the past two decades.

This study reveals significant insights into the field of Islamic marketing, including the identification of key research themes, the growth in literature and geographical hotspots of scholarly activity. Emerging trends suggest a growing focus on consumer behavior, brand loyalty, Halal certification and ethical marketing practices.

This research is limited by its reliance on the Scopus database for source materials, and by focusing primarily on English-language publications. These constraints may have excluded relevant research in other languages or published in nonindexed formats.

This study offers valuable insights for marketers, businesses and policymakers aiming to engage the Islamic market. Understanding the dynamics of Islamic marketing can help in developing strategies that align with Muslim consumers’ values and preferences.

This research contributes to the Islamic marketing literature by using bibliometric analysis and STM, offering a unique, comprehensive overview of the field’s evolution, trends and future directions. It underscores the importance and growth of Islamic marketing as an independent academic discipline.

This study explores the development trajectory of private tutoring in Bangladesh. Specifically, it illustrates how private tutoring has emerged and expanded in the country's education system and examines how governments have responded on this issue.

The authors adopted a case study methodology for this study. Data were gathered from different secondary sources such as books, official documents, scholarly articles, and newspaper reports. The data analysis process consists of three-phases of activities: data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing/verification.

Private tutoring historically existed in Bangladesh. It is rapidly expanded in the country's education system – from primary to higher secondary level. Currently, it has reached an industrialization stage, where commercial coaching has become a major type of tutoring. The expansion of private tutoring is the inevitable result of the continued privatization and marketization of education. To bring the private tutoring under a framework, the government has taken some regulatory measures that can be characterized as “laissez-faire.” The existing measures are largely ineffective, as the policy makers followed an “top-down” approach when framing the policies.

This study, to the best of the authors' knowledge, is the first to target the historical aspects of private tutoring in Bangladesh. It has potential to fill out the literature gap on private tutoring by analyzing its policy aspect.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors affecting innovative behavior (IB) of Vietnamese enterprises employees based on theories of transformational leadership, social cognitive and knowledge spiral.

This study used a combination of in-depth interviews and large-scale surveys in 15 enterprises in the North, Central and South of Vietnam. In total, 455 valid questionnaires from employees of information technology, telecommunications and e-commerce enterprises have been used in this research to explore the impact of transformational leadership (TL), coworker support (CS) and organizational learning (OL) on employees' IB. The data collected were subjected to quantitative analysis, including Cronbach's alpha reliability test, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) for scales and hypotheses testing.

The results show that there are positive relationships between TL, OL and employees' IB, in which OL has a stronger impact than TL.

The limitations of this paper are that other factors affecting the innovation behavior of employees in Vietnamese enterprises have not been fully explored, the rejection of the hypothesis about the relationship between CS and employees’ IB needs to be considered with the moderating role of job characteristics and the use of convenient random sample selection, due to which its reliability may not be guaranteed.

From the results of this study, the authors point out that managers in Vietnamese enterprises should develop TL to deliver more creativity in an organization and enhance the corporate learning-oriented environment.

This paper contributes to the existing literature by focusing on factors affecting IB of enterprises employees in Vietnam, an emerging economy in the world.

This study aimed to present fabrication of novel poly(lactic acid) (PLA) mediated chitosan nanoparticles (CNPs) and their impregnation on cotton fabric for enhanced antibacterial and physical properties.

The PLA-CNPs were characterized using scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and zeta size analysis. The prepared PLA-CNPs were impregnated on cotton fabric via pad-dry-cure method. The finished cotton fabric was then characterized for its antibacterial activity, functional and other physical textile properties.

The spectral and optical properties demonstrate that the NPs expressed spherical morphologies with an average particle diameter of 88.02 nm. The antibacterial activity of treated fabrics ranged between 75 and 90 per cent depending on the concentration of PLA-CNPs.

Because of enhanced awareness and desire for ecofriendly products, the use of sustainable and functional textiles is increasing day by day. For the said purpose, industries are using different chemical treatments to achieve desired end functionality. Currently, different synthetic antibacterial agents are in practice, but they lack sustainable approach to save the environment. In this study, the researchers have developed PLA mediated CNPs for sustainable antibacterial and physical properties of treated cotton fabric.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is first attempt to fabricate PLA-incorporated CNPs for application on cotton fabric followed by a detailed characterization.