Exploring stakeholders’ views on a corporatized zakat institution’s management performance

Purpose: This paper aims to fill the noticeably fragmented zakat literature repertoire by empirically exploring stakeholders’ views toward zakat management performance issues based on a selected zakat institution (ZI) operating on a corporatized platform with corporate administrative style. Design/methodology/approach: A quantitative approach using a questionnaire survey distributed to Muslims in the State which ZI is operating was adopted. A total of 448 usable responses are used in the analysis covering descriptive and mean difference. Findings: The results indicate that managerial reform configuration in terms of corporatization has been viewed positively by stakeholders, translated into a comforting agreement score toward ZI’s improved management performance (collection, disbursement and reporting). Such perceptions are, however, observably sensitive to demographic factors of gender and employment type. The survey also document evidence that the corporatization exercise itself had improved respondents’ confidence toward ZI being the zakat administrator in the State. Originality/value: The research contributes to the public policy debate with respect to corporatized ZI’s management performance from the stakeholders’ perspective. The results are arguably informative at various levels, forming a basis for reality check and policy inputs for various stakeholders, including (but not limited to) the ZI itself, zakat payers and asnafs, particularly in designing relevant and necessary administrative strategies and relevant policy formulation in addressing the performance and accountability issues in ZIs.