Crime deterrence role of Romanian churches

We analyse the crime deterrence role of Romanian churches using a data sample of crime in all 42 Romanian counties from 2001 to 2013. We aim to determine whether the public funding of churches can be justified by the role Romanian churches play in deterring illegal behaviour. The decision to build a new church in a certain location can be endogenous; therefore, we use as an instrument the built-up area of counties’ cities in the 1990s. After controlling for the endogeneity of the number of churches, our estimations show that Romanian churches significantly diminish local crime rates. Adventist, Baptist, Catholic and Orthodox churches tend to play an active role in the deterrence of local crime. Hence, Romanian churches not only provide religious services, but also promote religious norms and strengthen the social ties between parishioners, help prevent crime.     

Firm internationalisation within the Muslim world

Business transactions within the Muslim world have received only limited attention from International Business scholars. This exploratory study investigates whether a shared adherence to the Islamic tradition can reduce perceived cultural distance between countries, thus affecting the internationalisation pattern of firms. The experiences of six small- and medium-sized enterprises in the electronics and electrical (E&E) sector in northern Malaysia are presented. The findings suggest that a mutual affiliation to Islam among countries does contribute to reducing cultural distance, thus also affecting the path of firm internationalisation.     

Do religion and spirituality matter for hotel workers’ well-being and guests’ happiness? An update of the Attraction-Selection-Attrition theory

Drawing on the Attraction-Selection-Attrition (ASA) theory (Schneider et al., 1995), this paper examines how adhering to religious regulations and offering spiritual facilities may affect hotel workers’ psychological well-being and guests’ happiness. Using a mixed method approach, we collected data through two studies on religious practices and spiritual facilities at 5-star hotels in Jordan. In the first stage, interviews were conducted with 18 senior managers at hotels in the Dead Sea area (study 1). In the second stage, data were collected from Muslim guests who visited and stayed at a 5-star hotel in Jordan (study 2) and the hypotheses were tested with partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) using SmartPLS 3.3.3. Our results indicate that spiritual facilities at hotels enhance workers’ well-being and guests’ happiness while not adhering to religious regulations adversely affects workers’ well-being and guests’ happiness. The paper offers a contextual and novel framework to understand the linkages between religion/spirituality and psychology at hotels in a diverse cultural context in the Middle East. The empirical studies highlight the contextual relevance and extension of Schneider’s (1995) ASA theory by incorporating religiosity/spiritualty and well-being of hotel employees in a Middle Eastern context.     

Food beliefs and food supply chains: The impact of religion and religiosity in Israel

This paper demonstrates that religion and religiosity affect norms, which affect food consumption patterns and production. Heterogeneity and asymmetric information lead to multiple certification channels as well as multiple supply chains. Major supply chains may address multiple constituencies that are secular or less religious. Technological change affects norms and thus the food system. We obtain these results by analyzing the food systems for meat products in Israel where there are three religions – Jews, Muslims, and Christians – and people assign themselves three levels of religiosity – secular, conservative, and orthodox. Israel has multiple Kosher and Halal certifiers and several specialized supermarket chains for orthodox groups. Its main supermarket chains serve secular and some conservative segments. The immigration of secular Jews from Russia led to the proliferation of non-Kosher supply chains and products, and increased consumption of pork. New technologies and higher incomes led to emergence of fast food chains serving orthodox Jews that had previously tended to eat at home.     

In CEOs we trust: When religion matters in cross-border acquisitions. The case of a multifaith country

This paper examines the emergence of trust by multifaith target-firm personnel in foreign acquirer CEOs during early post-acquisition integration, a decisive period for acquisition success, yet considerably under-researched. Combining self-categorization and similarity-attraction theories, we argue that religious similarity with the foreign acquirer’s CEO represents shared values to the personnel, from which trust in the CEO arises. Further, we scrutinize the moderating effects of the personnel’s religiosity and prior alliance success between the acquirer and target firm. We test our model using field-experimental data from 411 multifaith Malaysian personnel. The findings show that personnel-leader trust occurs more readily with religious similarity than religious dissimilarity, and that the personnel’s religiosity strengthens this relationship. However, a successful prior alliance does not weaken the religious similarity–trust relationship. Our research encourages acquisition managers to consider religion, a factor beyond the traditional acquisition playbook, as a trust antecedent during early post-acquisition integration.     

政治伊斯兰的崛起与埃及的世俗化

作为世界三大宗教之一的伊斯兰教在埃及具有深厚的群众基础和广泛的精神认同，但是与其他宗教不同的廷伊斯兰载不仅具有广适的精神认同，同时还对世俗生活产生着巨大的影响。在不断的发展过程中，一些伊斯兰教精英分子开始有意识的将伊斯兰教进行政冶伪撩善，特伊新兰教的教义、传统、责任进行重新解释．基于伊斯兰教义提出政治诉求。政治伊斯兰势力应时而生。作为一种政治化了的宗教，其对社会世俗化的影响值得广泛关注。     

从文化传统差异角度辨析英汉语言内涵差异

本文以人际关系称谓传统观念为例,探讨中西方文化传统的差异,比较分析了英语和汉语不同的语言内涵差异,以求帮助读者加强对英语的认识。     

Islamic tourism: an empirical examination of travel motivation and satisfaction in Malaysia

The objectives of this study are to test the relationship between tourism motivations and tourist satisfaction, and to test how ‘Religion’ moderates the relationship. The variable ‘Religion’ is represented by the availability of Islamic norms and practices relevant to tourism at the destination. The results of the partial least square indicate that tourism motivations are significantly and positively related to tourist satisfaction. The results also showed that Religion significantly moderates the relationship between pull motivation and tourist satisfaction. However, the moderating effect of Religion on the relationship between push motivation and tourist satisfaction was not supported.     

Income and religion: a heterogeneous panel data analysis

A recent empirical literature has addressed the relationship between income and religion, but most of the studies are based on microdata. Macroeconomic analysis of the issue has largely ignored the potential heterogeneity between countries. Using retrospective data on church attendance rates for a panel of countries between 1925 and 1990, we apply heterogeneous panel data estimators and reveal that the effect of participation in religious activities on income per capita is mostly non-significant. This is consistent with some of the recent research that casts doubt onto the influence of religion on income, once causality is taken into account.     

Religious adherence and county economic growth in the US

We estimate a Barro-type conditional convergence model using religious adherence data from the American Religious Data Archive to analyze independent effects of church adherence rates on economic growth in the United States at the county-level. Per capita income growth is modeled as a function of initial per capita income, initial human capital stock, and a set of control and related variables including religious adherence, religious diversity, and regional indicator variables. We also investigate the independent effects of three main denominations, namely Catholics, Evangelical Christians, and Mainline Christians, on county economic growth. Our results indicate that the religious adherence in general is significantly greater than zero and not beneficial for US county income growth. We find mixed results for effects of various denominations.