Optimization of Consumption in Divine Context: Basic Principles and Extension

ABSTRACT: The paper aims to analyze the behavior of Islamic consumers that how they can get the maximum possible satisfaction in divine constraints. Islamic consumers ought to be socially conscious economic agents. They will always take into consideration that what their consumption means for the rest of the society? In the Islamic theory of consumption, we essentially look for both “religious success and personal gains”. Islam believes in aggregate welfare but at the same time it does not ignore personal gain i. E. Maximization of personal utility or profit. A rational Islamic consumer will never spend all his money on material goods for maximization of his own utility. He will allocate some portion of his earning towards spending in the way of Allah (S. W. T), thus the total utility for an Islamic consumer can be decomposed into two parts; material utility plus eternal utility. We have assumed that eternal utility is at least as good as worldly utility (U, >Um) ¥ \ye conclude that total utility derived from spending on material goods plus eternal utility derived from spending in the way of Allah (SWT) will be at least as good as utility derived from the ncome of the consumer allocated towards the consumption of material commodities only. Finally, we may conclude that based upon the satisfaction of needs in divine context, resources will be allocated towards Islamically valid, humanly productive and economically efficient goods and services. PDF

Organizational Power and Politics: Investigating the Mediating Role of Organizational Justice on Work Attitudes

Involvement of employees in politics within organization is not a new occurrence. Therefore, in history there are many events noted in which faculty and administration have actively participated in demonstrations of strikes, marches and media activities that were very frequently happenning in Universities of Sindh. This study investigates perception of politics in universities of Sindh and its negative effects on employees work related attitudes including job satisfaction, job involvement, organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, turnover intentions and work-related burnout. It explores the involvement of university teaching faculty and administrative staff in politics growing the trend of politicizing the educational systems and manipulation of education for political interests. Moreover, it has been argued by many scholars that the presence of organizational justice can reduce the occurrence of political games among workers. Therefore, this study also examines the mediating role of organizational justice to check whether the presence of organizational justice and its dimensions can reduce the negative effects of politics or not. A survey has been conducted through a well-structured questionnaire among 500 respondents as well as teaching and administrative staff from different pubic universities of Sindh Province.The study concluded that there is significant relationship between perceptions of organizational politics and organizational justice. The main effects of analysis have also revealed that perceptions of politics have significant relationship with most of outcomes studied in this research. As for mediating effects of OJ on outcomes relationship, the results have shown significant mediating effects of organizational justice (OJ) with organizational politics (OP) for all outcomes except one (work related burnout).