Vol 1, No 1 (2020) 10–14

Explor­ing the Issues and Chal­lenges in Malaysian Cos­met­ic Halal: A The­o­ret­i­cal Framework

Ali­na Sham­sud­din¹ and Farah­wahi­da Mohd Yusof²

¹Fac­ul­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy Man­age­ment and Busi­ness, Uni­ver­si­ti Tun Hus­sein Onn Malaysia, 86400 Par­it Raja, Johor, Malaysia
²Cen­tre of Research for Fiqh Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy (CFiRST), Ibnu Sina Insti­tute for Sci­en­tif­ic and Indus­tri­al Research (ISI-SIR), Uni­ver­si­ti Teknolo­gi Malaysia, 81310 Sku­dai, Johor, Malaysia

Cor­re­spon­dence should be addressed to Ali­na Sham­sud­din; alina@​uthm.​edu.​my

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​1​0​-​014

Abstract

Halal Indus­try in Malaysia has been preva­lent in the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tors and has earned the gov­ern­men­t’s con­cern in sup­port­ing its devel­op­ment. The Halal Indus­try sec­tor has been con­sid­ered as one of the lead­ing con­trib­u­tors to Malaysian econ­o­my devel­op­ment in the future.  This is due to the fact that the mar­ket of Halal prod­ucts is rea­son­able to Mus­lims and has received per­va­sive atten­tion from non-Mus­lims con­sumers who con­sid­er Halal com­mer­cial­ism.  Halal indus­try has been cat­e­go­rized into sev­en sec­tors, which are cui­sine, goods, finan­cial, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal, cos­met­ics, logis­tics, and tourism busi­ness­es.  How­ev­er, much atten­tion has been giv­en to issues and chal­lenges to food ser­vices. Con­se­quent­ly, this study aims to address the influ­enc­ing fea­tures of adopt­ing Halal prac­tices among Halalan Toyy­iban Risk Man­age­ment Plan (HTRMP) prac­tices in the cos­met­ic indus­try. Besides, it adopts the Tech­nol­o­gy Accep­tance Mod­el (TAM) mod­el to describe the influ­enc­ing of adopt­ing fac­tors in cos­met­ic sec­tors in a con­cep­tu­al framework.

Key­words: halal indus­try, halalan toyy­iban risk man­age­ment plan (HTRMP), cos­met­ic halal, tech­nol­o­gy accep­tance mod­el (TAM).

Introduction

Mus­lims pop­u­la­tion in the world is pre­dict­ed to reach 2.2. bil­lion in 2030 [1].  As a result, Halal Indus­try has gained much atten­tion from Mus­lim world due to the com­pre­hen­sive­ness of halal pro­ce­dures in terms of hygiene, clean­li­ness, health, and the pro­duc­tion process for the prod­uct they either con­sume, use and pur­chase by con­sumers [1].  All prod­ucts and ser­vices pro­duced with halal prepa­ra­tions are will­ing­ly tol­er­a­ble by either Mus­lim or con­sumers from oth­er reli­gions [2]. More­over, Halal stan­dards encour­age prac­ti­tion­ers to adopt them because of their future ben­e­fits [3].  Anoth­er main con­tri­bu­tion of Halal Indus­try is in eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment [4].  Much has been researched per­tain­ing to Halal issues, but the main con­cern is on the Halalan-Toyy­iban aspects [5]. More­over, inter­na­tion­al insti­tu­tions have start­ed to show inter­est in Halal stan­dards [6], which serves as a means to ensure the Halal and toyy­iban logis­tic net­works, from procur­ing until it reach­es the consumers.

Halal Indus­try has been cat­e­go­rized into sev­en sec­tors, name­ly food, goods, finan­cial, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal, cos­met­ics, logis­tics, and tourism busi­ness­es. There has been abun­dance of research on Halal issues and chal­lenges. For instance, on the influ­enc­ing fac­tors for Halal prac­tices [7], new moti­va­tion for SMEs to become Halal­prenuers [8],  apply­ing The­o­ry of Con­sump­tion Val­ue (TCV) in inten­tion to use Halal prod­ucts, and [9] issues on food imple­men­ta­tion [10]. How­ev­er, much atten­tion has been giv­en to issues and chal­lenges to food ser­vices and Halal sup­ply chain.  Research on cos­met­ic sec­tor in Halal Indus­try has found to be lim­it­ed.  Thus, this paper explores the issues and chal­lenges in cos­met­ic sec­tor in Malaysia in adopt­ing the HTRMP prac­tices and pro­pos­es a con­cep­tu­al frame­work using the Tech­no­log­i­cal, Orga­ni­za­tion and Envi­ron­ment (TOE) model.

Literature Review

Fiqh Platforms

The mean­ing of Halal is appro­pri­ate, accept­able, approved, and/​or per­mis­si­ble. It does not con­cern with the cui­sine prod­ucts (the way most peo­ple assume or think), yet it deals with Mus­lims life aspects (male or female) [11]. Mean­while, the term tayy­ib in the holy Qur’an is always cor­re­lat­ed with the approval of a spe­cif­ic endeav­or or asso­ci­at­ed close­ly with the inno­cence of some­one in per­form­ing something.

Allah the Almighty has said: “O you Mes­sen­gers! Eat of the good things and act right­eous­ly” (23:51–53).

Every Mus­lims must con­sume Halal (law­ful) and qual­i­fied things as need­ed. These two aspects will guar­an­tee both phys­i­cal health and alert­ness, as well as become a dri­ving fac­tor in help­ing to accel­er­ate the qual­i­ty of one’s taqwa (God-fear­ing) and syukur (Grate­ful­ness) toward Allah SWT. It has been dis­tinct­ly declared in the Holy Qur’an, sen­tence 172 of Surah Al-Baqarah.

And Allah the Almighty also declared: “O you who believe! Eat of the good things that We have pro­vid­ed you with” (2:167- 172).

Accord­ing to Malaysian stan­dards MS1500:2009, Halal is Sharia-based aspects that exclude pun­ish­ment in the prac­tices [12].  Fur­ther­more,  it is explained in the MS2400:2010  (Part  1  –  item  2.19)  that Halal means allow­ing any con­ducts to be done, which accepts the Islam­ic con­sen­sus for good­ness [13].

In sum­ma­ry, Halal is not per­ni­cious, not intox­i­cat­ing, and non-haz­ardous to health and fol­low accord­ing to al-quran and as-sun­nah that deals with food and bev­er­ages, as well as also oth­er sec­tors such as bank­ing, finance, trav­el, econ­o­my, and so forth.

HTRMP in Halal concepts

Halalan-toyy­iban risk man­age­ment plan (HTRMP) involves many han­dling points process­es. It indi­cates that the man­age­ment point can be one of the impor­tant com­mand­ing points. That way, prod­ucts’ Halal posi­tion may be influ­enced by the not ful­ly under­stood Halal integri­ty con­cept by the par­ties involved in the sup­ply chain, par­tic­u­lar­ly those work­ing in the oper­a­tional man­age­ment aspects. The Depart­ment of Stan­dards Malaysia in MS2400‑2:2010 echoes some prin­ci­ples of HTRMP that com­prise of sev­en steps [13], which are: 1. Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of Halalan-Toyy­iban poten­tial con­t­a­m­i­nant and/​or pre­cur­sor, 2. Deter­mi­na­tion of con­trol mea­sures, 3. Deter­mi­na­tion of Halalan-Toyy­iban Con­trol Point, 4. Deter­mi­na­tion of mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem for Halalan-Toyy­iban Con­trol Point, 5. Deter­mi­na­tion of cor­rec­tive actions for Halalan-Toyy­iban Con­trol Point, 6. Deter­mi­na­tion of the ver­i­fi­ca­tion process and doc­u­men­ta­tion sys­tem, 7. Man­age­ment of records [13]. Con­se­quent­ly, Halal aspects are linked to all Shari­ah com­pli­ance fea­tures and can be dis­cussed with addi­tion­al asso­ci­at­ed mea­sures, as list­ed in Table 1 [5].

Table 1. List of Halal stan­dards reg­u­la­tions estab­lished by Depart­ment of Stan­dards Malaysia

Halal Stan­dards Reg­u­la­tions Estab­lished by Depart­ment of Stan­dards Malaysia

MS 1500:2009	Halal Food-Pro­duc­tion, Prepa­ra­tion, Han­dling, and Stor­age-Gen­er­al Guide­lines (Sec­ond Revision).
MS 1900	Qual­i­ty Man­age­ment Sys­tem-Require­ments from Islam­ic Perspectives
MS 2200:2008	Islam­ic Con­sumer Goods-Part 1: Cos­met­ic And Per­son­al Care – Gen­er­al Guidelines
MS 2300:2009	Val­ue-based Man­age­ment Sys­tem-Require­ments from an Islam­ic Perspective
MS 2424:2012	Halal Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals-Gen­er­al Guidelines
MS2400:2010	Halalan-Toyy­iban Assur­ance Pipeline
MS2400‑1:2010	Man­age­ment Sys­tem Require­ments for Trans­porta­tion of Goods and/​or Car­go Chain Services
MS2400‑2:2010	Man­age­ment Sys­tem Require­ments for Ware­hous­ing and Relat­ed Activities
MS2400‑3:2010	Man­age­ment Sys­tem Require­ments for Retailing.

Overview of Halal Cosmetics

The phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and cos­met­ic Halal prod­ucts have gained respon­sive­ness and grow­ing demand from around 2.4 bil­lion world­wide Mus­lim con­sumers [14]. More­over, based on Allied Mar­ket Research (AMR), the mar­ket of Halal cos­met­ics prod­ucts has widened its prod­uct base to tap into the cos­met­ics mar­ket promi­nent­ly. As a con­se­quence, it dri­ves the increas­ing request for world­wide Halal cos­met­ic prod­ucts, pri­mar­i­ly in regions dom­i­nat­ed by Mus­lim pop­u­la­tion, such as Malaysia, Indone­sia, Sau­di Ara­bia, and UAE. Sug­ibayashi (2019) stat­ed that Halal cos­met­ics must not incor­po­rate com­po­nents attained from pig, decay­ing flesh, blood, por­tions of human body, preda­to­ry ani­mals, rep­tiles, and insects [14]. As a result, the Halal logo in halal cos­met­ics should be acknowl­edged as a sign of hygiene, secu­ri­ty, clean­li­ness, and qual­i­ty.  Anoth­er inter­est­ing study in Malaysia on the adop­tion of Halal cos­met­ics among Malaysian con­sumers indi­cates that aware­ness and under­stand­ing, per­ceived attrib­ut­es of inno­va­tion, and social encour­age­ment had a sub­stan­tial pos­i­tive impact where­as, finan­cial cost has an essen­tial neg­a­tive impact on the adop­tion [15]. In anoth­er study, social influ­ence and con­sumer inno­v­a­tive­ness have been found as the influ­enc­ing fac­tors of young Mus­lims to adopt Halal cos­met­ic prod­ucts, and reli­gios­i­ty have been found as the mod­er­a­tor of the adop­tion [16]. More­over, the adop­tion fac­tors of Halal stan­dard influ­enced by tech­nol­o­gy, orga­ni­za­tion, and envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors among Malaysia are being used for apply­ing in HTRMP [17].

Conceptual Framework

Based on the dis­cus­sions, it is appar­ent that pre­vi­ous research focus­es more on Halal sup­ply chain man­age­ment and food sec­tor. Whilst, less atten­tion has been giv­en to toyy­iban aspect in the cos­met­ic sec­tor in Halal Indus­try. More­over, the tech­nol­o­gy adop­tion mod­el has been the essen­tial meth­ods in pre­vi­ous research to iden­ti­fy the influ­enc­ing fac­tors of Halal prod­ucts.  Fac­tors like aware­ness and under­stand­ing, per­ceived attrib­ut­es of inno­va­tion, and social influ­ence con­sumer inno­v­a­tive­ness and reli­gios­i­ty have been found to be the influ­enc­ing fac­tors of Halal prod­ucts. In sum­ma­ry, the researchers con­clud­ed that; (i) Halal Indus­try has gained much atten­tion from pre­vi­ous researchers and prac­ti­tion­ers, (ii) the impor­tance of Halal Indus­try as a new mar­ket force and brand iden­ti­fi­er, (iii) Halalan-toyy­iban risk man­age­ment plan prac­tices in Halal indus­try is gain­ing more atten­tion as it is more chal­leng­ing to main­tain the Halal­ness rather than to obtain the Halal cer­tifi­cates.  This research’s the­o­ret­i­cal frame­work is the Tech­nol­o­gy Accep­tance Mod­el (TAM), rea­soned action the­o­ry adap­ta­tion pri­mar­i­ly tai­lored for mod­el­ing user approval of infor­ma­tion sys­tems [18]. The two pri­ma­ry con­cepts of TAM are the per­ceived prac­ti­cal­i­ty (use­ful­ness) and per­ceived ease of use. TAM sug­gests that authen­tic sys­tem use is estab­lished by behav­ioral inten­tion to use. In turn, inten­tion to use is influ­enced by atti­tude, along with per­ceived prac­ti­cal­i­ty. Besides, behav­ioral inten­tion is being shaped by per­ceived prac­ti­cal­i­ty and per­ceived ease of use. In addi­tion, per­ceived ease of use also affects per­ceived prac­ti­cal­i­ty. The periph­er­al vari­ables influ­ence behav­ioral inten­tion inci­den­tal­ly through per­ceived prac­ti­cal­i­ty and per­ceived ease of use. Hence, TAM frame­work is adopt­ed to elab­o­rate on the influ­enc­ing fea­tures of HTRMP prac­tices, as indi­cat­ed in Fig 1.

Fig­ure 1. The­o­ret­i­cal frame­work of influ­enc­ing fac­tors of Halalan-Toyy­iban Risk Man­age­ment (HTRMP) practices.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to declare their grat­i­tude to Uni­ver­si­ti Teknolo­gi Malaysia (UTM) and the Research Man­age­ment Cen­tre (RMC). This study is financed by the RUG UTM enti­tled Design and Devel­op­ment of Vir­tu­al Learn­ing Envi­ron­ment for Halal Human Cap­i­tal Devel­op­ment. Ref No: PY/​2017/​01749.

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Corresponding author biography

Ali­na Sham­sud­din obtained her Ph.D. from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Strath­clyde in 2007. Cur­rent­ly, she is an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor at the Fac­ul­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy Man­age­ment and Busi­ness, Uni­ver­si­ti Tun Hus­sein Onn Malaysia (UTHM). Her cur­rent research inter­est includes out­come-based edu­ca­tion (OBE), tech­no­log­i­cal capa­bil­i­ty-inno­va­tion, and insti­tu­tion high­er learn­ing leadership.

Copyright

© 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.