The business environment is more unpredictable and volatile for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in emerging markets, and sometimes it is not possible to adopt traditional, capital-intensive solutions to build resilience. This study is intended to analyze the impact of Indigenous Management Practices (IMP) on Relational Capital, Supply Chain Flexibility, Competitiveness, and the firm performance of fish-processing SMEs in Indonesia. The data were collected from 420 fish-processing SMEs and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Results show that Indigenous Management Practices, Relational Capital, and Supply Chain Flexibility each positively enhance firm competitiveness, which in turn drives firm performance. These capabilities help SMEs improve competitiveness and performance. Relational and flexible capabilities become even more important in uncertain market conditions, as environmental turbulence further enhances their importance. The study uses the resource-based view, the relational view, and contingency theory to explain indigenous practices as low-cost dynamic capabilities in a resource-constrained environment. The results offer valuable insights for managers and policymakers: sustainable competitiveness can also be attained through community-based coordination and trust-based routines.
The growth of social media as a marketing information source encourages Generation Z to utilize User-Generated Content (UGC) in making digital investment decisions. However, rising misinformation and investment fraud require a deeper understanding of how UGC influences trust and investment intentions. Using perceived usefulness as a mediating variable and digital literacy as a moderating variable among Indonesian Generation Z TikTok users, this study examines the impact of user-generated content (UGC) on customer trust and purchase intention. A total of 220 people completed an online survey as part of an explanatory quantitative approach, and the study used PLS-SEM to analyze the results. The findings demonstrate that customer trust, purchase intention, and perceived usefulness are all significantly improved by UGC. Additionally, the results show that Perceived Usefulness partially mediates the interaction between UGC and both variables and positively affects Customer Trust and Purchase Intention. In addition, Digital Literacy positively affects Customer Trust and Purchase Intention. However, Digital literacy has been shown to increase the impact of user-generated content (UGC) on purchase intention, but it does not attenuate the relationship between UGC and customer trust. These results highlight that information quality and utility contained in UGC are key mechanisms shaping trust and investment intentions, while digital literacy plays an important role only at the purchase decision stage. This study offers strategic implications for digital investment platforms and marketers to optimize credible UGC and enhance digital literacy among younger generations, encouraging safer, more rational investment decisions.
Amid increasing employment uncertainty in the public sector, maintaining non-permanent employee loyalty has become a strategic challenge for government organizations due to its impact on organizational performance sustainability. This issue is particularly relevant in the Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs, which relies heavily on non-permanent employees to support national cooperative and SME empowerment programs. This study examines the effects of Spiritual-based Transformational Leadership, compensation, and work environment on non-permanent employee loyalty, with motivation as a mediating variable. The study employed a quantitative explanatory research design. The population comprised all employees of the Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs of the Republic of Indonesia, with purposive sampling applied based on a minimum tenure of one year. A total of 373 respondents were analyzed using Partial Least Squares–Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings reveal that compensation, work environment, and motivation positively and significantly affect employee loyalty, whereas Spiritual-based Transformational Leadership has no direct effect on loyalty. However, Spiritual-based Transformational Leadership positively influences motivation, and motivation significantly mediates the effects of Spiritual-based Transformational Leadership, compensation, and work environment on loyalty. This study's novelty lies in developing a loyalty model for non-permanent public sector employees by positioning motivation as the primary psychological mechanism and integrating spiritual values into the transformational leadership framework. These findings highlight the importance of integrated HR strategies to strengthen loyalty among non-permanent public sector employees.
This study is urgent given the importance of effective marketing strategies amid intense competition among higher education institutions, especially in the post-pandemic era, which increasingly depends on customer involvement to succeed. This journal aims to provide empirical evidence and analyze and explain how the moderating role of customer involvement, or customer engagement, affects purchase intentions and purchase decisions at Sekolah Tinggi Ilmu Ekonomi Ciputra Makassar. This study uses the Slovin formula and proportionate random sampling, with 262 respondents, including current and prospective students at Ciputra School of Business Makassar. This study tests all hypotheses using SEM-PLS (version 4.0). The results indicate that customer engagement strengthens the relationship between purchase intentions and purchase decisions, whereas event marketing and sales promotion do not significantly affect purchase intentions. The results imply that higher educational institutions should focus more on strategies that increase customer engagement to optimize purchase decisions, thereby increasing competitiveness and institutional continuity. This study finds that customer engagement plays a vital role in moderating the influence of purchase intention on purchase decisions. In the long term, customer engagement activities in marketing at UC Makassar are expected to further strengthen the influence of prospective students’ interest, once accepted, in making payments at UC Makassar.
Mosques are important in controlling community finances. Nevertheless, they do not always go smoothly, and these problems include the absence of transparency in reporting, uneven or unstructured record-keeping, and disorganized financial reports. This may result in the erosion of the popular belief, should this be maintained, and this would have an impact on the stability of the mosque. The study being conducted will attempt to establish the relationship between the management of mosques and financial transparency and accountability. In addition, the case study was conducted qualitatively at the Donggala Grand Mosque, Central Sulawesi, between March and June 2024. The respondents were seven people who described how they handle mosque finances on a day-to-day basis: two administrators of the mosque, one treasurer, and four active congregants. The semi-structured interviews, direct observation of mosque activities, and analysis of available financial reports were used in the collection of data. The results indicate that frequent review of financial reports, accompanied by simple cash flow records, can lead to an improved understanding among the people in the congregation of their financial data. This will also help establish donor confidence and make it easier to manage mosque fund accountability as per the needs of the community. Finally, this study demonstrates that Islamic principles of ethical behavior and proper financial management may result in the improved management of mosques and make them open and responsible. Besides this, this study further enhances the role played by stakeholders like policymakers, Islamic philanthropic institutions, and mosque administrators in understanding how they can improve their financial management in the future.
