The changing of the global demographic trends clearly suggests a growing demand for a quality higher education. In fact, several studies have been carried out in the past few years to explore the factors that have effects on the customer satisfaction and its consequences in various industries. In the same manner, this study also explores the five factors of service quality (SERVQUAL) and their relationship with the level of student satisfaction and their loyalty as well as the intervening role of satisfaction in the relationships between SERVQUAL factors and loyalty among undergraduate students.The study used self-administered questionnaires to test the proposed model and data collected from 460 questionnaires were analysed. The questionnaires were distributed at various private universities and colleges in Malaysia based on convenience sampling. The results of this study are in accordance with prior studies in this field as SERVQUAL factors do influence the level of customers' satisfaction in the service industry. This study shows that the level of students overall satisfaction is mostly affected by tangibility. This finding indicates that the physical facility on the campus plays a major role in satisfying the students. The results also show that tangibility has the highest influence (directly and indirectly) on the students' intention to continue to a higher level of studies and/or spreading good word of mouth about the institution to their friends and the society. However, to generalize the results of this study, consideration should be made to the limitation of the number of the private institutions where the samples are collected. It is suggested that for further study, more samples should be taken from a larger number of institutions.

Purpose Islamic microfinance schemes are designed and developed with the primary intention of poverty alleviation and fulfillment of the Islamic law requirements. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of religiosity, religious leader’s endorsement, social influence and income on the intention to apply for Islamic microfinance among Muslims in Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach This study is based on a public survey to collect primary data from various states in Malaysia. Then, structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to analyse the data set. Findings The results of SEM indicate significant roles for religiosity and religious leader’s endorsement as religion-based factors on intention to apply for microfinance products. Moreover, social influence (peer-pressure) is influential on the financial decision-making process. The authors also examined the moderation effect of gender on these relations and found that females, in comparison to males, tend to be more influenced by religious leader’s endorsement and social influence. On the other hand, male with higher religiosity tend to favour Islamic microfinance products more than females. Originality/value Findings of this study are new in many aspects, most importantly as it sheds light into the role of religiosity and religious leader’s endorsement on the decision-making process in microfinancing services.

The effects of socio-cultural factors have been studied in marketing and management for years. After the expansion of globalization in the mid-twentieth century, acceptance of foreign products by customers of targeted markets has become a challenging issue for companies. Therefore, many scholars have focused on studying the impact of those factors, such as customer ethnocentrism and patriotism. This study tested the reliability and validity of CETSCALE as one of the most replicated measurements of customer ethnocentrism by conducting the research among Iranian customers. The fi ndings of this study have supported some of the previous fi ndings in this area that CETSCALE is multi-dimensional variables . However, the results have indicated that measuring ethnocentrism in the Iranian market have higher reliability and validity by using only 14 out of the original 17 questions .

The issue of unsold homes in Malaysia has recently caused the housing developers great anxiety. The nationwide issue of unsold homes was caused by the fact that more homes were built than were purchased by customers. As a result, it is important to figure out what factors can influence potential homebuyers to make a purchase. In order to better understand this issue, the study's objective was to determine the factors that influence homebuyers' decisions in Kota Bharu, Kelantan. The study specifically sought to ascertain whether variables including quality, price, location, promotion, and corporate image had an effect on consumers' decisions to purchase homes. Since the nation was dealing with the Covid-19 outbreak, which made face-to-face questionnaire distribution on the ground nearly impossible to carry out, 382 respondents from Kota Bharu, Kelantan, participated in this study through questionnaires disseminated using the Google Form technique. This study used the Principal Axis Factor and Promax Rotation to evaluate the instruments. Before doing a bootstrapped regression analysis, all seven multiple regression assumptions were examined and verified. The findings showed that only location and promotion variables were positive and significantly influencing the house buying decision. These findings led to a number of strategy recommendations that helped the industry develop the best plans for boosting upcoming sales. It is hoped that by identifying the variables influencing homebuyers' purchasing decisions, housing developers can get an understanding of this phenomenon and be better able to plan and build homes that will live up to buyers’ expectations.

A strategy based on long-term relationships is considered one of the most effective options, especially for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), to be competitive and sustainable in the market. There are many benefits that can be obtained from long-term relationships that include efficiency and effectiveness in operations, total cost reduction, better delivery performance, and higher profit. Thus, the objective of this study is to determine factors that influence the development of long-term relationships among SME entrepreneurs in the Malaysian agro-based industry. The data collected from 226 entrepreneurs has revealed 7 important factors that influence the development of long-term relationships of SME entrepreneurs with their preferred buyers. These factors were trust, reputation, quality, satisfaction, power/dependence, relationship specific investments and communication. This result provides a basis for managers to put more effort into developing business relationships in order to create high competitive advantage in the market.