Malaysia as Global Halal Hub: OIC Food Manufacturers' Perspective

Abstract

Food hubs have received attention from different groups of people who have interests related to food and agriculture. These include the food manufacturers, suppliers, and also small and medium enterprises. Malaysia as a member of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) has aspirations to be the Halal Food Hub for the OIC member countries. This article aims to understand the determinants that influence the OIC food manufacturers' intention to accept Malaysia as a global Halal Hub. Three hundred manufacturers were interviewed and the data were analyzed descriptively through factor analysis. Theory of planned behavior was used to gauge the OIC manufacturers' intention to accept Malaysia as a Halal Hub. The factors affecting the food manufacturers to accept Malaysia as a Halal Hub for the OIC country members are knowledge of Malaysia's intention to become a Halal Hub, confidence in Malaysia, motivation to comply, and the market potential.

KEYWORDS:

• intention
• food manufacturer
• Halal Hub
• OIC
• TPB

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the support of the Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia, for granting the Exploratory Research Grant Scheme to undertake the study. We are grateful to Universiti Putra Malaysia for allowing us to conduct the research on and off the campus.

Notes

Note. With the significance level of p < .000, Bartlett's test of sphericity showed the correlation matrix was at an appropriate level to perform factor analysis on the data for each scale. The desired values for the KMO test, which more than 0.5, are considered satisfactoryy for the factor analysis. Low values indicate the diffuse correlations with no substantive groupings.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rozailin Abdul Rahman

Rozailin Abdul Rahman is a lecturer of International Business in the Department of Business and Administration, International Islamic University Malaysia, Gombak, Selangor, Malaysia.

Golnaz Rezai

Golnaz Rezai is a senior lecturer of Agribusiness in the Department of Agribusiness and Information Systems, Faculty of Agriculture, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.

Zainalabidin Mohamed

Zainalabidin Mohamed is a professor of Agribusiness Marketing in the Department of Agribusiness and Information Systems, Faculty of Agriculture, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.

Mad Nasir Shamsudin

Mad Nasir Shamsudin is a professor of Agriculture Economics in the Department of Agribusiness and Information Systems, Faculty of Agriculture, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.

Juwaidah Sharifuddin

Juwaidah Sharifuddin is a senior lecturer of International Agribusiness Marketing in the Department of Agribusiness and Information Systems, Faculty of Agriculture, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.