The moderating effects of Islamic religiosity in the relationship between selected Islamic microfinance products and services and entrepreneurs' business performance

The growing field of entrepreneurship in Nigeria has led to the development of women entrepreneurship. However, there is a rising concern about the poor business performance of women entrepreneurs because of the difficulties they face in terms of accessibility to capital and rising interest rates charged. Lack of studies on Islamic finance products as alternatives to interest-based loans and other non-financial factors affecting the business performance devoid empirical evidence to refer in overcoming the business performance issues. Hence, it is the objective of this thesis to examine the direct effects of Murabaha financing, Mudharabah savings, social capital, trade show, business advice and business monitoring on Muslim women entrepreneurs’ business performance. Drawing upon the Maqasid Al-Shari’ah philosophy, entrepreneurship and finance theories, this study embarked on a new departure from past studies by investigating the moderating role of Islamic religiosity in the research framework. A total of 519 self-modified questionnaires were distributed to Muslim women entrepreneurs in Kano State, Nigeria. Using a more current methodology of Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling, the findings found Murabaha financing not significant, but Mudharabah savings, social capital, trade show, business advice and business monitoring have positive and significant influence on entrepreneurs’ business performance. Additionally, Islamic religiosity moderated (strengthened) the relationship between social capital, business advice and entrepreneurs’ business performance. This new finding on the moderating effect suggests that women entrepreneurs with higher Islamic religiosity achieve higher business performance. Overall, this study contributes to the body of knowledge in terms of integrating Islamic finance principles and ethical values in entrepreneurship. For practical contribution, this study recommends several policy reforms both at the government and practitioners’ levels in terms of application of Islamic finance products, structured, regular trainings and mobile advisory units to assist women entrepreneurs achieve higher business performance

Islamic entrepreneurship in the light of maqasid al-shari’ah: a critical review

The objectives of entrepreneurship in Islam are guided by the Maqasid Al-Shariah.However, there is a mismatch between Islamic entrepreneurship objectives and Maqasid Al-Shariah based on available literatures, which have not been critically investigated.This paper presents a critical review of the literature within the Islamic entrepreneurship objectives and Maqasid Al-Shariah framework.The exploratory study adopting content analysis to achieve its aim found that the existing literature covered both the Din and Mu’amalah based objectives of Islamic entrepreneurship.However, there is dearth of literature that integrates the connection between objectives of Islamic entrepreneurship and Maqasid Al-Shari’ah.It is therefore suggested that researchers should conduct more researches to examine the integration of Maqasid Al-Shariah in Islamic entrepreneurship, particularly in respect to decision making in handling entrepreneurship issues

A Proposed Framework on the Relationship between Islamic Microfinance Related Factors and Women Entrepreneurs Business Performance in Nigeria

Microfinance plays a key role in poverty alleviation, employment generation, mitigating rural urban migration, utilization of local resources and raw materials and contributing to the gross domestic product (GDP) of Nigeria. Women, majority of who are poor and engaged in informal micro, small and medium scale businesses are mostly the target of microfinance institutions. However, women entrepreneurs find it difficult to have access to the products and services of the conventional banks due to their stringent lending requirement. The presence of Islamic banking which promotes the profit and loss sharing (PLS) concept increases the awareness among women entrepreneurs to alternative funding sources. Despite availability of financing options, women entrepreneurs are constrained by their reluctance to use interest based microfinance services. This paper aims to provide a proposed framework that examines the impact of Islamic investment and financing contracts (Murabaha financing and Mudharabah savings) and other microfinance related factors (training, social capital and self-esteem) on women entrepreneurs business performance. Religiosity is a new moderating variable within the framework that is hypothesized to enhance business performance of women entrepreneurs. The proposed framework will fill the gap in Islamic banking and finance studies since the area of Islamic microfinance and the moderating effect of religiosity has not been empirically investigated

Islamic Entrepreneurship in the Light of Maqasid Al-Shari’ah: A Critical Review

The objectives of entrepreneurship in Islam are guided by the Maqasid Al-Shariah. However, there is a mismatch between Islamic entrepreneurship objectives and Maqasid Al-Shariah based on available literatures, which have not been critically investigated. This paper presents a critical review of the literature within the Islamic entrepreneurship objectives and Maqasid Al-Shariah framework. The exploratory study adopting content analysis to achieve its aim found that the existing literature covered both the Din and Mu’amalah based objectives of Islamic entrepreneurship. However, there is dearth of literature that integrates the connection between objectives of Islamic entrepreneurship and Maqasid Al-Shari’ah. It is therefore suggested that researchers should conduct more researches to examine the integration of Maqasid Al-Shariah in Islamic entrepreneurship, particularly in respect to decision making in handling entrepreneurship issues

A proposed framework on the relationship between Islamic microfinance related factors and women entrepreneurs business performance in Nigeria

Microfinance plays a key role in poverty alleviation, employment generation, mitigating rural urban migration, utilization of local resources and raw materials and contributing to the gross domestic product (GDP) of Nigeria. Women, majority of who are poor and engaged in informal/micro, small and medium scale businesses are mostly the target of microfinance institutions.However, women entrepreneurs find it difficult to have access to the products and services of the conventional banks due to their stringent lending requirement.The presence of Islamic banking which promotes the profit and loss sharing (PLS) concept increases the awareness among women entrepreneurs to alternative funding sources. Despite availability of financing options, women entrepreneurs are constrained by their reluctance to use interest based microfinance services.This paper aims to provide a proposed framework that examines the impact of Islamic investment and financing contracts (Murabaha financing and Mudharabah savings) and other microfinance related factors (training, social capital and self-esteem) on women entrepreneurs business performance.Religiosity is a new moderating variable within the framework that is hypothesized to enhance business performance of women entrepreneurs.The proposed framework will fill the gap in Islamic banking and finance studies since the area of Islamic microfinance and the moderating effect of religiosity has not been empirically investigated

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements