Vol 1, No 1 (2020) 1–9

Antic­i­pat­ing Human Resource Devel­op­ment Chal­lenges and Oppor­tu­ni­ties in ‘Halal Sup­ply Chains’ and ‘Halal Logis­tics’ with­in ASEAN

Adam Voak1 and Bri­an Fair­man2

1 Deakin Uni­ver­si­ty, Build­ing LA, 70, Elgar Rd, Bur­wood VIC 3125, Aus­tralia
2 ASEAN Insti­tute of Applied Learn­ing, Jl. Per­in­tis Kemerdekaan I No.33, Tangerang 15118, Indonesia

Cor­re­spon­dence should be addressed to Adam Voak; adam.​voak@​deakin.​edu.​au

Cite this: Nusan­tara Halal J. 2020, Vol. 1 No. 1 pp. 1–9 (Arti­cle) | Received 24 June 2020 | Revised 1 August 2020 | Accept­ed 2 August 2020 | Pub­lished 21 August 2020 | http://​dx​.doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​7​9​7​7​/​u​m​0​6​0​.​2​0​2​0​v​1​p​0​0​1​-​009

Abstract

The increas­ing glob­al eco­nom­ic impor­tance of the Asso­ci­a­tion of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), is cre­at­ing new cul­tur­al chal­lenges for par­tic­i­pat­ing gov­ern­ments. These chal­lenges are clear­ly impact­ing on Human Mobil­i­ty and Human Capa­bil­i­ty Devel­op­ment with­in the trad­ing bloc. Devel­op­ment chal­lenges are par­tic­u­lar­ly evi­dent in sup­ply chains, where new knowl­edge, skills, and atti­tudes are need­ed to ensure respect for Halal ser­vices and the prove­nance of Halal prod­ucts as they are trad­ed across the region. While reflect­ing on this issue, this paper looks close­ly at the implic­it and explic­it chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties in build­ing cul­tur­al­ly rel­e­vant ASEAN ‘Human Capa­bil­i­ties’ along increas­ing­ly glob­al­ized sup­ply chains. The dis­cus­sion also aims to explore the myr­i­ad of mat­ters which could poten­tial­ly impact the devel­op­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of a com­pe­ten­cy-based Human Resource Devel­op­ment (HRD) strat­e­gy for ASEAN in and around Halal trad­ing prac­tices. It exam­ines how this activ­i­ty could pos­i­tive­ly influ­ence the preser­va­tion of qual­i­ty and enable the build­ing of trust and assur­ance along Halal Sup­ply Chains. The dis­cus­sion also focus­es on the poten­tial deploy­ment of occu­pa­tion­al stan­dards to improve Human Capa­bil­i­ty train­ing inter­ven­tions along Halal Sup­ply Chains, which at their core respect reli­gious beliefs and are con­scious of cul­tur­al sensitivities.

Key­words: human capa­bil­i­ty devel­op­ment, cul­tur­al aware­ness, human resource devel­op­ment, human mobil­i­ty, halal sup­ply chain, halal logistics.

Introduction

The Ara­bic lan­guage describes ‘Halal’ as an Islam­ic belief rep­re­sent­ing things and actions per­mis­si­ble under Sharia law [1]. Anoth­er impor­tant con­cept relat­ed to Halal is ‘Thoyy­ib’, a word that also comes from the Ara­bic lan­guage, which means ‘good and whole­some’ [2]. Based on these reli­gious foun­da­tions, the term Halal is used as an indi­ca­tion of qual­i­ty, con­not­ing con­sid­er­able val­ue, ben­e­fits, and pub­lic reli­gious obser­vance to Islam­ic con­sumers and pro­duc­ers [3]. It is in respect of these core beliefs that Halal cer­ti­fi­ca­tion aims to stan­dard­ize the pro­duc­tion and treat­ment of comestible food prod­ucts and impos­es sim­i­lar reli­gious require­ments for items includ­ing phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and cos­met­ics, togeth­er with prac­tices around tourism and enter­tain­ment [4]. Fur­ther­more, plac­ing con­sid­er­able impor­tance on the sup­ply chain extends stan­dard­iza­tion of prac­tice to the trans­porta­tion and secu­ri­ty of Halal prod­ucts. Thus putting a par­tic­u­lar empha­sis on the for­mal edu­ca­tion­al inter­ven­tions required to assure an appro­pri­ate­ly trained and reli­gious­ly atten­tive work­force [3]. These cer­ti­fi­ca­tion regimes gen­er­ate sig­nif­i­cant lev­els of trust which are placed in sup­ply chains by a wide range of con­sumers. This trust implies that there will be sub­stan­tial con­cerns from the indus­try and com­mu­ni­ty regard­ing any ser­vice non-com­pli­ance [3].

The grow­ing eco­nom­ic impor­tance of Halal indus­tries has cre­at­ed an increased and acute aware­ness of the need for the qual­i­fied and com­pe­tent pro­vi­sion of asso­ci­at­ed ser­vices with­in the freight logis­tics chain [5]. Over 1.6 bil­lion Mus­lim con­sumers glob­al­ly gen­er­ate an annu­al indus­try worth $US 2.3 tril­lion [6]. This glob­al eco­nom­ic impor­tance of the sec­tor has shown the urgent need to pro­vide val­ue-added ser­vices, pur­po­sive­ly designed to make Halal integri­ty cer­tain before sale and con­sump­tion [5]. Ful­ly cog­nizant Mus­lim end users have always accept­ed inti­mate­ly the impor­tance of using Halal prod­ucts to ensure their after­life [5]. Still, it is of inter­est that, more recent­ly, there have been grow­ing requests for Halal prod­ucts and food­stuffs from the broad­er pop­u­la­tion [7]. These new con­sumers are choos­ing Halal over oth­er ser­vices and prod­ucts because they are con­sid­ered more whole­some, clean­er and hygien­ic, a belief based on the strict prod­uct com­pli­ance regimes relat­ed to the claim of a ‘Halal’ [8].

Discussion

Halal Supply Chain and Logistics

The emerg­ing field of Sup­ply Chain and Logis­tics (SCL) accord­ing to Seur­ing and Müller [9], essen­tial­ly con­tains Sup­ply Chains (SCs) con­sist­ing of a com­plex net­work of orga­ni­za­tion­al involve­ment, both up and down-stream, through link­ages aimed at pro­duc­ing val­ue for prod­ucts and ser­vices for the con­sumer [10,11]. Logis­tics are an inte­gral com­po­nent of SCs, play­ing a vital role in the man­age­ment of flows of mate­ri­als, infor­ma­tion, and mon­ey [12]. Live­ly debate con­tin­ues today regard­ing the dif­fer­ence between the con­cepts of sup­ply chain and logis­tics [13], but it seems that the logis­ti­cian func­tions have been the pre­dom­i­nant focus of such dis­cus­sions [14].  In this respect, logis­tics is con­sid­ered as a series of activ­i­ties that cre­ate time-and-place util­i­ty [15–17], which are extreme­ly impor­tant when con­sid­er­ing the integri­ty of Halal sup­ply chains. As indi­cat­ed ear­li­er, new ways of per­ceiv­ing sup­ply chains have evi­denced a move away from the more lin­ear mod­els pre­vi­ous­ly pro­mul­gat­ed, towards a more ‘social sci­ence’ under­stand­ing that sup­ply chains are more akin to com­plex adap­tive sys­tems [18].  This com­plex­i­ty adds to the prac­ti­cal dif­fi­cul­ties of ensur­ing integri­ty and secu­ri­ty of com­po­nent sup­ply chain activities.

The exist­ing sup­ply chain mod­els which are cur­rent­ly deployed do not imme­di­ate­ly con­flict with ‘Sharia’ prin­ci­ples. How­ev­er, more effort needs to be placed around the co-evo­lu­tion of the ecosys­tems and the man­age­ment of the non-nego­tiable reli­gious aspects of Halal sup­ply chains, togeth­er with the devel­op­ment of unam­bigu­ous deter­mi­na­tions of com­pli­ance [19]. The sig­nif­i­cance of main­tain­ing integri­ty and secu­ri­ty along a Halal food sup­ply chain for the end cus­tomer can­not be under­es­ti­mat­ed. Par­tic­u­lar atten­tion needs to be placed around the many inter­de­pen­dent actors who inter­act and deliv­er ser­vices to meet this spe­cial­ized and diverse mar­ket­place [20]. At its core, Halal Sup­ply Chain Man­age­ment (HSCM) aims to cre­ate a  net­work of com­pli­ant providers from source to cus­tomer [21]. Inte­gral activ­i­ties and issues with­in Halal sup­ply chains extend well beyond the required reli­gious activ­i­ties, such as the rit­u­al slaugh­ter­ing of ani­mals and the strict avoid­ance of cross-con­t­a­m­i­na­tion with Haram prod­ucts. Ser­vice providers with­in the sup­ply chain must also be mind­ful of pre­serv­ing the whole­some nature and nutri­tion­al val­ue of the foods as they move to their final point of con­sump­tion [22]. Of inter­est to this paper is the obser­va­tion of [23] who artic­u­lat­ed the lack of clar­i­ty around the broad­er com­mer­cial and oper­a­tional impli­ca­tions of Halal, high­light­ing the mul­ti­tude of dif­fer­ent ideas being prof­fered by researchers. How­ev­er, there are three key com­po­nents or ele­ments which are uni­ver­sal­ly agreed in the field of HSCM. These are: (i) strict avoid­ance of direct con­tact with illic­it goods; (ii) ensur­ing there are no risks of con­t­a­m­i­na­tion; and (iii) main­tain­ing Mus­lim con­sumer per­cep­tions of Halal products.

Khan not­ed in a study on Halal Logis­tics [24], the imple­men­ta­tion of ‘farm-to-table’ oper­a­tions with the Halal sec­tor has cre­at­ed real and imme­di­ate prob­lems for those involved in the broad­er logis­tics com­plex [20]. Adopt­ing Halal com­pli­ant prac­tices with­in logis­tics oper­a­tions involves a degree of nuance, as these activ­i­ties must ensure Halal prod­ucts, while in tran­sit, remain com­pli­ant to Shari­ah prin­ci­ples [25]. These com­pli­ance frame­works and integri­ty mod­els are need­ed to ensure that prod­ucts and ser­vices remain strict­ly Halal, sug­gest­ing that greater focus on exist­ing and future Human Resource Devel­op­ment inter­ven­tions in this area are required.

Human Capital Development in the SCL Complex

Trade across the ASEAN bloc is plac­ing unique chal­lenges on Human Capa­bil­i­ty and the free flow of human cap­i­tal across the region. These chal­lenges become espe­cial­ly evi­dent around the estab­lish­ment of agreed stan­dards for the var­i­ous occu­pa­tions with­in the trad­ing bloc [26]. The cur­rent lit­er­a­ture high­lights that there is an insuf­fi­cient study on, or around, Halal train­ing inter­ven­tions on the devel­op­ment of Human Cap­i­tal. It should be remem­bered that indus­try sec­tors, togeth­er with those firms which oper­ate with­in them, make invest­ments in Human Cap­i­tal based on the assump­tion that such invest­ments in peo­ple will improve their mar­ket com­pet­i­tive­ness [27]. Indeed, Wasonga and Mur­phy [28] believe that orga­ni­za­tions can only achieve suc­cess through engag­ing skill­ful and knowl­edge­able work­ers. Those skills and knowl­edge with­in the work­force can then be lever­aged [29] to pro­vide added val­ue, and to facil­i­tate the crit­i­cal assur­ance of those firms who are pro­vi­sion­ing ser­vices along the sup­ply chain [30]. In this respect, knowl­edge of the area serves as an enabler, assist­ing work­ers in pro­cess­ing and con­nect­ing with­in a work set­ting [31]. It is this knowl­edge acqui­si­tion, and more broad­ly, the relat­ed skills devel­op­ment that is required to facil­i­tate the con­trolled flow of prod­ucts along sup­ply chains, thus ensur­ing Halal integri­ty com­pli­ance is preserved.

SCL plays a crit­i­cal role in all economies, with skilled work­forces con­tribut­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly to a country’s eco­nom­ic suc­cess [32]. These invest­ments in peo­ple will direct­ly impact on the future growth of Halal indus­tries across the ASEAN region. It is wide­ly agreed that effi­cient and effec­tive SCs are essen­tial to the econ­o­my, but they are also required for trade com­pet­i­tive­ness [33]. It, there­fore, fol­lows that invest­ment in SCL prac­ti­tion­ers is of vital impor­tance since peo­ple influ­ence and con­tribute to the com­pet­i­tive mind­set [34–37]. In par­tic­u­lar, Lam­bert [38] has assert­ed that man­agers and aca­d­e­mics need to begin a dia­logue around the inter­con­nect­ed­ness of Sup­ply Chain Man­age­ment (SCM) and broad­er tra­di­tion­al busi­ness func­tions. As the com­plex­i­ty of work demands increas­es, dis­cus­sants are becom­ing more mind­ful of the spe­cif­ic skills and knowl­edge demand­ed of pro­fes­sion­als in the SCL sec­tor. This inter­con­nect­ed­ness is crit­i­cal­ly reflect­ed in Halal sup­ply chains, as sys­tem com­plex­i­ty is fur­ther height­ened to ensure reli­gious and social com­pli­ance and to meet con­sumer expectations.

Growth in the Halal sub-sec­tors has a con­se­quent flow-on effect on the demand for com­pe­tent Halal Human Cap­i­tal. Cur­rent­ly, this demand for the devel­op­ment of knowl­edge­able, skilled, and reli­gious aware work­force can­not be matched by edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions [39]. The growth in the Halal econ­o­my requires a com­pe­tent work­force that both meets min­i­mum indus­try cri­te­ria and is com­mit­ted to uphold­ing the integri­ty of the Halal sys­tem [39]. Here, the ‘atti­tude’ com­po­nent of com­pe­ten­cy plays an inte­gral role in pro­vi­sion­ing a mind­set that respects reli­gious beliefs, and as a result, accords the appro­pri­ate prac­tices to ensure ser­vice oblig­a­tions are upheld with­out com­pro­mise. This grow­ing impor­tance of the area sug­gests that in the larg­er Tech­ni­cal and Voca­tion­al Edu­ca­tion and Train­ing (TVET) frame­work, Halal and oth­er reli­gious and cul­tur­al con­cepts should be inti­mate­ly embed­ded into HRD design [39]. A new gen­er­a­tion of Halal knowl­edge­able and skilled per­son­nel is nec­es­sary to cre­ate the human resource pipeline to exe­cute, mon­i­tor, and improve glob­al trad­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties, [40], espe­cial­ly across the ASEAN region. It should be remem­bered that in the devel­op­ment of such TVET inter­ven­tions, indus­try and stake­hold­ers should be mean­ing­ful­ly engaged and cul­tur­al­ly respect­ed for their par­tic­i­pa­tion in the design and imple­men­ta­tion process.  In attempt­ing to deter­mine what train­ing would be required, it ulti­mate­ly depends on who was asked for their opin­ion [41]. There­fore, the more stake­hold­ers who are engaged in the devel­op­ment of the inter­ven­tion, the greater will be the rich­ness and qual­i­ty of con­tri­bu­tions to future train­ing pro­grams and deployment.

Challenges and Opportunities

The imme­di­ate and future devel­op­ment of Halal com­po­nent work­forces across ASEAN is inte­gral in ensur­ing the region’s com­pet­i­tive­ness and to fur­ther encour­age a skilled and cul­tur­al­ly aware labor move­ment across the ten juris­dic­tions.  How­ev­er, it should be rec­og­nized that numer­ous con­sid­er­a­tions could impact the invest­ment in HCD frame­works with the Halal sec­tor. One of the main prob­lems, as raised pre­vi­ous­ly in Malaysian Halal research, was the lack of Halal aware­ness amongst key sup­ply chain actors, par­tic­u­lar­ly around their under­stand­ing of ingre­di­ents, sources, pro­cess­ing, trans­port, and stor­age [42]. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, neg­a­tive Halal atti­tudes still exist with­in the non-Mus­lim pop­u­la­tion [43], which adds to the evi­dent defi­cien­cies in con­sumer aware­ness in those juris­dic­tions with Mus­lim-majori­ties [43]. These dif­fi­cul­ties are com­bined with the per­ceived weak­ness of the pol­i­cy devel­op­ment and deploy­ment around Halal cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and logo usage [44], and this is exac­er­bat­ed by results of past stud­ies that revealed insuf­fi­cient knowl­edge and under­stand­ing among those work­forces with­in com­pa­nies who hold Halal cer­ti­fi­ca­tion [45]. Researchers have con­clud­ed three dis­tinct issues that need to be addressed around HRD with­in the Halal sec­tor, these being:  (i) the need for Halal train­ing pro­grams which focus on skills devel­op­ment around the man­age­ment of  Halal ecosys­tems and the broad­er knowl­edge of Shari­ah, (ii) the wide vari­a­tions (dura­tions, con­tent, and cov­er­age) of exist­ing staff abil­i­ties, and (iii) the per­ceived vari­a­tion and dif­fer­ences cur­rent­ly exist­ing in Halal train­ing pro­grams [45].

With the increas­ing glob­al­iza­tion of mar­kets, the mod­ern Halal SCL pro­fes­sion­al must now pos­sess well-devel­oped inter-cul­tur­al apti­tudes in addi­tion to oth­er more gen­er­al tal­ents [46]. More­over, orga­ni­za­tion­al readi­ness is a deci­sive fac­tor in the bet­ter adop­tion of com­pli­ant Halal freight logis­tics and to assist work­forces to read­i­ly acquire the required ser­vices nec­es­sary to ensure broad­er sys­tem integri­ty [5]. So as to facil­i­tate orga­ni­za­tion­al readi­ness, occu­pa­tion­al stan­dards are begin­ning to inte­grate more respect­ful engage­ment prac­tices into their design [47]. Yet, even with these pos­i­tive ini­tia­tives, it has been observed that reli­gion and broad­er belief sys­tems, when includ­ed in occu­pa­tion­al stan­dards, lack con­sis­tent inte­gra­tion and an expla­na­tion around their inclu­sion in some stan­dards but not in oth­ers [47]. How­ev­er,  the inclu­sion of reli­gion and beliefs into knowl­edge and per­for­mance cri­te­ria do not always reflect the ade­quate address­ing of those issues [48].

Investigation of the Development of Halal Specific Occupational Standards

Jais high­light­ed, some six years ago, the need for the devel­op­ment of a Halal work­force, par­tic­u­lar­ly at the mid­dle man­age­ment and super­vi­so­ry lev­els [39]. Sig­nif­i­cant changes in Halal HRD are yet to be real­ized across the ASEAN region. How­ev­er, giv­en the breadth of oppor­tu­ni­ty and eco­nom­ic returns avail­able with the Halal indus­try, there is an imme­di­ate require­ment to train and equip indi­vid­u­als with the nec­es­sary knowl­edge, skills, and atti­tude to pro­vide and ensure Halal qual­i­ty assurance.

Essen­tial­ly the Halal indus­try needs a ‘Roadmap’ for Human Cap­i­tal Devel­op­ment that could be agreed across ASEAN. To assist in this plan­ning, the intro­duc­tion of occu­pa­tion­al stan­dards across all indus­try sec­tors engaged in the pro­duc­tion of goods for a Halal mar­ket is of para­mount inter­est. These occu­pa­tion­al stan­dards could act as crit­i­cal bench­marks for the imple­men­ta­tion of a train­ing and assess­ment infra­struc­ture, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the TVET sec­tor. An occu­pa­tion­al stan­dard is a descrip­tion of the require­ments in which an indi­vid­ual must show com­pe­tence while car­ry­ing out spe­cif­ic mapped tasks with­in a work­place. Occu­pa­tion­al stan­dards effec­tive­ly act as the evi­dence base when edu­ca­tors deliv­er HRD inter­ven­tions. They require an indi­vid­ual to meet min­i­mum com­pe­tence lev­els, includ­ing show­ing an under­stand­ing of the under­pin­ning knowl­edge, skills, and atti­tudes need­ed for a job role. The com­po­nents of an occu­pa­tion­al stan­dard include a state­ment of per­for­mance outcome/​criteria, knowl­edge and skills required for enabling com­pe­tent per­for­mance, and the defined con­text for the work­place per­for­mance.  An indi­vid­ual who can show evi­dence of meet­ing these cri­te­ria in the work­place is then deemed ‘com­pe­tent’. Such stan­dards could be built into broad­er Halal qual­i­ty assur­ance and integri­ty systems.

Enter­pris­es or indus­try sec­tors often devel­op occu­pa­tion­al stan­dards to meet their spe­cif­ic human resource require­ments, and this approach could be par­tic­u­lar­ly rel­e­vant for the Halal indus­try [49]. The bal­anced devel­op­ment of occu­pa­tion­al stan­dards requires the bring­ing togeth­er of crit­i­cal stake­hold­ers. In the case of the Halal sec­tor, these play­ers could include reli­gious lead­ers, select­ed impact­ed indus­tries, trans­port orga­ni­za­tions, com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers, TVET providers, and peak orga­ni­za­tions rep­re­sent­ing enter­prise inter­ests. The required occu­pa­tion­al stan­dards would be fash­ioned through invit­ing inputs from those key stake­hold­ers and informed dis­cus­sions held with con­cerned indi­vid­u­als and groups. Agree­ments on action could then be reached through ‘round­ta­bles’ formed from rep­re­sen­ta­tions from each of these groups. These ‘round­table’ dis­cus­sions would: Define an occu­pa­tion­al stan­dard rel­e­vant to an indus­try-spe­cif­ic job task; List the com­po­nents of per­for­mance cri­te­ria, knowl­edge, skills and atti­tude with­in a work­place con­text; Describe the require­ments for suc­cess in achiev­ing this stan­dard; describe the com­po­nent tasks involved in each stan­dard, and pro­vide assess­ment cri­te­ria frame­works for mea­sur­ing the outcome/​success of TVET interventions.

Sev­er­al gener­ic tem­plates can be used to describe occu­pa­tion­al stan­dards and units of com­pe­tence [50,51]. These tem­plates should be used as guides wher­ev­er rel­e­vant. The pur­pose of defin­ing, describ­ing, and estab­lish­ing assess­ment cri­te­ria and method­olo­gies for each com­po­nent of a par­tic­u­lar ‘occu­pa­tion­al stan­dard’, is to pro­vide sys­tem assur­ance that those trained and or assessed ‘indi­vid­u­als’ would be able to per­form per Halal indus­try require­ments. Because of estab­lish­ing ‘occu­pa­tion­al stan­dards’, train­ing cours­es could be devel­oped, and these cours­es could be ‘stand-alone’ or could sup­ple­ment exist­ing pro­grams, pos­si­bly form­ing part of broad­er TVET nation­al qual­i­fi­ca­tion frame­works. Such occu­pa­tion­al stan­dards would elim­i­nate the ‘ad hoc’ devel­op­ment of cours­es and ensure that con­sis­ten­cy across the trad­ing block, and ulti­mate­ly achieve mutu­al eco­nom­ic ben­e­fit. Fur­ther, by con­struct­ing the HRD stan­dards, ecosys­tems would pro­vide oppor­tu­ni­ties for Human Mobil­i­ty across bor­ders and also help to nur­ture and devel­op future work­forces across juris­dic­tions while avail­ing them­selves of the com­mer­cial oppor­tu­ni­ties that come from active­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in an increas­ing­ly impor­tant sec­tor of the mar­ket­place. More­over, this would sup­ply the Halal indus­try with a grow­ing num­ber of skilled and com­pe­tent work­ers so that that sup­ply chain actors could meet their Halal qual­i­ty assur­ance and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion obligations.

Conclusion

This paper high­lights the sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties that may emerge in the explo­ration of the design and devel­op­ment of Halal-com­pli­ant sup­ply chains. Should sup­ply chain actors acknowl­edge, rec­og­nize and con­se­quent­ly man­age the integri­ty of these freight logis­tic inter­ven­tions appro­pri­ate­ly, real ben­e­fits for com­mu­ni­ties, busi­ness­es, and gov­ern­ments through­out the ASEAN region could be real­ized. In focus­ing on improv­ing these Halal sup­ply ecosys­tems, by pro­vi­sion­ing bet­ter qual­i­ty goods and ser­vices to the end-con­sumers, ASEAN mem­ber states could avail them­selves of new mar­kets. Fur­ther, to achieve the resul­tant trust and guar­an­teed prove­nance of Halal prod­ucts and ser­vices, key sup­ply SCL actors need to build atten­tive and reli­gious­ly aware work­forces. The authors con­tend that before juris­dic­tions with­in ASEAN embark on the design of train­ing inter­ven­tions and the devel­op­ment of spe­cial­ized Halal qual­i­fi­ca­tions, they first must under­stand more broad­ly the skills, knowl­edge, and atti­tudes need­ed to frame and define roles along the sup­ply chain. We believe that the design and devel­op­ment of com­pre­hen­sive sec­toral occu­pa­tion­al stan­dards are piv­otal in ensur­ing Halal prod­uct and ser­vice integri­ty. The readi­ness of the ASEAN TVET sec­tor in aid­ing in this occu­pa­tion­al devel­op­ment is still some­what an ‘open’ dis­cus­sion and thus requires fur­ther inquiry. Fur­ther­more, to cat­alyze inves­ti­ga­tions around the devel­op­er capac­i­ties need­ed for region­al and juris­dic­tion­al Halal occu­pa­tion­al stan­dards, increased lev­els of ASEAN gov­ern­ments’ appetites to explore ASEAN respons­es to Halal com­pli­ance is war­rant­ed. The authors also con­tend that sharp­ened inter-cul­tur­al apti­tudes and human capa­bil­i­ties could sig­nif­i­cant­ly facil­i­tate the achieve­ment of the mean­ing­ful engage­ment nec­es­sary to ful­ly under­stand­ing the com­plex­i­ties around Halal secu­ri­ty assur­ance and ser­vice provision.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that there is no con­flict of inter­est regard­ing the pub­li­ca­tion of this paper.

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Corresponding author biography

Adam Voak is a mul­ti-skilled edu­ca­tor and human devel­op­ment facil­i­ta­tor who under­stands that peo­ple are the real source of com­pet­i­tive advan­tage with­in orga­ni­za­tions. Adam’s under­pin­ning phi­los­o­phy is that align­ing an indus­tri­al estab­lish­ment with its peo­ple, by devel­op­ing, engag­ing, and reward­ing them to release their full pow­er and poten­tial, is the key to eco­nom­ic and orga­ni­za­tion­al suc­cess. This vision is put into prac­tice by help­ing orga­ni­za­tions to design and build high-per­for­mance orga­ni­za­tion­al cul­tures that engage and inspire their work­forces by fos­ter­ing innate tal­ent and encour­ag­ing the agili­ty and cre­ativ­i­ty that peo­ple need to con­stant­ly embrace new ways of work­ing. In this area, Adam brings an eth­i­cal and legal under­stand­ing of the impli­ca­tions and out­comes of Human Devel­op­ment frameworks.

© 2020 by the authors. This is an open access arti­cle dis­trib­uted under the Cre­ative Com­mons Attri­bu­tion License, which per­mits unre­strict­ed use, dis­tri­b­u­tion, and repro­duc­tion in any medi­um, pro­vid­ed the orig­i­nal work is prop­er­ly cited.

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