The motive, impact and demographic on the implementation of MS 1500:2009 by halal food industry in Malaysia

Abstract

This research aims to study about MS 1500:2009 holistically which includes: the motives that drive the firms to implement this MS, the firms’ perception towards the implementation and the limitations of its implementation, the impact of this implementation for the firm and also the demographic factors of this MS. There are two main issues which contribute to this study. Firstly, the problems and challenges that frequently lead to unsuccessful execution of implementation of MS 1500. Secondly, the unexplored and inconclusive findings in the area of research related to Malaysian Halal Certificate and Halal Logo, especially the ones related to MS 1500. This research gave particular attention on firm or industry side. Institutional Theory of DiMaggio and Powell had been adopted to analyse the motive behind implementation of this MS. Meanwhile to elaborate and analyse the implementation itself, this research adopted and modified the findings of Peter, Trans & Adam; Fixsen et.al and Kalaskar. Six type of impact of standardization from Bellina et.al was also adopted and modified to analyse the impact of implementation of this MS. The Food and Beverages Industry in Malaysia which already got Halal Certificate and Halal Logo are chosen as scope of population with 212 convenience sampling companies. Data was collected using a 5 scale-Likert scale questionnaire. Data analyses include the descriptive statistics analysis, reliability test, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), and Structural Model Analysis using Covariance-Based Structural-Equation-Modelling (CB-SEM) method. From a series of data analysis and 5 hypothesis testing, it was discovered that there is a close correlation between motive, implementation and impact. For Hypothesis 1, it was found that motives behind implementation has a significantly positive influence on the implementation of MS 1500:2009 with 99% confidence level. Every 1 unit increase in motive leads to a 0.509 unit increase in the implementation itself. For Hypothesis 2, it was found that implementation of MS 1500:2009 has a significantly positive influence on its Impact with 99% confidence level. Every 1 unit increase in implementation leads to a 0.347 unit increase in the impact. For Hypothesis 3, it was discovered that Implementation of MS 1500:2009 has a significantly positive influence on mediating the relationship between Motives and Impact with 99% confidence level. From the bootstrap test, it was found that partial mediation of implementation occurs at VAF value equal to 32.1%. For Hypothesis 4, it was found that difference in company characteristic and size will not give any significant difference on the strength of the relationship between motive and the implementation. Lastly, for Hypothesis 5, it was found that the different age of implementation of MS 1500:2009 will give a significantly positive influence to the strength of the relationship between implementation and its impact, with 99% confidence level. From chi-square test (χ2 test), it was found that the age of implementation has a full moderation effect. Companies at full stage of implementation were found to achieve the highest impact from their efforts to implement MS 1500-2009. A brief and compact questionnaire which only consisted of 35 questions has been produced from the structural model analysis. This questionnaire is expected to be able to be utilized as an assessment tool and research instrument for further research related to implementation of MS 1500 or for other Malaysian halal standard research by performing several required modifications.