Contexto socio-político y económico de Pradera y Florida

he stated that people may desire scarce commodities more than comparable available commodities because the acquisition of scarce commodities reveals feelings of personal uniqueness. Similarly, Cialdini (2001) has found that perceived scarcity has an effect on human judgment as items and opportunities become more desirable to people as they become scarce. Accordingly, Knishinsky (1982) who was Cialdini’s former PhD student has found respondents who were told that there would be a shortage of Australian beef in the near future purchased twice the amount of beef as compared to respondents who were not given such information.

Following Brock’s (1968) commodity theory, Lynn (1991) did a meta-analysis to show that scarcity enhances the value of anything that can be possessed in which the scarcer a commodity is, the more valued or desirable it becomes. As a result, Lynn’s (1991) meta-analysis results supported commodity theory and suggest for marketers to manipulate the perceived scarcity of the products and services to increase their perceived value. He demonstrated examples of practices like advertising a product’s scarcity, producing limited editions of products, distributing products through exclusive outlets, prestige pricing of products and services, and restricting maximum order sizes for products and promotional offerings to increase perceived value of such products and services.

Furthermore Verhallen and Robben (1994) have designed an experiment in which participants had to evaluate three recipe books and to choose one of them. In doing so, information was provided about the contents of the books and their availability. Results from the analyses of variance for the uniqueness data reveal that participants preferred a book of limited availability due to market conditions to books that were accidently unavailable or of unlimited availability. According to the perception of the participants, books of limited availability due to market circumstances were perceived as more costly and more unique than books that were accidentally unavailable or abundantly available. Likewise, Aggarwal et al. (2011) have observed the tendency of scarcity to create a sense of urgency among buyers that stimulate an increase in the quantities purchased, shorter searches, and greater satisfaction with the purchased products. In carrying their experiment, Aggarwal et  al. (2011) have hypothesized that, compared with an unrestricted promotional offer, a restricted promotional offer (scarcity message) will have a greater impact on consumer purchase intentions. The result obtained from ANOVA reveals evidence of a significant impact of the restrictive promotion on participants’ purchase intentions, and therefore the hypothesis was supported.

In contrast to the above studies that examined scarcity effect by single test, Wu and Hsing (2006) have used SEM (Structural Equation Modelling) to develop and examine how scarcity influences consumer’s value perception and purchase intent through the mediation of assumed expensiveness, perceived quality, perceived symbolic benefits and perceived monetary sacrifices. According to Wu and Hsing (2006), the reason behind the adaptation

Eds. Hatem A. El-Karanshawy et al. 69 The effect of scarcity thinking on human wants among Muslims

of SEM is to develop an enhanced conceptual model that can overcome the shortcomings of using single statistical tests. The single test approach is not sufficient to explain scarcity’s value-enhancing effect. However, their results were consistent with the previous studies that adopt a single test approach in which the perception of scarcity enhances consumer’s value perception and willingness to buy.

Another study that attempts to demonstrate cross- national differences in proneness to the scarcity effect was conducted by Jung and Kellaris (2004). In their study, they hypothesized that the magnitude of the scarcity effect will vary across cultures such that the effect will be more pronounced in a lower-context culture (US) versus a higher-context culture (France). Results from ANOVA tests indicate that a scarce brand was perceived as more desirable across the American and French participants. Critically speaking, there are two identified implications from the findings of social psychology with regard to the scarcity effect on enhancing desirability and expenditure among people. The first implication appears in the form of the tendency of scarcity to create scarcity thinking among people. Several conceptual studies have examined the concept of scarcity from the mental state of human thinking. Such a state of thinking is known as scarcity thinking or mentality. Scarcity thinking means that people believe in scarcity, that they evaluate their life in terms of what it lacks. With scarcity thinking, the focus is on what a person does not have, and this continues to be his or her experience of life. Scarcity thinking is best mainfested as there is not enough to go around (Covey, 1989). With scarcity thinking, people tend to consume more than what they need and to become protective of what they have. If the object is believed to be scarce, it will be valued, kept, hoarded, sought and consumed. With scarcity thinking, no matter how much a person has, it is never enough even if he/she has it in abundance (Johnson, 2005; Thomas, 2007).

The second implication of the scarcity effect is that people tend to consume and spend excessively whenever they have enhanced desires. Nonetheless, most religions have conveyed and advocated moderation in spending and minimization of human desires. Given the fact that God has ordered human beings to behave in a moderate way and to decrease their human desire, one of the main objectives of this paper is to examine the effect of scarcity thinking in enhancing human wants among Muslims. This research has been conducted in Kuala Lumpur, where Islam is considered to be the dominant and official religion. Therefore, this paper explores the effect of scarcity thinking on enhancing human wants among Muslims, in which Islamic Religiosity is considered to be the determinant measure of the Islamic behavior among Muslims.

4. Scarcity’s enhancement of desirability

(S-E-D) model

Following his (1991) meta-analysis, Lynn (1992) has studied the effect of scarcity on enhancing desirability among people. In that study, Lynn (1992) postulated that scarcity’s enhancement of desirability is mediated by assumed expensiveness, thus several empirical

relationships should be investigated. Firstly, people should believe that scarce things cost more than available ones. Secondly, scarcity on the economic market should enhance desirability more than does nonmarket scarcity. Thirdly, thoughts about price should strengthen scarcity’s enhancement of desirability. Lastly, blocking assumptions about expensiveness should weaken scarcity’s enhancement of desirability. He presented a model of scarcity effects referred to as the Scarcity Enhancement Desirability (S-E-D) model. The S-E-D model posits assumed expensiveness, attributed quality and perceived status as mediators of scarcity’s effect on desirability. Lynn’s study concluded that scarcity’s enhancement of desirability may be explainable to people’s informal or naive economic theories. People might desire scarce products more than available ones because they believe that scarce goods are expensive, of high quality and good investments. In the theoretical framework of the S-E-D model, commodity theory and the theory of psychological reactance, besides downward social comparison theory and need-for- uniqueness theory, explain the scarcity enhancement desirability (Lynn, 1992).

5. Conceptual theoretical framework

In the conceptual theoretical framework of this paper, there is one independent variable, one mediator and one dependent variable. As it is shown in the below diagram, Islamic Religiosity is the independent variable, Human Wants is the dependent variable while scarcity thinking acts as a mediator.

Furthermore, the conceptual theoretical framework is represented by commodity and cognitive dissonance theories and the Islamic principle of moderation. Theoretically and firstly, commodity theory deals with the psychological implications of scarcity. It postulates that that “any commodity will be valued to the extent that it is unavailable” (Brock, 1968:246). Moreover, cognitive dissonance theory states that there is a tendency for individuals to seek consistency among their cognitions such as his beliefs and opinions. When there is an inconsistency between attitudes or behaviors, something must change to eliminate the dissonance (Festinger, 1957). The Islamic principle of moderation is manifested in Al-Quran (25:67) and in his interpretation of this verse, Al-Sabouni (1981:370) stated: “When they spend neither extravagantly nor in niggardly manner which is considered the fifth attribute of God’s servants. However, they spend in a middle way.” Convincingly, Islam unequivocally discourages its followers to cross the limits and follows extremes (Chaudhry, 1999). In the Scarcity Enhancement Desirability (S.E.D) model, commodity theory and the theory of psychological reactance beside downward social comparison theory and need-for-uniqueness theory explain the Scarcity Enhancement Desirability (S.E.D) model that was formulated by Lynn (1992). However, this paper refers to the Islamic principle of moderation to explain the indirect path from Islamic Religiosity to Human Wants. Moreover, the relationship between scarcity thinking and Human Wants is best explained by commodity theory. Furthermore, the theory of cognitive dissonance explains the path from Islamic Religiosity to Human Wants through the mediator effect of scarcity thinking.

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70 Islamic economic: Theory, policy and social justice

6. Human wants

A want is something that is desired. It is said that every person has unlimited wants, but limited resources. Thus, people cannot have everything they want and must look for the most affordable alternatives (American Psychological Association, 2007). Human wants are frequently associated with the concept of scarcity that postulate resources are limited but human wants are unlimited. According to Raiklin and Uyar (1996), the desires which take the form of urgency in acquiring goods and services to fulfil satisfaction are called needs while wants include needs but go beyond them to reflect social and cultural status. Both “needs” and “wants” belong to the realm of personal consumption which is the ultimate goal of the productive and distributive efforts of all economic systems, capitalist or otherwise. Both needs and wants are characterized with desires to satisfy and fulfil the acquisition of goods and services through consumption. Witt (2001: 26) stated that:

Basic wants are part of the human genetic endowment. They can be satisfied temporarily either singularly or in more or less complex combinations by consuming appropriate items in suitable quantities, and the desire to satisfy the wants motivates the corresponding activity.

Based on the above quotation, human wants are manifested through consumption. The social relations that were central in political economy were replaced by the concept of the economic man who is driven by insatiable consumer desires (Gagnier, 2000). According to Pindyck & Rubinfeld (2001) the theory of consumer behavior describes how consumers allocate income among different goods and services to maximize their satisfaction. Given the fact that human wants are best described by consumption, the items of the construct of Human wants are constructed in such a way that tend to measure expenditure and shopping behavior.

7. Scarcity thinking

Scarcity thinking is best mainfested as there is not enough to go around. Covey (1989: 219) demonstrates:

People with a “Scarcity Mentality” (p. 219) believe that there isn’t enough for everyone – that only a select few will be rewarded with jobs, love, power, money, talent, promotions, gifts, recognition, or other rewards. These people do not trust others and do not share joy in others’ accomplishments, believing that someone else’s success will take away from their own. In a sense, they dam up their emotions behind a wall of mistrust, preventing the flow of good will from them to others. This creates more negativity and resentment, which reinforces their view that the world is a challenging place and their belief that, “I’d better get mine while I have the chance, because it won’t come again.”

From the above quotation, the scarcity way of thinking or mentality affects the human behavior. The items of the scarcity thinking are conceptualized from the literature of scarcity thinking as it is postulated by Covey (1989), Thomas (2007), and Johnson (2005).

8. Islamic religiosity

In this paper, the items that measure Islamic Religiosity will be cited from the Religious Personality’ subscale of the Muslim Religiosity-Personality Inventory (MRPI) developed by Krauss et  al. (2006). Psychometric results of the scale reveal that the scale is reliable, valid and relevant for use with multiple faith groups as Malaysia such as Buddhists, Christian, Hindus, and Muslims. The MRPI is categorized into two main subscales: Islamic Worldview and Religious Personality. Islamic worldview is measured or assessed through the Islamic creed (aqidah), which details what a Muslim should know, believe and inwardly comprehend about God and religion as laid down by the Qur’an and the tradition of the Prophet Muhammad. The Religious Personality includes behaviours, motivations, attitudes and emotions that aim to assess personal manifestation of the Islamic teachings and commands. This construct is represented by item statements relating to the formal ritual worship or ‘special ibadat’, that reflects one’s direct relationship with God; and the daily mu’amalat, or the religiously-guided behaviours towards one’s family, fellow human beings and the rest of creation i.e., animals, the natural environment, etc. known as the general worship or ‘general ‘ibadat’ (Krauss et al., 2006).

9. Research method

Data was collected through a structured questionnaire. This study was conducted in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The rationale behind selecting Kuala Lumpur as the study area is because it is the home to a large number of migrants from other states within Malaysia and foreign countries. Non- probability sampling techniques using purposive sampling method were adopted because this research is exploratory. According to Adler and Clark (2010), the desirable sampling method in exploratory research is purposive sampling. Furthermore, 450 questionnaires have been distributed to selected Muslim employees from different professional lines, such as banks, private companies, hotels and other organizations. The rationale behind selecting Muslim employees is that they must earn fixed monthly income so that they can posses the purchasing power to spend and shop. The questionnaire2 _{was divided into two}

parts. The first part gathered data on the demographic characteristics of the target sample. The second part consists of three sections to measure Islamic Religiosity (independent variable), scarcity thinking (mediator) and Human Wants (dependent variable).

All the responses were measured on a 4-point “Likert” scale with no midpoint, known as forced choice with 1 “Strongly Disagree” and 4 “Strongly Agree.” Upon the completion of the data collection, 345 out of the total of 440 distributed questionnaires were considered usable. The remaining 95 questionnaires comprised omitted and missed data that exceed 25 percent from the total number of items. Following the guideline of Sekaran and Bougie (2010), these questionnaires were excluded from the usable questionnaires. Nonetheless, there was slight missing data in the usable questionnaires, accounting for 2–3 percent of the total number of items. Based on the suggestions of Sekaran and Bougie (2010), a similar response pattern imputation was adopted to deduce a logical answer to the missing response questions.

Eds. Hatem A. El-Karanshawy et al. 71 The effect of scarcity thinking on human wants among Muslims

10. Results

Firstly, Table  1 presents the demographic factors of the sample. Using SPSS (version 20), the obtained data were further subjected to data cleaning, test of adequacy and reliability tests using the kolmogorov-smirnov, KMO and Bartlett’s test of Sphericity, and the Chronbach Alpha tests respectively. The exploratory factor analysis has loaded each latent construct into several factors. Human Wants were loaded into two factors, which are shopping and expenditure; Islamic Religiosity (R) was loaded into three factors which are Obedience, Cooperation, Commitment; Scarcity Thinking has loaded into three factors which are Lack, Conflict, and Mistrust. As a result, these loaded factors are represented and measured directly by measurement items. This is known as first order measurement model.

11. Second order measurement model

In confirming the measurement model, the three constructed dimensions of Islamic Religiosity, scarcity thinking and Human Wants are labeled as second order measurement model because they are measured indirectly through the first order factors.

For model estimation, a second order measurement model was performed based on structural equation modeling using AMOS software (Version 18.0). In addition, the Normed chi-square (i.e., CMIN/DF), the Comparative Fit Index (CFI) and the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) were adopted in evaluating the model. According to Hair et al. (2010), the threshold of fit indices of a given measurement model with sample size > 250 and observed variables (items) within the range between 12 and 30 items are as follows: CFI is .90 and RMSEA is 0.07. For CIMN/DF,

a value of less than 3 is considered a good value for model fit to the data (Bagozzi and Yi, 1988).

The second order measurement model of the three latent variables showed that the overall fit of the model to the data appear as c² (264) = 404.465. The CFI was found to be .945, which is above the threshold value of .90. Also, the Normed chi-square was 1.735, which is considered acceptable as it is below the cut-off 3. Similarly, the RMSEA value for the second order measurement model was .039, which falls below the threshold of .07.

Based in the Goodness of Fit Indices, there is no doubt that the second order measurement model shows encouraging fit to the data. Following the recommendation of Hair et al. (2010), items IR5, IR6 and ST8  showed factor loading below 0.50 and were excluded from the model in order to improve the model fit to the data. Accordingly, and as it is apparent in Figure 1, the revised second order measurement model revealed great model fit to the data as it appears as c2 _{(198) =  300.043, CFI  =  .958, RMSEA  =  0.039 and}

CIMN = 1.515.

12. Second order structural model

Bootstrapping is one of the non-parametric methods of resampling (Kline, 2010). The method of bootstrap was used because this study used purposive sampling. The structural model was estimated by means of maximum likelihood estimate (MLE) using the AMOS version 18 software. The test of the overall model fit yielded a Chi Square 300.052 with 199  degrees of freedom and a p-value of less than 0.001. Results presented in Table  2  reveal the regression weight, which shows that all relationships were statistically

Table 1. Distribution of respondents according to their background characteristics.

Demographic Variables Frequency Percent

Gender Male Female 18560 46.4 53.6 Age 20–25 yrs 26–30 yrs 31–40 yrs 41–50 yrs 51 and above 102 111 85 40 7 29.6 32.2 24.6 11.6 2 Marital status Single

Married Divorced Widow 176 161 7 1 51.0 46.7 2.0 0.3 Income 1000–2500 2501–4000 4001–8000 8001 and above 123 163 49 10 35.7 47.2 14.2 2.9 Job sector Government

Private 115 226 34 66

Qualification Secondary school Diploma University Degree Master PhD 123 65 116 37 4 35.7 18.8 33.6 10.7 1.2

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72 Islamic economic: Theory, policy and social justice

significant. It has been found that Islamic Religiosity has an inverse relationship to scarcity thinking. The critical ratio between IR and ST is -3.483, and its absolute value is greater than the threshold of 1.96 at p-value < 0.05. Furthermore, results also show direct relationship between scarcity thinking and Human Wants . The critical ratio between ST and HW is 2.825 which exceeds 1.96 at p-value <0.05. All the fit indices were above the recommended values. The Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = 0.958, the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) was 0.038 and CIMN/DF = 1.508 as it is shown in Figure 2.

In the analysis of SEM, bootstrapping is also considered as one of the methods that can be used to test mediation

(Bollen and Stine, 1990; Shrout and Bolger, 2002). One of the main objectives of this paper is to examine whether scarcity thinking mediates the relationship between Islamic Religiosity and Human Wants. One of the bootstrap methods that test for mediation effect is the bias-corrected bootstrap. When the mediated effect is nonzero, the bias- corrected bootstrap is accurate in computing confidence interval for the meditational effect (Efron, 1987). Meaning, for evidence of mediation, the p-value must be