Sustainable Purchase Behavior Through Religious Orientation, Psychological Contract & Intention-evidence From Pakistani Retail Industry


 The purchase patterns have been shifted from tangibles to societal orientations, where religious orientation is the way forward for sustainable purchase behavior in expanding urban areas of a middle-income country. The ethical and responsiveness considerations through the connection between Islamic religious orientation (IsRO), purchase intention (PI), and total psychological contract (TPsC) is a research gap projected to be filled from multiple dimensions. Captivating the purchase intention and total psychological contract as mediating variables and analytical approach for religious orientation on purchase behavior constructed in the present research. The empirical assessment was executed through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach based on the cross-sectional research design. There were 669 participants selected from large superstores, with ages ranging from 16 to 55 (M=3.38, SD=1.06), from Islamabad and Rawalpindi in Pakistan, from September 2018 to March 2019. The findings revealed that religious orientation level positively enhanced customer purchase behavior, purchase intention and psychological contract in organized retail stores and psychological contract played a mediating role in the influencing on the purchase behavior; whereas, the purchase intention also played a mediating role between religious orientation and customer purchase behavior. Therefore, the religious orientation stimulated a higher level of purchase behavior since it favored of the higher level of psychological contract and purchase intention in organized retail store customer. The study highlighted the value of cognitive and moral processes and psychological needs could be one of the crucial factors for improvement of perceptual change in terms of purchase behavior of retail consumers that connect psychological dimension with suitability indicators of being responsiveness and ethical consideration sourced from religious orientation. The implications pave the way forward for product development, purchase strategies, and retail market sensing for corporate retail chains and government utility stores for ethical business processes. Meanwhile, the government and enterprises need to strengthen the popularization and dissemination of environmental protection and food safety knowledge to enhance consumers’ environmental and food safety awareness, improving the social environment of the cultivation of the organic food market.


Introduction
The interplay of religiosity at the retailing industry is not an alienation, rather a perpetually incubated subject of concern whenever never introduced to new subjective of objective criterions with every retail market disruption (McDaniel & Burnett, 1990; Mokhlis, 2020; Mortimer et al., 2020). The race for quant and relevancy of religiosity in terms of consumer behavior research is subtle (Mokhlis, 2009;Khraim, 2010). Much is needed to be done in terms of consumer market where retail leads in many dimensions as having a pivotal position at the socio-economic system (Kumar, Anand, & Song, 2016; Le, Nguyen, & Nguyen, 2013). Therefore, decades of research available calls for clearing the foggy situation through inspection of the overlapping conceptual knots. Moreover, the effects of religious orientation cannot be overlooked it has impact on purchase intention (Ustaahmetoğlu, 2020), purchase of counterfeit products (Jashim et al., 2020), retail store evaluations (Khraim et al, 2011), purchase behavior (Mokhlis, 2009;Khraim, 2010;Bukhar et al., 2020;.
Most of the research has been stating the role of religiosity in terms of purchase behavior, but a few have  (Puccinelli et al., 2009;Teller & Thomas, 2008) and considered the consumer physiological responses (Uchil, Thakkar, & Venugopal, 2015). Therefore, in the context of these series of gaps in the research available, the modern settings of retail industry are not only about marketer but the customer as well. So, the extension in psychological experiences could be the source to trace in uence on purchase behavior (Niraj,  This study aims to further comprehend the consumer behavior according to religious orientation of the customer based upon the intervention of intention before nal behavior and psychological contract between the customer and the retailer. More precisely the objective of this study is to estimate the customer purchase behavior according to the Islamic religious orientation, with the intervention of total psychological contract and intention to purchase.
The research questions are how much Islamic religious orientation effects the purchase behavior of the retail customers. How the Islamic religious orientation in uences the purchase behavior of the retail customers with intervention of total psychological contract. How the Islamic religious orientation in uences the purchase behavior of the retail customers with intervention of purchase intention. This manuscript is organized as follows. First, review of the literature is taken to develop the study hypothesis in the theoretical framework. Second, we discussed the methodology and the results from the study. Lastly, the results from the study are discussed with managerial implications.

Literature Review
The retail industry is evolving and so is the consumer research in terms of psychological, religious and behavioral context. The literary knitting of the religious orientation, psychological contact in totality, PI and PB is done in the proceeding manner.

Islamic Religious Orientation (IsRO)
Religiosity has been observed as a personality trait (Ashton, Lee, and Goldberg, 2004) and it behaves differently from other traits in terms of psychological contract orientations, from transformational and transactional dimensions (Rousseau, 2000). Hence, this favors the underlining connection in total. The centrality of the religious orientation in the study is evident from the scope of Islamic business principles that cater all elements of concern, namely competition, change, customers, and company (Sula & Kartajaya, 2006). The religious people earning higher income tend to have a more satis ed life than the religious people with low income (Maheshkumar Kanubhai Patel, 2017) although Iannaccone (1998) had found no relation between the total family income and prayer frequency of Catholics in the US, but strong religious activity contribution like religious belief. The long term effect of religiosity with income declines but with the declining religiosity income increases (Herzer & Strulik, 2013). Islam considers the religious orientation of commerce and business on a fundamental level and stresses upon it to an extent that the Messenger has been steered by ALLAH to become a successful businessman in his life. (Trim, 2009).
One of handsomely tolerable descriptions of religion by the academic world is put forward in the lines as a schema of behavior or translation of actions that "…are connected to the action of a religious person…" (Ferm, 1963, p. 647). Religious orientation has been the subject of interest in terms of theory and empiricism with attention on the untapped body of research study reservoirs in the business market (Emmons & Paloutzian, 2003). It has been continuously introduced in studies as a forecasting factor and triggering agent for a number of elements that directly impact on the daily lives of the common public, like overall satisfaction with respect to life affective-component of well-being (Diener, Eunkook, Lucas & Smith, 1999; Ellison, 1991).
Max Weber (1904) who depicted religion as a systematic projector of an increase in economic value addition streams and way forward for industrialization goal achievements has depicted this. On similar lines, religious orientation has been shown to be a decisive factor that creates resilience against performance bottlenecks and provides assistance along with psychological mentorship facility (Pargament& Hahn, 1986). Religious orientation also provides a thought paradigm, which projects hope, self-con dence, and positive re ection of self-image and stewardship of steering facility of a certain situation (Spilka et al., 1985).
Along with the clear bright side, there are some scholars who think that it brings the trend of traditionalist frame of mental reference which could be a reaction based with conservative a rmations (McMurry, 1978). However, many do consider it as a platform that enables the individual to have a reason for the choice, react, and mentally wear a behavior (Gorsuch& Smith, 1983).
In terms of behavior in a social setting, religion nds its way to impact on the behavior of a person by in uencing the paradigm on which the personal values, ideals, and attitude psycho-sectors are based upon (Peterson & Roy, 1985). The provision of standard operating procedures for interpretation and attaching of meaning and value to the idea, action, or circumstances that gives understanding and sense of clarity to any individual is considered to be the sole responsibility of religion. This means that the individual, group or network of teams that have the understanding of the certain religion, applicable in the speci c social setting, can be awarded capability of predictive analysis of the reaction, attitudinal trigger According to the Islamic teachings, the sovereignty rests with ALLAH (God Almighty) that is provided to the believers of Islam as a form of trust that has to be kept them throughout life in order to function in accordance to the rules and guidance provided by Islam. The human being is made the 'Khalifa' of God Almighty and is believed to practice religion and orient his behaviors in terms of the system of belief and terms of reference provided for situations in daily life (IzziDien, 2000). As per the study of Al-Damkhi (2008), the word 'Khalifa' is de ned as any person who "…takes over a position, a power, a trust, and who holds it reliably and in harmony with its granter." Now, this clearly means that the power of making decisions is not the owned by the individual but it is a trust that is given by the creator to the believers and they are supposed to act in accordance to the Book, the Holy Quran, in order to be in 'harmony'. This clari es that the religious orientation demands control and stewardship of behavior and actions and their harmonization, at the psychological level, respectively. This being the argumentation to the stage where one can project that the work of Rousseau (1989) that psychological contracts are the psychoagreements that are established by the individuals on the foundation of their belief system (Islam in the case of this study) and are con dently re ected in the actions in form of personal traits. Sula and Kartajaya (2006) stated that the Quran and Hadith have clearly taught human beings to abide by their agreements (contracts) and follow Islamic ethics. Furthermore, Islam teaches its believers to invest as per their ultimate capacity and then leave all else on the will of ALLAH.

Total Psychological Contract (TPsC)
The researchers state TPsC as the collection of psycho-agreements that ow from customer-to-marketer and vice versa, thereby, having dual dimensions in terms of customer and marketer. Many of the studies have been focusing on either while having the other in terms of limitation of their study, which has been strived to be nulli ed as a popular practice by this study and others as well. In this manner, the true and total sense of the TPsC concept could be gauged ( Moreover, the inter-link with PI and the psychological contract was described by the straight logic that people will purchase the things that they have well thought out to buy (Blackwell et.al, 2001).
H1a: TPsC mediated the relationship between IsRO and PB for retail customers.

H1b
PI mediates the relationship between IsRO and PB for retail customers.

Sample
The study sample is taken from retail customers who are the local residents. The data is collected with consideration of religious orientation of the Pakistani customers at large retail stores (cash and carry, hypermarkets). This sample includes data from stores including Metro Cash and carry, Medina cash and carry, Savemart, and Punjab cashcarry, Hyperstar and Greenvalley in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Purposive convenient sampling technique is used at the point of sales based on cross-sectional design.
Before the data collection, permission is taken from store management for the survey. Mall intercept survey method is used for the study (Yuan, Fowler, Goh, & Lauderdale, 2013) between March 20 and April 28, 2018. The customers coming for their grocery shopping in the targeted stores are requested to ll the online questionnaire. Pretest of study instrument is conducted at one store, with all steps to correct for minor adjustment before nal data collection.886 customers are approached for data collection at the checkout counters just after the completion of the shopping, to get the most recent recall about their shopping experience at the retail store. The nal sample included N = 669 customers (male, n = 376; female, n = 293), with the response rate of slightly above 75 %, due to self-administered questioner and ease of online data collection. Respondents have approached with online questioners designed on google-docs with the use of smart-phones at the point of sales (POS) in the retail space of hypermarkets for the urban region of Rawalpindi, Islamabad. Age ranging from 16 to 55 (M = 3.38, SD = 1.06) which was approximately the mean age of years. The quali cation ranging from twelve years of education to eighteen-degree holder were distributed among six categories (M = 2.72, SD = 1.289). Majority of the respondents were undergraduates (27.5%) followed by twelve years of education group (24.6 %). The nucleus families are surveyed because of the demographic trends in the country and grocery shopping being a family affair. 39.5 % of the respondents were from the second category of income class (approx. monthly income between 501 to 1000 US dollars) followed by income class three (approx. monthly income between 1001 to 1500 US dollars) with (M = 2.13, SD = 1.289).
The respondents are explained with the aims of the research brie y. For the convenience and understanding, the research tool was translated into local language (urdu). This has increased the understanding and response of the survey (Chidlow, Plakoyiannaki, & Welch, 2014). The researcher in uence is reduced with online data gathering method, moreover, time and cost is also reduced (Lefever, Dal, & Matthíasdóttir, 2007). After lling out the survey the data was submitted online, which was subsequently arranged and prepared for further analysis. SPSS 21 and AMOS 23 software is used to carry out data analysis.

Measures
Multiple item scales are adapted from different studies for this study. All the scales are pre used in the past empirical studies. For religious orientation scale classical work of Allport and Ross (1967) has been adopted in this study. Essoo and Dibb (2004) also utilized this instrument for detecting inferences due to the impact of a religious factor on the shopping behavior of customers belonging to Hindus, Muslims and Catholic circles. Moreover, recently, Allport and Ross's Scale supported the study of Islam and Chandrasekaran (2016) that focused on the effects of religiosity (targeting Muslims) on consumption behaviors with regards to responsive mindfulness. Therefore, the researcher, being steered by the theoretical background of the Allport and Ross's Scale, used it with minor modi cations, for the measurement of religious orientation. The work of Kaman Lee (2009) has been found notable for adaptation of the scale for purchase behavior, having six items. The scale has been non-signi cantly modi ed to suit the study scenario at hand. The items include "I often buy products from this store on regular basis" and "I often buy products from this store that is safe to consume". All the items of the instruments are mentioned in Table 3 with their respective statistics.

Measurement Model
We used Structural Equational Modeling approach with AMOS 23 and the measurement model is analyzed before the structural model, as suggested by Sethi and King (1994). To see the unidimensionality of the constructs, measurement model is speci ed and con rmatory factor analysis (CFA) is carried out to check the validity of the study constructs (Bagozzi & Yi, 2012). The four constructs are evaluated as four factor model. The results are displayed in Table 4. After checking data for suitability, the Vari-max rotation is carried out for further suitability of the CFA and four components were found. Table 1 displays the tness of the study model su ciency (IFI = .87, TLI = .83, CFI,= .91, RMSEA = .04), the Hoelter's Critical N was found more than 200 (.05 = 263, .01 = 287) for the current study (Bagozzi & Yi, 2012). The results found are in accordance with the satisfactory model t, discriminate validity, and con rms no common method bias in the data.   The discriminant validity of the scale was judged according to the correlation table (Table 2) and the square root of AVE (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). The square root of AVE is found higher than the respective correlation pairs of all the constructs of the current research. This displays that respective construct has more variance with the item then the variance with other constructs. Therefore, the measurement models with four factors display better discriminant validity for the current research. The con rmatory factor analysis (CFA) was been carried out for data to access convergent and discriminate validity (    The second mediated relationship of PI between the IsRO and PB according to Table 4 displays that, the direct between IsRO and PB was signi cant (0.725, p< .000). This effect was decreased (0.512, p<.001 and 0.213, p<.000) due to PI as mediator. This analysis indicates statistically partial signi cant mediation (Frazier, Tix, & Barron, 2004) of PI between IsRO and PB of retail customers. Therefore, H1b is also accepted for partial mediation. These results are aligned with previous studies which con rmed that religion molds human behavior (Mokhlis, 2006;Patel, 2017). The majority population on the basis of religion generates a common trend, even in the areas where religion had given certain limits of practice in behavior, generating unique expectations from retailers (Fauzi,2016). The positive relationship between the IsRO and the TPsC between the customers and retail employees generate long-term patronage of the customer (Li & Lin, 2010).
Linking the PB with the religious orientation can align the social and economic set of behavior together which may synergize the retailer and customer thinking for better and long-term patronage of retail setups.
Moreover, this can also be traced from the Hadith: "Don't nurse grudge and don't bid him out for raising the price and don't nurse aversion or enmity and don't enter into a transaction when the others have entered into that transaction and be as fellow-brothers and servants of Allah. A Muslim is the brother of a Muslim. He neither oppresses him nor humiliates him nor looks down upon him. The piety is here, (and while saying so) he pointed towards his chest thrice. It is a serious evil for a Muslim that he should look down upon his brother Muslim. All things of a Muslim are inviolable for his brother in faith: his blood, his wealth and his honor" (Sahih Muslim-The Book of Virtues: 6219).
i. PI is the weakest link in the model. The reason behind it is the serious spaces is terms of the religious sensitivity stewardship in the marketing mi x. So the behavior can be in uenced by the cultural or other dynamics but the intention is dangling.
ii. This explains about the decision about religious orientation and PI for all other consumer products (banking and others).
iii. An empirical call for having a holistic Islamic marketing modelling or religious orientation stewardship backed holistic marketing can be the source for un-taping the consumer value that is stagnant due to lapses in the sources for PI creation.

Limitations And Future Direction
Role of extrinsic and intrinsic religiosity (Arli et al., 2020) and purchase behavior along with deeper insight into the demographics (weather through big data or online purchase platforms as being the post pandemic era). Religious orientation stewardship backed holistic marketing modelling through qualitative research in the multiple streams of products ranging from nancial and non-nancial categories in order to have a cluster of best practices and new variables that could be much more suitable in terms of the psychological capital (PsyCap) of the public at large where religious sensitivity is abundant or notable and can have business value impacts for the companies commonly. Moreover, exploring the connection between PsyCap and purchase behavior. New moderating variables from data science in the era of 4.0 may be infused to seek applications and implications for consumer intelligence and analytics perspectives.

Declarations
Due to technical limitations, Declarations section is not available for this version.