Assessing strategic orientation and mosques performance

Abstract

Mosque plays important roles as the religious organization among Muslims. Despite a sacred place, there are some other socio-economic roles are carried out by these institution such as the Islamic teaching and learning centre, waqf and zakat (alms) management and hearse management. Nevertheless, currently there are increasing number of economic activities executed by mosque leaders to serve the local Muslims community. This study assesses the relationship between strategic orientation initiatives and mosque's economic performance. The data is gathered through a structured questionnaire that was distributed amongst the mosques management committee leaders in the State of Selangor. The outcomes of path model analysis highlighted two important findings. First, the strategic orientation does exist among mosques management committee leaders. Second, relationship between strategic orientation and mosques non-financial performance is significantly related. The empirical evidence provides important initial exploration on enhancement of strategic orientation theory in the context of religion based organization. Drawing from the findings, we promote strategic choice for future mosque's strategic engagement with certain types of valuable community based economic activities.