The Role of Financial Behavior in Mediating the Influence of Socioeconomic Characteristic and Neuroticism Personality Traits on Financial Satisfaction

The inherent socioeconomic characteristics and personality traits of individuals can have direct effects on their financial satisfaction. There has been no research that examines the effects of these two factors on financial satisfaction with financial behavior acting as the mediating variable even though it is very important to know whether individuals with certain characteristics and personality traits are able to increase their financial satisfaction by improving their financial behavior. 2. Methods This research involved 600 respondents in Medan, Indonesia. The primary data were obtained from the questionnaire. Data analyses were performed by using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) method. 3. Results and findings The test results show that at 5% of alpha, the financial behavior, which consists of investment behavior, debt behavior, and spending behavior, is able to mediate the effects of gender, age, level of education, income, and neuroticism traits on financial satisfaction. In addition, it is also found that the higher the individuals' scores on neuroticism are, the worse their investment, debt, and spending behaviors will be; however, their herding behavior and financial dissatisfaction increase. Moreover, these people are also not financially well-off. Keywords: Debt behavior, financial satisfaction, investment behavior, neuroticism personality traits, spending behavior.

A Conceptual Model of Zakat Payers' Trust in a Zakat Institution in Kelantan

Zakat institutions are obliged to collect zakat from every eligible Muslim because their existence manages the institution by distributing the wealth from the wealthy Muslims to zakat asnafs. However, the zakat institutions still fail to ensure that every one of zakat payers will comply with paying through the institutions. Zakat payers' trust affects their zakat compliance behavior (Mustafa et al., 2013). According to research done by Faizal and Ramli (2017), compliance behavior is one factor that influences the act of tax compliance. This finding supports the prior studies by Kastlunger et al. (2013), who say that high trust causes the increase in tax compliance. The same case goes with paying zakat. Zakat payers' trust is essential in ensuring zakat payers pay zakat through the formal channels. According to Ahmad, Wahid, and Mohamad (2006), zakat payers' dissatisfaction towards zakat distribution practices by zakat institutions leads them to pay zakat directly to asnafs. Thus, this proves that lack of trust by zakat payers can increase the self-distribution practice and leakage in zakat collection. According to a report by Populus (2018), donors are most likely to donate their money to support causes by charities if charities are good at managing funds and demonstrate impacts for their causes. Otherwise, they will lose trust in those charities. As in this study, the main focus to study zakat payers' trust is to reduce the increase in self-distribution practice and gradually lead to maximize the zakat collection in the future. Based on that reason, this study determines which factors should be focused on to increase zakat payers' trust. The proposed factors in this study are disclosure practices, council board, and stakeholder management practices. Thus, the paper aims to develop a conceptual model of zakat payers' trust in a zakat institution in Kelantan. Keywords: Council board; Disclosure practices; Stakeholder management practices; Zakat payers' trust.

Generation Z: The Purchase Intention of Green Skin Care Products

The cosmetics and toiletry industry has growing up very fast. In 2016, the total global revenue cosmetics industry amounted to USD$444 billion. According to Lee, Goh, & Noor ( 2019), the skincare products dominated the cosmetics and toiletry market with a market value of approximately USD$ 120 billion. Between 2012 and 2019, the global skincare market expanded by 41.8 percent, and by 2025, it is expected to be worth $189 billion (Ledesma, 2020). The skin is the largest organ in the body, hence, many people will find ways to protect it, one of the way people are using to protect the skin is to apply any supplement on skin to keep the good condition of the skin. However, according to Cunningham (2014), the used of chemical items in the cosmetic skin care industry is extremely unregulated. For example, Parabens that cause breast cancer are found in cosmetics. The chemical used in the skin care products had rise the attention of the users to start to pay attention on the ingredient of the skin care products. One of the way people are using in order to avoid the harmful chemical in skin care products is to to choose skin care with natural ingredient (Espitia, 2020), this happend especially among the younger consumers (Boon et al., 2020; Hsu et al.,2017). The green skincare industry is growing rapidly. Green skin care, according to previous studies (Fauzi & Hashim, 2015; Hsu et al., 2017), is any skin care products which can preserve or enhance the natural environment by conserving energy or resources and decreasing or eliminating the usage of harmful agents, pollution, and waste. Studies showed there is an increasing in the consumption of green skincare products and toiletries by 45%, from a peak of RM 1.6 billion (in 1998) to RM 2.2 billion (in 2010), with sales estimated to exceed $1.1 billion in 2010 among young people (Boon et al., 2020). Keywords: Green Skin Care, Generation Z, Theory Of Planned Behaviour

Determinants of University Students' Waste Mobile Phones Recycling Intention

As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, mobile phones has become the utmost preference device for most Malaysian to stay connected. Over the past decades, mobile phone users in this country has been increasing steadily. Percentage of individuals in Malaysia using mobile phones increased from 94.2% in 2013 to 97.5% in 2015 (DOS, 2016). According to the hand phone users survey carried out by MCMC (2017) , there were 42.3 million mobile phone subscriptions with a penetration rate of 131.2% to a population of 32.3 million at the end of 2017. In a study on university students of Malaysia, Ho et al. (2018) revealed that a substantial amount of them (18.83%) actually do not know what to do with the waste mobile phones. This reflects the low awareness amongst university students and the lack of formal management system in Malaysia. Moreover, the findings show the rate of replacements of even functioning phones is high and a significant high stockpile of the waste mobile phones, which in turn increase the generation of e-waste eventually. Tremendous amount of waste mobile phones are expected to be generated in Malaysia. Malaysia is now facing a challenge on how to deal with the ever growing generation of waste mobile phones from users. An insight into their e-waste management practices and key predictors in relation to waste mobile phones recycling intention are therefore essential. This would help to lay the foundation for developing a suitable, workable, effective and efficient system of collecting e-wastes. This study aims to probe into university students' behavioural intentions to recycle waste mobile phones. In the meanwhile, it is expected to derive the policy implications for the future expansion and enhancement of mobile phones recycling response rate. Keywords: Determinants, Mobile Phones, Recycling, Intention, University Students

Reimagining a Realist Evaluation Research in Entrepreneurship Skills Development and the Idea of University Education

This article reports on the evaluation researchproject, which focussed on the viability and sustainability challenges in one particular case of a university over a period of five years. Such a university remains categorised as structurally disadvantaged despite almost thirty years into constitutional democracy in South Africa. As such, the research project was conducted against the complexity of the university transformation project, which take place against the enduring social ills as high unemployment rate, increasing inequalities and abject poverties especially from the enduring legacy of the old racist apartheid system. The role of university education in such a context becomes the reflexive imperative in consideration of university, not only as the public good and equity, but for social justice and equity discourses. Such discourses need to be made more loud than is presently the case. The research therefore focussed on the role of entrepreneurship skills development, which then were juxtaposed with the espoused values of of science, innovation and technology as the key performance indicators for the academic project. As such, the article will revolve around the main argument that scholarship of engagament in univeristy spaces, where entrepreneurship skills development ought to be the enabling system, need to be reimagined in terms of the contemporary research disciplines. Critical realist philosophy, and the realist social theory as the explanatory program, provide the alternative research approach to the mainstream approaches due to their explanatory power for for transcendentalism and based on retroductive arguemnts about the social world. Such an approach does not only foreground the contemporary debates in social sciences, and the emerging fields of study within it, but also help to elaborate on the purist positions that tend to be promoted in some business science fields and their inadvertent pragmatic and black box logic. Keywords: Viability, Sustainability, Entrepreneurship skills development, Historically disadvantaged universities, realist evaluative research

Evaluating the sufficiency of proposed security measures in favour of building objects

Security is understood as one of the basic life needs of people. However, it is necessary to realize that security is a natural quality of the environment where people live and is designated as a security environment. The need for sacurity is part of implementing sacurity measures that are created in compliance with a certain level of knowledge and needs. The content of this process can be characterized as a set of answers to primary questions (What is to be protected? – protected interest, Why to protect?, What to protect from? – threats) and secondary questions (Who will provide the protection?, How will the protection be provided?, When will the protection be provided?, By means of what will the protection be provided?, What price will the protection be provided for? etc.). From this viewpoint it is necessary to pay attention primarily to the problems concerning property protection from intentional actions focusing on protecting a particular building onject. In case of building objects it is primarily about the protection of tangible and intangible properties that are part of a particular limited area (mostly a building object) that is in possession or administration of a particular state or a private subject. The issues are dealt with by legal regulations, technical standards and various technical books. These usually concentrate on a particular area, kind of a building object and/or environment. However, none of them focuses on the property protection in a complex way and does not provide a satisfactory answer to the question "How to create protection systems in view of their sufficiency, complexity and balance in the technical and economic spheres?" That is why it is a social interest to search for new standardized procedures based on exact methods by means of which it will be possible, in empiric or intuitive ways, to exactly evaluate the effectivness of the existing or proposed property protection systems, including the formal desposition of results in project solutions Keywords: Project, Project documentation, Attack, Intervention and Detection time, Resistance of a building object, Modeling, Simulating

Biodiesel Renewable Energy and Transportation Consumption

Paper focuses on the renewable energy in Thailand. Objective is to compare risk on renewable energy and transportation consumption on biodiesel. It is using SWOT analysis and sustainable development theory as the tools. Besides, collecting data via questionnaire to investigate behaviors of people in having the ideas relating to biodiesel. The 52 responses from survey launching have returned. According to the results, the current consumption of biodiesel is still low because insufficient is on awareness of the consumers' trusts about biodiesel. Moreover, government's policy is not in good quality control. Biodiesel price has not been confirmed or set up in a clear standard that shows confidence in biodiesel to consumers. Remains adherence to diesel as it has been used for a longer period of time. Therefore, the risk of renewable energy in biodiesel is a relatively high risk. At the same time, in terms of environmental sustainability development, research results show that the use of biodiesel can help reducing air pollution at either PM 2.5 or global warming. Also, it would distribute an income to palm farmers. The results can be implemented for making improvements and suggesting recommendations to the government. A strengthening policy on renewable energy security and implement strategies is for solving various energy problems. With the concept of supporting research and development, it can create a wide range of knowledges, and the production of biodiesel as renewable energy. There should control the price structure, and the well quality practices to be fairly suitable in the nearly future. Keywords: Biodiesel, Consumption, Renewable Energy, Risk, Transportation

Agricultural Product Trade Supply Chain: A Literature Review By Using Citespace

Agriculture is widely treated as a base of national economy. The product provides the basic need for human, and its safety and stability are exposed to the constant attention of everyone. With the progress of human science and technology, more and more resources can be extracted from nature, and agricultural products nowadays are not be limited to food, but also be used as raw materials for fuel or other products. Meanwhile, trade between the two regions is often due to a comparative advantage in the production of a product, such as better technology, easier access to raw materials and the like (Dollar & Kraay, 2004). Therefore, agricultural product trade is a very important topic. This study believes that supply chains are an effective way to increase the value of agricultural product trade, for example effectively collaborating makes agricultural products available to end-consumers as quickly as possible. Supply chain management aims to satisfy consumer demands and improve the competitiveness (Dias & Ierapetritou, 2017) in various industries (Oelze et al., 2018). However, there is still blank between agricultural product trade and supply chain academically, figuring out what is agricultural product trade supply chain and what is related to this chain would be essential.

Evaluating the Evolution of the Personal Financial Planning Industry: Mutualism, Commensalism, or Parasitism?

The financial planning and advice industry has been experiencing healthy growth for the past five years and is expected to accelerate this growth following the Covid-19 pandemic (IBISWorld, 2021). The pandemic has led to higher equity yields and appreciating asset value, directly increasing the total value of assets under management (AUM) held by financial planners and advisors. The industry in the US alone has surpassed $52.9 billion in 2021. As the economy is expected to improve, this figure is expected to follow suit. Not included in these figures are the explosion of online personal finance bloggers and influencers. Some YouTube and TikTok videos have raked in billions of views regarding personal finance (Smith, 2021). Many of these online contents have benefitted viewers and prompted them to start making good decisions regarding their personal wealth, spreading financial literacy to the masses. However, poor financial advice may be spread out as easily to viewers. The Wall Street Journal has reported on this issue back in 2005 where blogs and magazines have been found to give both good and bad advice on budgeting, saving, and overall personal finance management (Cullen, 2005). Whatever the net effect of this phenomenon, the easy access through social media has amplified it. This article briefly journeys through the evolution of personal finance management and personal financial planning, including the new trends this industry is moving towards. Subsequently, this article will look into the risk and rewards of the current personal financial planning and advice industry, including certified financial planners and uncertified personnel (social media influencers, financial gurus), as to whether consumers are benefitting as a whole, or otherwise. A disclaimer to this research is that the findings and opinions towards the industry do not encompass all the service providers in the business as there are many other influencing factors such as business models, individual agenda, and unique circumstances of each provider and consumer. Keywords: Conflict of interest; financial planning; financial experts; Influencers; Personal finance

From Vulnerable Health Habitus to Tough Health Habitus Against Covid-19 in Inang-Inang at The Traditional Markets in Medan, Indonesia

The term, 'inang-inang pasar' is referred to Bataknese market female vendors who sell basic commodities in the traditional urban markets. They have the image of hard working and tough vendors who fight against poverty in towns. Their activities as vendors in traditional markets indicate their strategic role of women as the agents of economic resilience and the agents of health security in their families. Here, their toughness in supporting their families by being vendors at Sembada traditional market, Medan. However, their toughness becomes a dilemma caused by Covid-19 pandemic. In this case, the government implement prokes (health protocol) from 3Ms to 5 Ms (wearing masks, washing hands, doing social distancing, avoiding crowd, and staying home), including in the area of the traditional markets where they sell their merchandise. The Prokes of Covid-19 in traditional markets have caused various responses from them. The reality is that they have not been ready to practice the policy on this 5 M Prokes since most of them lack of awareness of adhering to it due to the vulnerable of their health habitus. It seems that they can become the carriers and local transmitters of Covid-19. This situation worsens their condition and the people surrounding them such as their own family members. Keywords: Habitus, Covid-19, Inang-Inang, Traditional Market