Motives Behind the Transfer of a Bank From Conventional Banking to Islamic Banking in Pakistan

The increasing awareness on Islamic banking and finance has created a huge demand for Shari’a based or Shari’a compliant products. Banks, especially are trying to capture this huge market by either converting themselves into a full fledge Islamic banks or opening a window for the Islamic based transactions. This study highlights the reasons why traditional banks turned towards Islamic model. The phenomenon of traditional banks turning into Islamic form was reinforced by the success of these banks averting the recent world economic crises. For data collection 80 respondents were selected, a proxy of five variables were undertaken as measurement. Variables of the study were:Transfer to Islamic Banking(TIB) was taken as dependent variable whileShari’a compliance(SC), Risk and Return(RR), Customer need(CN) and Performance of Islamic banks(PI) were taken as independent variables for which adopted questionnairewas used for data collection. The result of this research is that the banks are transferring from conventional banking to Islamic banking is just because of Shari’a Compliance, performance of Islamic banks and customer need for Islamic product.

Implicit Feedback Recommendation Method Based on User-Generated Content

Studying recommendation method has long been a fundamental area in personalized marketing science. The rating data sparsity problem is the biggest challenge of recommendations. In addition, existing recommendation methods can only identify user preferences rather than customer needs. To solve these two bottleneck problems, we propose a novel implicit feedback recommendation method using user-generated content (UGC). We identify product feature and customer needs from UGC using Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model and textual semantic analysis techniques, measure user-product fit degree introducing attention mechanism and antonym mechanism, and predict user rating based on user-product fit degree and user history rating data. Using data from a large-scale review sites, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method. Our study makes several research contributions. First, we propose a novel recommendation method with strong robustness against sparse rating data. Second, we propose a novel recommendation method based on the customer need-product feature fit. Third, we propose a novel approach to measure the fit degree of customer needs-product feature, which can effectively improve the performance of recommendation method. Our study also indicates the following findings: (1) UGC can be used to predict user ratings with no user rating records. This finding has important implications to solve the sparsity problem of recommendations thoroughly. (2) The customer need-based recommendation method has better performance than existing user preference-based recommendation methods. This finding sheds light on the necessity of mining customer need for recommendation methods. (3) UGC can be used to mine customer need and product features. This finding indicates that UGC also can be used in the other studies requiring information about customer need and product feature. (4) Comparing the opinions of user review should not be solely on the basis of semantic similarity. This finding sheds light on the limitation of existing opinion mining studies.

Operational coordination and mass customization capability: the double-edged sword effect of customer need diversity

PurposeThis study aims to explore how operational coordination affects mass customization capability (MCC) via organizational agility, the double-edged sword effect of customer need diversity and the moderating effect of competitive intensity based on dynamic capabilities perspective.Design/methodology/approachThis study examines the research hypotheses using hierarchical regression analysis by collecting data from 277 Chinese firms.FindingsThe results reveal that organizational agility partially mediates the impacts of operational coordination on product-oriented and service-oriented MCC. Customer need diversity is positively related to operational coordination, whereas negatively moderates the relationship between operational coordination and organizational agility. Moreover, competitive intensity negatively moderates the relationship between organizational agility and service-oriented MCC.Research limitations/implicationsThis study mainly used perceptual scales to measure organizational agility. There is a need to measure agility through Agility Index which consists of features' combination that enables agility.Practical implicationsManagers would thus do well to integrate business activities with supply chain partners and strive to foster an agile organization. Additionally, managers should take the leadership to assess the customer need and invest time and resources to respond to it when needed even though the response may be difficult.Originality/valueAlthough the importance of MCC in meeting personalized customer needs has been recognized, whether and how customer need diversity affects MCC remains unclear. This study provides a framework to study the relationships between customer need diversity and MCC, which deepens our understanding of how to enhance MCC to respond to diverse customer needs.

Location Based Business Recommendation Using Spatial Demand

Business locations is most important factor to consider before starting a business because the best location attracts more number of people. With the help of web search engines, the customers can search the nearest business location before visiting the business. For example, if a customer need to buy some jewel, he makes use of search engines to find the nearest jewellery shop. If some entrepreneur wants to start a new jewellery shop, he needs to find a best area where there is no jewellery shop nearby and there are more customers in need of jewel. In this paper, we propose an algorithm to find the best place to start a business where there is high demand and no (or very few supply). We measure the quality of recommendation in terms of average service time, customer-business ratio of our new algorithm by implementing in benchmark datasets and the results prove that our algorithm is more efficient than the existing kNN algorithm.

Inertia, group conformity and customer loyalty in healthcare in the information age

PurposeThe purpose is to analyse the influence of inertia and group conformity on loyalty in healthcare.Design/methodology/approachStructural equation model developed from the literature and tested with cross-sectional data from a patient online survey.FindingsInertia is a significant antecedent of loyalty and has a stronger effect in healthcare than in other service sectors. Group conformity has no significant effect in healthcare.Research ImplicationsThe strength of the impact of inertia [group conformity] on loyalty depends on the importance of the customer need that the service industry satisfies, in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Where inertia (stability need) is equally or more [less] important than the customer need, the influence of inertia on loyalty should be positive and strong [weak or insignificant]. In services that satisfy needs more [equally or less] important than group conformity (belonging need), there may be an insignificant [significant] influence of group conformity on customer loyalty, even [especially] in credence services.Practical implicationsHealthcare providers can exploit the stronger effect of inertia in healthcare through development of inertia-based loyalty policies. Regulatory authorities should be vigilant to ensure that these policies are not detrimental to patients. ‘Inert’ patients must become responsible for assessing their loyalties. Authorities and reference groups must stimulate customer loyalty assessments, and assist by providing impartial information.Originality/valueThis is the first study to address the influence of inertia and group conformity on loyalty in the healthcare sector and, from the perspective of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it is the first to do so in any service sector.