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APJML
27,2
324
Received 19 May 2014
Revised 18 September 2014
29 September 2014
Accepted 5 October 2014
Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing
and Logistics
Vol. 27 No. 2, 2015
pp. 324-348
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1355-5855
DOI 10.1108/APJML-05-2014-0082
Traceability systems in the
Western Australia halal food
supply chain
Delma Poniman
Faculty of Management, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia and
The Business School, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia
Sharon Purchase
The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia, and
Joanne Sneddon
The Business School, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the emergence and implementation of traceability
systems in the Western Australian (WA) Halal food industry. In particular, to understand how
individuals in facilitating organizations perceive the Halal idea logic and the benefits that a traceability
system can provide to the Halal food processing industry.
Design/methodology/approach – An empirical qualitative approach was employed to examine these
issues utilizing in-depth interviews. Thematic analysis was carried out using Leximancer software.
Findings – Findings suggest that individual’s perception of Halal idea logic is aligned to the roles they
perform. These perceptions were impacted by the specific objectives or business interests of each
organization. Facilitating organizations also perceive that traceability systems are a strategic tool in
the Halal food processing industry.
Practical implications – The research provides insights into how to improve existing understanding
of the Halal idea logic within Halal food business networks and the benefits of implementing traceability
systems in Halal food production. Joint activity between firms creates a network effect, where the value
created is greater than that which the firms alone can create.
Originality/value – Though traceability systems have become increasingly popular in the food
industry, little research has been undertaken to understand how individuals in facilitating organizations
perceive these systems, particularly in the growing Halal food industry. Hence, the study contributes to
the literature of traceability studies and the area of change and process adaptation in business
relationships in the context of halal food production.
Keywords Business networks, Leximancer, Facilitating organizations, Halal food supply chain,
Traceability system
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The global Halal economy comprises approximately 1.8 billion Muslims, about one-quarter
of the world’s population (Adams, 2011; Porter, 2014). The Halal sector is growing in both
Muslim majority and minority countries (Berry, 2011). The sectors growth in Muslim
minority countries (e.g. Russia, France) is attributed to its high quality and stringent
food preparation safety measures (Berry, 2011). In 2009, the Halal food market made
up 16 per cent of the global food industry, generating around $632 billion in revenue
(Alserhan, 2010) increasing to $700 billion in 2014 (Porter, 2014). Asian countries
The authors thank Ministry of Education, Malaysian Government, Universiti Teknologi
Malaysia and The University of Western Australia
dominate the global Halal food market, followed by Africa, Europe and the Americas. Western
However, the Australia/Oceania region is a significant emerging market for Halal Australia
food growing at 33.3 per cent between 2009 and 2010 (Berry, 2011).
In Islam, Halal food is defined as “food products that are prepared following a set of
halal food
Islamic dietary laws and regulations, which determine what is permissible, lawful and supply chain
clean” (Berry, 2011, p. 3). The word “Halal” comes from an Arabic language, meaning
lawful or permitted by the lawgiver (Allah). Halal encompasses all aspects of life 325
including: food, lifestyle, and services (Power, 2009) and is compulsory for Muslims
(Bonne and Verbeke, 2008). Obeying Halal requirements shows respect and protects the
Islamic faith (Laldin, 2006; Sungkar and Darhim, 2009). In terms of food, Muslims are
only allowed to consume food or drink that conforms to Islamic dietary laws as
specified in the Quran (the Islamic sacred book), the Hadiths (sayings) of the Messenger
of Allah – Prophet Muhammad, his Sunnah (tradition and teachings) and the Fiqh
(understanding) of the Islamic Jurists: Hanafi, Shafi’, Maliki, and Hambali.
Both Muslims and non-Muslims purchase Halal food, however, their purchase
motivations differ. While Muslims are obliged to consume only Halal food, non-Muslims
may choose to purchase Halal food to satisfy their concerns about food quality (i.e. the
“clean” aspect of food processing and preparation) (Power, 2009).
Despite the rapid growth in the market for Halal food among Muslim and non-Muslim
consumers, there is considerable debate about the integrity and authenticity of Halal
certified food. This debate has centred on the following issues:
(1) No unified Halal standard exists (Sungkar and Darhim, 2009), providing
opportunities for the fabrication of Halal certification (Anir et al., 2008).
(2) Modernization of food manufacturing processes leading to “grey areas” where
product ingredients falling between Halal and non-Halal (i.e. haram[1]) are
referred to jurists (local fatwa) to determine whether they can be consumed or
avoided (Tieman et al., 2012; Lam and Alhashmi, 2008).
Questions about the integrity and authenticity of Halal food highlight the need for
effective traceability systems to provide much needed transparency in the production
system (Meuwissen et al., 2003). Effective traceability systems require the cooperation
of all actors in the food production network (Opara, 2002, 2003). Industry actors must
comply with Halal dietary laws to ensure food product integrity from farm to fork
(Lodhi, 2009). The Halal food network comprises individuals or organizations who
are directly and indirectly involved with Halal food manufacturing organizations
(from purchasing, production, marketing, sales and other relevant departments in
the organization), suppliers, Islamic Organizations (IOs), the Government, research
institutes as well as competitors.
A few studies discuss traceability from the perspective of a single organization (Petroff
and Hill, 1991; Guercini and Runfola, 2009) while none have taken a co-ordinated
interdependent perspective. Opara (2002) argued that effective traceability management
systems should involve all actors in the supply chain from the primary producer to
individual consumers. Therefore, it is important to examine the perceptions of all
interdependent organizations to move towards shared understandings of the importance
and benefits of the adoption and implementation of traceability systems across the
business network. Failure to reach common understanding across the network of
the benefits and costs of traceability systems affects adoption and implementation
behaviours and consequently system effectiveness (Rajaguru and Matanda, 2013).
APJML In the Halal food production context, research has examined traceability from
27,2 the consumer’s perspective (Anir et al., 2008; Zailani et al., 2010), rather than the
organizational perspectives. Therefore, gap exists in the extant traceability systems
literature regarding organizational perceptions and behaviours towards the adoption
and implementation of traceability systems.
We explore these issues in the context of the WA Halal food industry by examining
326 how facilitating organizations perceive the Halal idea logic (Welch and Wilkinson,
2002) and the use of traceability systems. The present study focused on the
involvement of government bodies, research institutes, certifiers and independent food
advisory bodies in the WA Halal food industry. These organizations are referred to as
facilitators external to the focal manufacturing firm (Aarikka-Stenroos et al., 2014).
Facilitating organizations play a central role in innovations such as the implementation
of traceability systems by encouraging and supporting their adoption by
manufacturing organizations (Hobbs, 2003). The specific objectives of this research
were: to understand how individuals in facilitating organizations perceived the “Halal”
idea logic; and to investigate how individuals in facilitating organizations perceived the
costs and benefits of traceability systems to the Halal food processing industry.

2. Literature review
2.1 Business networks
The business network approach examines businesses as a network of interdependent
relationships. It is argued that no single business entity exists in isolation, instead it
maintains relationships with other network actors through resource sharing and
activity exchange, embedded in or connected to other relationships in the network
(Håkansson and Snehota, 1989). The “embeddedness” and “connectedness” of the
relationships cannot be disregarded when analysing any developments or changes in
those relationships (Håkansson and Snehota, 1995). For instance, the adoption and
implementation of traceability systems in the WA Halal food industry is an example of
how developments or changes in relationships may affect the innovation process, and
vice versa. Traceability system implementation, like other process changes, requires
various network actors to share and complement each other’s resources, in particular,
information (Easton, 1992). The information shared in traceability systems improves
the efficient use of shared resources throughout the network, while use of the system is
manifested through coordination activities (Håkansson, 1987; Håkansson et al., 2009;
Håkansson and Snehota, 1995).
In the business network approach, many actors are involved in the adoption of
innovations, such as Halal traceability systems, including suppliers, customers, regulators,
IOs and competitors. Every relationship in the network needs to be considered including
actors that are “external” to the innovation process itself. Therefore, this research focused
on the facilitating organizations external to the manufacturing process in the WA Halal
food industry in order to explore the developments and changes that occurred during the
innovation process.
2.1.1 Facilitating organizations as participants. The decision to adopt and implement a
traceability system is often influenced by the institutional context, namely those facilitating
organizations who are responsible for the system development policies (Ramesh, 1998).
Support from facilitating organizations often continues throughout process changes in
order to achieve successful implementation. Therefore, it is critical that the perspectives of
these network actors are captured as their direct or indirect interconnectedness can create
community pull effects (Hienerth and Lettl, 2011) and influence the adoption of Western
process changes (Aarikka-Stenroos et al., 2014). Hence, the present research Australia
proceeded with the assumption that facilitators influence the introduction of a new
phenomenon such as the Halal idea logic in the food industry and perceptions of
halal food
how the adoption and implementation of a traceability system might benefit the supply chain
Halal food processing industry.
The facilitating organizations that were the focus of this research played an 327
important role in the adoption and implementation of traceability systems within the
supply chain. Facilitating organizations were selected for this study as previous
research has paid little attention to their roles and perspectives. Given the critical role
that they play in the adoption and implementation of traceability systems the view of
facilitating organizations should not be underprivileged. Therefore, in advance of
examining the understanding of the halal idea logic among food manufacturing firms
in the Halal food network, it is important to examine the facilitating organization’s
understandings of this concept first (Aarikka-Stenroos et al., 2014). All actors in the
network will be impacted by participating in network process changes, even without
direct relationships to central organizations (Powell et al., 2005). Facilitators in our
research often had direct relationships with food manufacturers, farmers and food
retailers. However, in contrast to the spill-over effects as mentioned by Powell et al.
(2005), we argue that the facilitators may have “spill-in” effects with information
flowing into manufacturing organizations as cohesive networks and sub-networks
formed in the innovation process.

2.2 Traceability systems

Traceability is the ability to trace the history, application or location of a product by
means of recorded identification (ISO, 1995). Traceability requires knowledge sharing
on products and processes along the supply chain (Guercini and Runfola, 2009).
Implementing traceability allows supply chains to achieve regulatory compliance,
ethical, logistic efficiency, organization-self-protection, anti-counterfeit, and branding
differentiation aims (Ramesh, 1998; Töyrylä, 1999; Guercini and Runfola, 2009; Alfaro
and Rábade, 2009; Hobbs, 2003).
Establishing a multidisciplinary team approach (Florence and Queree, 1993; Sohal,
1997), and supply chain wide participation (Opara, 2003) is needed to reach a common
understanding of each organizations’ responsibilities and contribution to the adoption
and implementation of a traceability system. While traceability systems have
significant impacts on business relationship interdependencies (Guercini and Runfola,
2009) the integrated nature of traceability systems can result in conflict over ownership
of the system and its data (Töyrylä, 1999).
Traceability information can be a tool influencing supply chain management;
providing product and firm differentiation information (Guercini and Runfola, 2009;
Alfaro and Rábade, 2009; Hobbs, 2003); and verifying credence attributes (Golan et al.,
2004). Halal is a credence attribute of food similar to organic food, humanely treated
animal products and environmentally sustainable products as it cannot be easily
evaluated or ascertained by the consumer. Therefore, the attribute needs to be conveyed
to consumers with appropriate labelling (Bonne and Verbeke, 2008) that clearly
articulates its credibility and trustworthiness (Verbeke, 2005). One of the problems with
the food labelling is transparency. Food labels must include details for accuracy of
labelling information, complete information regarding source ingredients and Halal
APJML status of labelling and packaging material. To include all of this on standard food labels
27,2 is challenging due to space limitations.
2.2.1 Food product traceability system. The EU General Food Law Regulation (178/2002,
article 18) (Regulation178, 2002) describes food product traceability as the ability to trace
and follow a food, feed, food producing animal or substance through all stages of
production, processing and distribution. Traceability of food products has been widely
328 used since the late 1990s when organizations began to realize its potential benefits to
their business operations (Moe, 1998; Meuwissen et al., 2003; Regattieri et al., 2007; Guercini
and Runfola, 2009). It has gained ground in food literature with research focusing on the
technical instrumentations of traceability systems (Moe, 1998; Opara, 2002; Mcbratney
et al., 2005; Regattieri et al., 2007; Anir et al., 2008; Opara, 2003), the catalysts of its
implementation (Opara, 2002, 2003; Golan and Kuchler, 2002), and the challenges of
reaching its full potential (Opara, 2002, 2003).
Examples of mandatory traceability systems can be found in fresh beef sales within
the EU (Regattieri et al., 2007). Examples of voluntary traceability systems can be
found in: dairy products (Favaro et al., 2005; Perez-Aloe et al., 2007; Manikas and
Manos, 2009), poultry (Smith et al., 2005; Chansud et al., 2008), and fresh produce (Alfaro
and Rábade, 2009; Golan et al., 2004). In general, consumers are discerning about the food
that they consume and are positive about having information transparency on their
purchases (Opara, 2002, 2003; Hobbs, 2003; ).
The recent horse meat crisis in the EU (Borg-Tonio, 2013), where horse meat was
passed off as beef, brought attention to global food supply chain practices. The EU food
safety system, with its capacity for full traceability has identified fraudulent labelling
as the culprit for this crisis (Borg-Tonio, 2013). To strengthen consumer confidence in
food products, the EU is working on a tool to enable members of food networks to
rapidly exchange information and data on potential cases of cross-border fraud
(Borg-Tonio, 2014). In addition, the EU has also put in place a procedure to alert
the authorities should cases of violations that may constitute a fraud occur through the
rapid information exchange between relevant parties (Borg-Tonio, 2014).
Follow-up testing for horse meat DNA in beef products was undertaken in April
2014 to ascertain whether the traceability tool was effective. Findings showed that
the situation had significantly improved, further confirming that the EU’s effort of
mapping the existing tools and instruments promoting collaboration and cooperation
between the authorities to fight food fraud are fruitful (Comdoc, 2014). This effort by
the EU mandating greater use of traceability systems across food networks adds to the
provision that the traceability system would only reach its full potential when it is
implemented by the whole supply chain (Opara, 2002), rather than at an individual
organization level.
2.2.2 Implementing traceability and the concept of “embeddedness” in business
networks. In the context of implementing a traceability system, each organization’s
abilities and performance depends upon the activities of others in their network
regardless of direct or indirect relationships (Wilkinson et al., 2005). The embeddedness
and connectedness of interdependencies of all actors suggest that any innovation in the
network (i.e. traceability system) requires the resources of the whole network, rather
than a single actor, for it to be successfully implemented (Håkansson et al., 2009).
Organizations do not act or react without purposive intentions outside a social context;
instead, their actions and reactions are embedded in ongoing systems of social relations
(Granovetter, 1985). The interdependencies of these actors are somewhat embedded
and connected to other relationships, developed from the networking process within the Western
broader context of its business interactions (Anderson et al., 1998). The relationships that Australia
are built among network actors are subject to influence from other relationships and
other actors in the network (Håkansson and Snehota, 1989).
halal food
Over time, relationships and embeddedness of relationship interactions push supply chain
organizations to adopt and institutionalize process changes (Mattson, 1997). For
example, none of the organizations in the WA Halal food industry would have been 329
able to implement the traceability system without exchanging and sharing their
resources. These interdependencies result from the interactions within the network and
remain valid and intact throughout the traceability system’s implementation processes
(Håkansson et al., 2009).

2.3 The idea logic of halal in food

Idea logic is “the perceptions individuals and organizations have about self and others,
their beliefs or ‘theories’ about how the world functions, norms about appropriate
behaviour, attitudes towards particular issues as well as values concerning what is
desirable” (Welch and Wilkinson, 2002, p. 29). How the Halal idea logic is perceived
depends on two things:
(1) Ideas or schema that are clearly and precisely stated and understood by the
actors in the organizations themselves from the organizations’ objectives,
values and missions (Welch and Wilkinson, 2002).
(2) The shared cognition of the organizations’ in the business network (Håkansson
et al., 2009).
Shared cognition is developed through interaction processes where behavioural
perceptions are shared (Welch and Wilkinson, 2002). Hence, all supply chain organizations
from farm gate to retail shelf need to align schemas to ensure the Halal idea logic is well
understood.
2.3.1 Problems in halal food supply chains. First, there is no globally accepted unified
Halal certification as standards reflect differences in animal slaughtering legislation in
the Muslim world (Adams, 2011). Halal producers have to choose standards that are
acceptable for one market, limiting other potential markets. In Australia, there are 20 IO
approved by the Department of Agriculture to certify Halal meat and meat products
for different export markets. While attempts have been made to standardize Halal
certification, (e.g. Codex Alimentarius Commission has adopted Malaysia’s
MS1500:2004 Halal standard; Lam and Alhashmi, 2008; Adams, 2011), adoption has
not been achieved thus far.
Second, given the various Halal certifications in one country, for example, Malaysia,
there have been cases where the Halal logos were fabricated in order to attract
consumers, when in reality, the products were not even certified as Halal in the first
place (Anir et al., 2008). These unethical fabrications of Halal logo have made
consumers lose confidence in the Halal logo and labelling (Anir et al., 2008).
Third, product technology advancement has led to the blurring of boundaries
between Halal and non-Halal ingredients. Where source product ingredients are
doubtful, they are referred to Islamic experts to provide religious rulings (Tieman et al.,
2012) which takes time and resources. Even where ingredients are minor the inability to
confirm the Halalness jeopardizes the status of the end products.
APJML Food product traceability systems provide transparency in food processing
27,2 (Meuwissen et al., 2003) enabling consumers to gain confidence on Halal product claims
(Bonne and Verbeke, 2008). Traceability is critical for manufacturers, producers and
distributors (Shafii and Khadijah, 2012) and is becoming a mandatory requirement
(Alfaro and Rábade, 2009) in the EU (Kehagia et al., 2007), USA (Miller, 2013), and
Canada (Boecker et al., 2013).
330
3. Methodology
This is a qualitative research within an interpretive paradigm, with the WA’s Halal
food industry being the phenomenon studied. Qualitative inquiry is highly appropriate
when studying process as it enables comprehensive descriptions of interactions taking
place between the parties involved, permits the apprehension of varied experiences of
many people in the interactions. A qualitative approach allows for clearer description
of the dynamic elements in the process not presentable on a single rating scale, and
considering that the process is actually from the perceptions of the people involved in it
(Patton, 2002). This research focused on understanding the perceptions of the
facilitating organizations of the Halal idea logic and the potential adoption and
implementation of traceability system to provide transparency in the Halal market.
Therefore an empirical qualitative approach was deemed suitable for this research.
Furthermore, the theoretical perspective of interpretivism supported the research aims
to look for culturally derived and historically situated interpretations of the Halal
concept from the cognitive perspectives of the facilitators that governed the Halal food
industry in Western Australia (Crotty, 1998).
Given the cultural context of the study, the researchers endeavoured to maintain a
balanced view of the data collected and analysed (Holloway and Biley, 2011; Doyle,
2012). This balance was sought by having three researchers with different prior
knowledge in the areas of Halal, business networks and innovation within agriculture
contexts to provide a more comprehensive evaluative rigour in the analysis.
Data were collected through in-depth interviews and analysed through systematic
combining processes following an abductive approach of thematic analysis
(Dubois and Gadde, 2002; Aronson, 1994; Boyatzis, 1998; Crabtree and Miller, 1999;
Fereday and Muir-Cochrane, 2006) to “list significant statements, determine
meaning of statements and identify the essence of the phenomenon” ( Johnson and
Christensen, 2008).
A sample size of twelve interviewees from ten facilitating organizations was selected
(Creswell, 1998; Johnson and Christensen, 2008; Morse, 1994; Sandelowski, 1995). These
12 interviewees covered all of the facilitating organizations involved in the Halal food
industry in WA. They were specifically chosen for their industry experience, which is
one of objects for the purposive sampling (i.e. events, incidents and experiences, not
people) (Miles and Huberman, 1994; Corbin and Strauss, 1990). The interviewees list is
shown in Table I. They include:
(1) three staff from government agriculture departments;
(2) four researchers and consultants located in research institutes whose major
areas of expertise are in the food sector;
(3) four Muslim certifiers from the IOs that have an approved arrangement with
the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS); and
(4) one food industry advisor in a local independent industry advisory body.
 Number of
Western
Organizations Roles Interviewees Pseudonyms Australia
1. Department of Health Manager Food Unit, Environmental 1 GD1 halal food
Health Directorate, Public Health and supply chain
Clinical Services Division
2. Department of Director Food and Agribusiness 2 GD2, GD3
Agriculture WA Development and Manager of Food 331
Integrity and Regulatory Affairs,
3. Curtin University Consultants 2 RI1, RI2
4. CSIRO Research Scientist, Animal, Food and 1 RI3
Health Sciences
5. AgResearch Limited Senior Scientist, Food Assurance and 1 RI4
Meat Quality
6. Islamic Association of Shire and Certifier 1 C1
Katanning
7. Western Australian Halal State Supervisor 1 C2
Halal Authority Table I.
8. Perth Mosque Halal State Supervisor 1 C3 Research
9. Halal Saddiq Services Certifier 1 C4 participants

In-depth interviews were conducted using a semi-structured approach to consider

their perceptions of Halal idea logic (Welch and Wilkinson, 2002); and benefits that a
traceability system can provide. All interviewees had more than five years of experience
in the food manufacturing industry. Each interview lasted for 60-90 minutes depending
on the breadth of the services offered by the organizations. The interviews were digitally
recorded and transcribed verbatim producing a total of 191 pages of single-spaced text.
The abductive analysis began by undertaking a thematic analysis to search for
emerging themes to describe the WA’s Halal food industry (Aronson, 1994; Boyatzis,
1998; Crabtree and Miller, 1999; Fereday and Muir-Cochrane, 2006). For this study,
Leximancer was used to carry out the thematic analysis. Leximancer is a text-mining tool
that analyses text data (Grech et al., 2002; Cretchley et al., 2010). Leximancer assists in
issues of human preconceptions and aids in building verifications and trustworthiness
by running the thematic analysis automatically and for that matter provides the analysis
from a “fresh set of eyes” (Gapp et al., 2013), and eliminating potential researcher bias
(Smith and Humphreys, 2006).
Leximancer functions by applying an algorithm to the input data (transcriptions).
The software recognizes different interviewee views by examining concept commonalities
and connections (Munksgaard and Medlin, 2014). Concepts here refer to “terms classifiers”
(that were derived from the iterative process of seeding the word definitions from the word
frequency and co-occurrence usage of the important lexical terms in the input data (Smith
and Humphreys, 2006, p. 262). As the concepts connect with each other, they are grouped
and associated together under a higher hierarchy and more general parent concepts which
are then referred to as themes (Smith and Humphreys, 2006). The semantic structure of
the input data are visualized in the form of a concept map.
To address the first aim of the research, data were analysed in eight stages
(see Appendix). The second research objective was addressed using both Leximancer
and a direct content analysis approach, defined as techniques “for making inferences
by systematically and objectively identifying special characteristics in messages”
(Holsti, 1968, p. 108).
APJML 4. Findings and discussions
27,2 4.1 Leximancer coding of concepts and themes
The concept map is shown in Figure 1. As depicted in the concept map, six themes were
generated representing 32 concepts.
The map provides a conceptual overview of the semantic structure of the data, as
well as an indication of the strength of association between concepts (Cretchley et al.,
332 2010) and can be considered as a schema configuration (Munksgaard and Medlin,
2014). The four tagged folders (generated in Stage 2) are shown on the concept map and
illustrate how the different tagged folders are connected to the concepts and themes.
With the tagged analysis feature of the software, it is possible to show the varied logic
or schemas of the interviewees (Welch and Wilkinson, 2002; Munksgaard and Medlin,
2014) based on the relative locations of the tagged folders and themes.
It is important to note that the size of the themes is not representative of the
frequency/percentage of the concepts in the text, instead it indicates their weight and
connectedness to other concepts (Hepworth and Paxton, 2007; Grech et al., 2002;
Cretchley et al., 2010). The bigger the size of the bubble, the more prominent it is.
For example, the size of the themes “Food” and “Halal” are both big when compared to
others, indicating that these two themes have the most connected concepts in the data.

Figure 1.
Concept map from
leximancer
Connected concepts here referred to the hierarchical order of appearance of the Western
concepts where either directly or indirectly-connected concepts can be interpreted into Australia
emergent behaviour (relationship) (Smith and Humphreys, 2006). For example, results
indicate that the themes “food” and “Halal” were positioned in the centre of the map.
halal food
The proximity of these two themes suggest that whenever the interviewees talked supply chain
about “system”, “chain”, “abattoir”, and “time”, the concepts within these themes are
often closely connected to the theme “food” and “Halal”. 333
Food was ranked the highest (100 per cent), the second ranked theme was Halal (86
per cent), the third and fourth ranked themes were System (16 per cent) and Chain (16
per cent), the fifth ranked theme was Time (9 per cent) and the last ranked theme was
Abattoir (8 per cent) (Figure 2).
The percentages refer to the “connectivity” score indicating how important the themes
are relative to one another. Therefore, the theme Food was ranked highest indicating its
connectedness to the other themes in the concept map. Two themes, Food and Halal were
highly connected, recording above 86 per cent connectivity score. However, the percentage
dropped substantially for the third and subsequent themes. For example, the themes like
System and Chain recorded less than 20 per cent connectivity scores with other themes.
The following analysis of the interview data focused on the four largest themes.
Contextual similarity: Table II shows the prominent themes, concepts and the
concept meaning discussed during the 12 interviews.

Percentage
Abattoir 8
Time 9
Chain 16
System 16
Halal 86 Figure 2.
Food 100
Ranked-ordered
themes
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Themes Concepts Concept meaning

Food Food Food industry
Business Organizations in the food industry
Product Food products
Industry Food industry
Market Food markets
Quality Food quality and quality management systems
Produce Food products or manufacture
Halal Halal Lawful food consumable by Muslims
People Individuals or organizations in the food supply chain
Meat Halal meat
Certification Various food accreditations
Export Export market
System System Variety of systems in organizations
Traceability Traceability system and Quality Assurance system Table II.
Chain Supply chain Supply chain Themes and concept
APJML Concepts within each theme had contextual similarity and appeared very close to each
27,2 other, an indication that they were often used together in a sentence. For example,
further investigation showed that “traceability system” was a phrase frequently used
in the interviews to describe the systems implemented in the organizations; therefore
those concepts were closely aligned in the theme “system”.
Tags: interviewees were tagged into four groups – Government Departments,
334 research institutes, certifiers and independent industry advisory body to enable the
exploration of schema differences. The concept map showed four groups (tags)
associated with different sections in the concepts area, thus indicating the closeness of
the concepts’ semantic relationships to the different groups. The proximity between
those tags indicated the similarity of perceptions between the groups and the concepts
they had strongest association with. Further interpretations of this tagged folder
location is as detailed in Section 4.2.

4.2 Analyses of “halal” perceptions by tagged groups

As shown in Figure 3, tag groups are associated with different themes and the
positioning of the tags in the map reflect the different schema of the four tagged
groups. The Government Departments and the Independent Food Advisory Body tags
were relatively close together, an indication that the two groups had more similarity
and perhaps overlapping schemas. These two tag groups were closely connected to the

Figure 3.
Tags positioning in
the concept map
themes – System and Chain suggesting that they placed more emphasis on these Western
two themes as compared to the other themes. Australia
This finding may be associated with the functions and the objectives of the two
organizations themselves, as their roles involve monitoring of the whole food industry
halal food
in WA. Given their objectives, those organizations were more interested in the supply chain
economic development in the food supply chain such as the implementation of
the traceability systems, and how food businesses used such systems to improve their 335
businesses. Food safety and food quality matters are at the forefront of government
policy (Hobbs, 2003) as outlined below:
We […] deal with all agriculture and food businesses right throughout the supply chain […]
our responsibility extends well beyond the farm gate, that responsibility is economic
development responsibility, not a health responsibility or regulations responsibility, it’s about
assisting business to be mmm better businesses. So that’s our purpose, as a as an organization
to support the success of businesses in Western Australia (M, GD2).
[…] the better businesses actually understand quality assurance system as being a good way
of doing business […]. There’s six ways of achieving you know higher rates of profit, and one
of them is loose less and loose less often and QA systems allow you to do that […] QA systems
are food profit generators […] (M, GD2).
The other two groups, Certifiers and Research Institutes, were positioned further
away from the first two groups but were closely positioned to the Halal theme.
The close proximity of these two tagged groups to the theme Halal indicated that the
two groups were more interested in Halal as compared to other themes in the concept
map. This could be linked to their roles as they work within the Halal food processing
industry.
Research Institutes interviewees were well-versed on Halal and related to it as both a
food preparation process and its importance towards the Islamic religion:
The word Halal mean suitable for consumption under Islamic Syariah Law (F, RI2).
I’ve got a reasonably detail understanding about to that point where I’m acutely aware of
under Islamic law or jurisdiction or structure in for example Malaysia there is completely
different interpretation of how Halal means to Saudi or in Emirates (M, RI2).
Within the Certifiers group, their duties and responsibilities are to ensure that food
products adhere to Halal food supply chain requirements. They would not want to be
held responsible for anything that could jeopardize the halal status of the food
products, and therefore, place strong emphasis on their work. The use of “I” and “my”
showed that Halal was very personal to this group and that they have internalized the
Halal idea logic individually:
I’m going to be answerable […] you know, that is on MY leg, what is made Halal, what XXX
has made Halal, we are all going to be answerable for that (M, C2).
For the remaining two groups, their understanding of Halal idea logic could be inferred
from the knowledge pathway analysis. The knowledge pathway analysis indicated the
contribution of a particular concept from the start and end of the path that the concept
traverses. The pathway does not necessarily represent how interviewees interpreted
those concepts, but indicates how the concepts are linked to one another in their
responses to the interviews. The pathway is presented in an associated contribution
score (e.g. Food: 0.38) where the score reflects “the contribution of that concept in
linking together the start and end of the pathway” (Letch, 2013, p. 446).
APJML The path from Government Department group goes to Food first (contribution ¼ 0.38),
27,2 then to Halal (contribution ¼ 0.62). This suggests that the interviewees in this group view
Halal in the sense that it is the processing of the food:
My understanding of Halal is the method for food processing. Procedures are suitable for
Halal consumption (M, GD1).

336 The knowledge pathway analysis for the Independent Food Advisory Body has a path
from the group to Business (contribution ¼ 0.18) and then Food (contribution ¼ 0.62)
followed by Halal (contribution ¼ 0.2). An interviewee from this group also referred to
Halal as a process:
Well, I supposed I have a very crude understanding of it and Halal to me is a food preparation
process […] that is acceptable under Islam rule (F, IFAB11).
Comparing the two groups, the findings show that within the Government Department
group, the contribution of Food to Halal is very high (0.62) suggesting a strong
association. However, in the Independent Food Advisory Body, the contribution from
Food to Halal is only 0.20, which is a relatively weaker relationship. The difference of
the contribution scores between the two groups suggests that the Government
Department always referred to Halal food when they talked about the concept Food,
whereas the Independent Food Advisory Body did not always refer to just Halal food
when the concept Food was mentioned. This could be linked to the membership of the
advisory body. Out of the 600 food business member, very few were actually involved
in Halal food businesses, limiting the advisory body’s interactions with Halal. The low
contribution figures in the knowledge pathway analysis from Food to Halal in the Food
Advisory Body could also be attributed to the fact that the focus of the organizations
interacting with the Food Advisory Body is more on the strategic management rather
than the products or services of the business itself (i.e. halal food).
The knowledge pathway analyses for the other two groups, Certifiers and Research
Institutes, both showed a direct traverse between the group to Halal (contribution ¼ 1.00),
indicating strong and stable relationships of the two groups to the Halal idea logic. Again,
these findings could be attributed to the fact that both groups were closely related to the
concept of Halal due to the nature of their duties and responsibilities in the industry.
Halal idea logic interpretations were also analyzed from the rank-ordered concept
list analysis. Halal was ranked at varied level in each group of interviewees. The Halal
idea logic was ranked at: number eight in the Certifiers’ group; number 16 in the
Research Institutes’ group; number 18 in the Government Departments’ group; and
number 22 in the Independent Food Advisory Body group. The findings suggest that
Halal was ranked differently given that different organizational goals or business
interests left a lot of room for varied information (Halinen et al., 2013) on how the
business participants view the Halal idea logic.
In general, all of the interviewees appear to have a basic understanding of the Halal
idea logic. All of them acknowledged that Halal is food that is suitable for consumption
for Muslims under the Islamic law. Most interviewees thought of Halal only as a
requirement in food consumption, but one interviewee from a Research Institute
pointed out that the Halal idea logic extends beyond consumable food, where it actually
begins from the act of obtaining the food itself:
Halal means what is acceptable for Muslims […]. This is what Halal is, and also what we can
do and what we cannot do, in terms of our actions. In terms of our actions, interactions with
other people, so all these combined, what is Halal and what is not Halal (M, RI4).
Halal idea logic reaches much further than the binding laws that must be observed by Western
Muslims, it reflects the act of worship to the Creator (Allah). For Muslims, Halal food is Australia
more than a product attribute (Wilson and Liu, 2010; Zakaria and Abdul-Talib, 2010).
It combines Islamic dietary laws and also the religious values of the manufacturing
halal food
organizations and the individuals in those organizations. Findings suggest that this supply chain
was the case for the Certifiers’ understanding as it is closely aligned to the theme
“Halal” as compared to the other three groups. 337
Following the abductive approach, these observations of the perceptions of halal
idea logic led the researchers to the second phase of the analysis to examine the
perceived costs and benefits of a traceability system to the Halal food processing
industry. The findings in Section 4.3 were analysed using Leximancer analysis and
content analysis.

4.3 Analyses of the perceived costs and benefits that a traceability system delivers to
the Halal food processing industry
The analyses on benefits of traceability systems were carried out from the concept
centrality and rank-ordered concept list analyses. The two themes – “Halal” and “System”
were not closely aligned as seen in the concept map (Figure 1). In terms of rank-ordered
concept list analysis in the different groups, the concept traceability under the theme
“System” was ranked highest in the Government Departments’ group suggesting that
traceability was an important tool to them. The finding suggests that interviewees from
the Government Departments were more focused on “System” because traceability
systems are more than just Halal. Such systems offer wider benefits including valued
information as a product attribute (Moe, 1998); liability protection for the organization
(Meuwissen et al., 2003) and efficiency in supply chain management (Guercini and
Runfola, 2009; Regattieri et al., 2007).
Furthermore, the action to adopt and use a traceability system was most often
“influenced by the institutional context, such as corporate strategies for traceability”
(Ramesh, 1998, p. 38). Government Departments have been actively promoting the
adoption of traceability systems and one department had sponsored staff to carry out
doctoral research benchmarking traceability systems:
We sponsored a PhD student at Curtin University to look into the uptake of Quality
Assurance (traceability system) in Western Australia by food businesses […] (M, GD2).
This strong urge for the adoption of a traceability system by the Government
Departments not only suggested that it is a tool for inter-organization control but it can
be used to gain market power (Guercini and Runfola, 2009; Alfaro and Rábade, 2009;
Hobbs, 2003). The following excerpts quote two of the interviewees who supported the
above as the benefits of implementing the traceability system:
I think the first instance is always compliance […] and you understand where the problem is
early […]. and you understand what you need to do to address that so yeah good businesses
understand that QA systems are good profit generators not just the compliance, you have to
you have to comply to this (M, GD2).
They’re not just they’re not just something to get you customers. They actually are a useful
tool (F, GD3).
With this strong emphasize on the importance of the traceability system, it can be
inferred that the system could be further exploited to increase profitability in the Halal
food context. Food businesses should take advantage of its mandatory requirement in
APJML their operations and use the system to provide other valuable benefits in terms of
27,2 marketing strategies, in particular branding and firm differentiation:
The traceability system can be used as a business development tool in telling a story […]
whether it’s Halal or organic or any other attributes (M, GD2).
It will work the same with any other products, in terms of they would have to be able to show
338 some manufacturers are one of manufacture Halal products […] (M, GD1).
Therefore, there is potential for a Halal food product traceability system to provide
transparency of information surrounding food processing (Meuwissen et al., 2003) and
increase consumers’ trust in the food production process over and above the Halal
credence attribute (Zailani et al., 2010).
The “traceability” concept was ranked very low in the Certifiers’ group (27/30). Out
of four certifiers, only one certifier claimed that it has a traceability system in place:
And then we have the sticker system, it’s the traceability. […] we can trace by the stickers.
Our condition is I think it’s number 6 or number 7, every carton in and out of the company
must be Halal-stickered. So if the company manufactured small goods like Bolognese or
something and they send it to the butcher shop, it must have a sticker on it. So when we go
inspect the shop, we will trace which company do they use (Male, C2).
Therefore, the Certifiers group may not be aware of what is meant by traceability systems.
The double sense-making process (Halinen et al., 2013) has allowed the researcher to
interpret the subjective meaning of experience expressed by the interviewees in that they
may have thought of it as a “software and hardware program”, and missed the point that
the traceability systems can refer to manual data management, which all of them
presently have in their operations. The following extract indicates that the traceability
system is present in a manual form:
We have to put that stamp on all documentation when we certify or not certify – when we
prepare the documentation to go to all the Islamic countries who purchases the product from
the abattoirs […]. if you look at the top, here is the RFP number, then look for your RFP
number. It should be stamped on the RFP number oh it’s a Hong Kong line, yeah, all right here
is Hong Kong, there you go. See Hong Kong. It says Hong Kong Air Freight Australia 1 of 43.
It should be 10 pages (M, C3).
The misalignment of interpreting what is a traceability system makes it more
challenging to fully utilize these systems across the business network. Though the
traceability system is a compulsory requirement, full functionality cannot be utilized if
it is unavailable throughout the whole supply chain, hence the need for all actors in the
supply chain to embrace the full potential functionality of a traceability system (Opara,
2002, 2003).
It is interesting to note that Interviewee GD2 pointed out that depending on the
distance of relationship power between the certifier and the manufacturer or between
the manufacturer and its suppliers; the need of having a proper system in place may
well be affected by the trust factor:
No, it has, again this is the trust factor, so whoever the player is in the chain, the pivot point
has to have enough assurity or assurance of the attributes of the product from each of those
suppliers, so they may have no QA system or traceability systems, but because they’re close
enough to the business, where they know that the attribute is entirely correct, then that’s
something that they they’ll trust and therefore take on responsibility as they use that
ingredients perhaps and take it through the chain that way. If their relationship would, the
 business is a lot more distance, and less trustworthy then they will need some proof and Western
evidence, and that’s where the QA system comes in, so depends on that sort of relationships of
the clients through the channel (M, GD2).
Australia
halal food
Interviewee GD1 also mentioned that the government expects the certifier to be supply chain
independent of the manufacturer to ensure there is no coercive attempt by the
manufacturer to allow certification process taking place easily:
339
They’re all set by the Islamic groups, so we didn’t get involved in that to any ground or extend
other than to ensure that they are following the document and they’re doing what they say
they’re doing […] (M, GD1).
This finding may have implications for interdependence in business networks. The
interdependence between organizations may well constrain behaviours between those
organizations (Håkansson and Ford, 2002). As illustrated by Interviewee GD2, a
supplier’s position in the network may affect its relationship with the manufacturer.
A business relationship that was developed from their past business transactions
history and is ongoing, will not be affected even if the other party (the supplier) may or
may not have a traceability system in place. Given its current strong ties and position
in the network, the supplier would still be chosen as one of its supplier. This is due to
the relationships, rights and obligations that they have built through their past
interactions (Turnbull et al., 1996). Therefore, having a traceability system in place would
definitely strengthen one’s position in the network.
As a conclusion to this finding, Table III summarizes the perceived costs and
benefits that a traceability system delivers to the Halal food processing industry from
the facilitating organizations’ perspectives.

5. Managerial implications
In terms of managerial contribution, this paper provides an understanding of current
scenario of Halal food industry within WA that provides insights into: improving
existing understanding of the Halal idea logic not only to the facilitating actors, but to
all actors in the business network to ensure mutual understanding of the concept; and
how to align the true interpretation of what is meant by a traceability system across the
supply chain. These insights have important policy implications for government as the
findings suggest that there are misinterpretations and misalignment of the traceability
system constraining successful implementation.
In both issues above (i.e. interpretation of Halal and traceability), there appeared to
be a missing concept of meaning of the Halal and traceability elements between actors.
While the certifiers seemed to pay more attention to the Halal aspects of the products,

Costs Benefits
1. Misinterpretation of what constitutes a 1. Tool for inter-organizational control
traceability system
2. Misalignment of true interpretation of the 2. Tool for market power
traceability systems
3. Inclusion of supply chain wide participation in 3. Tool for branding and firm differentiation Table III.
the implementation process strategies Perceived costs and
4. Power and relationship interdependencies in the 4. Provide transparency of information that can benefits of a
network increase consumers’ trust traceability system
APJML the Government Departments focused more on production processes (i.e. traceability).
27,2 Findings confirm that industry standards, developed by Government Departments,
focused mainly on business needs of the food supply chain, rather than the ethical
norms or religious requirements of consumers. The generic industrial standards are
devoid of ethical and religious values, therefore direct transfer of technology such as
the traceability system would not necessarily lead to success as it needs to be adapted
340 to the Halal requirements and values. The standard for traceability implementation is
covered by the ISO Standard for Quality Management System – ISO 9001:2008. This
standard aims to enhance customer satisfaction through the effective application of the
quality management system. This includes processes for continual improvement of
the system and the assurance of conformity to customer, statutory, and regulatory
requirements. Though the standard is a process-based quality management system
consisting of management responsibilities, resource management, product realization
and measurement, analysis and improvement elements, it lacks the elements of capturing
the ethical norms or religious customs in the manufacturing process. Therefore, it is
essential for the facilitating organizations responsible for developing policies to
understand the Halal idea logic thoroughly before adopting the traceability system into
the Halal food industry context.
Although the Islamic slaughtering process is accepted by the regulatory authorities
in Australia, the Halal food supply chain remains unregulated, especially for domestic
markets. For export markets, exporters can refer to Australian Government
Department of Agriculture Meat Notice Number: 2013/08 where it provides updates
on the guidelines for the preparation, identification storage and certification for export
of halal red meat and red meat products. However, Halal standards, certifications
and monitoring procedures for domestic markets are established by personal efforts
of the local, IOs themselves. These organizations have few resources to devote to
understanding the scientific aspects of the modern food processing. Local IOs may
not understand traceability systems, therefore affecting how they make sense of the
system itself.
Therefore, it is essential that certifiers and Government Departments work closely
to ensure shared understandings of Halal as an ethical norm or religious requirement
and the traceability system as an innovative process of ensuring food safety and
quality. Achieving a shared understanding would also help these organizations gain
trustworthiness in the accreditation claims made by producers.
In order to address these issues, it is recommended that training and knowledge
sharing seminars are organized to educate key employees in halal food networks on the
true interpretation of Halal. In WA, the Government also need to address the absence of
political will in the regulation of halal food supply chain given that Halal consumers are
increasing rapidly in the domestic market. As more people from around the world are
migrating to WA, the demand for Halal food products are increasing. With no proper
regulations for Halal certification in the domestic market, most food products do not
bear any Halal identification and therefore fail to attract consumers who would prefer
halal. Internationally, a special task force attached to the Codex Alimentarius should
also be established to formulate international guidelines in the handling and processing
of Halal food. In terms of traceability knowledge, the responsible Government
Departments should take actions in studying how can the traceability systems be
adapted to suit the halal food industry and then continue advocating its importance to
all actors in the halal food network. The findings provide information about the current
level of understanding on the importance of traceability systems as perceived by the
facilitating actors. Knowing these different understandings of traceability, the Western
Government Departments can design education tailored to different groups of actors in Australia
the network rather than presenting general information to cater to all actors.
halal food
6. Conclusion supply chain
To conclude, this paper explored the Halal food industry within WA, looking at the
emergence of traceability systems and how individuals in the facilitating organizations 341
perceive the Halal idea logic and relate to the possibilities of exploiting traceability
systems in the industry. The findings suggest that facilitating organizations generally
understand the Halal idea logic in food processing and that to some extent differs
according to their roles and objectives/goals of their organizations. The findings also
suggest that traceability systems can further be exploited to benefit the Halal food
industry.
Joint activity between firms creates a network effect, where the value created is
greater than that which the firms alone can create (Munksgaard and Medlin, 2014).
Therefore, if all facilitating organizations have consistent schema logic and collaborate
and cooperate with each other, there is a greater chance that the advocacies of these
two areas of Halal and traceability will generate a greater impact on the business
network, rather than if it was advocated individually by each facilitating organization.
It is also important to highlight that this paper only includes facilitating
organizations, leaving out the perspectives of other actors in the Halal food industry.
This is one of the limitations of this study, which will provide a valuable agenda for
future research. In addition, it is stressed here that the present findings are only
restricted to sub-set of the Halal food supply network in Western Australia, which is
just the facilitating organizations. Regardless of its lack of generalizability to a wider
coverage, and its limitation, this study, on the other hand, could be the cornerstone of
the studies of business relationships in the context of Halal food industry in WA that
has not yet been explored in the literature. Therefore, further studies covering this area
are strongly recommended, for example extending this study to involve the other
actors in the Halal food ecology (individuals who are directly and indirectly involved in
the Halal food manufacturing operations organizations from: purchasing, production,
marketing, sales and other relevant departments in the organization; the suppliers; the
organization’s suppliers’; customers; as well as the competitors in the Halal food
industry).

Note
1. Haram is what is forbidden and punishable according to Islamic law. Haram includes any
prohibited pattern of behaviour, speech, dress, conduct and manner under Islamic Law
(Al Jallad, 2008). According to the Quran, haram foods include dead animals, and blood, and the
flesh of swine, and that which is slaughtered as a sacrifice for other than Allah (or has been
slaughtered for idols, on which Allah’s name has not been mentioned while slaughtering).

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Appendix. Stages of data analysis

Stage 1: importing data into Leximancer software
A new project was created in Leximancer portal. Before loading the data, the transcripts were
formatted according to the format that is accepted by Leximancer. Transcripts were grouped into
four folders according to the specific groups – Government Departments, research institutes,
certifiers and independent food advisory body to allow comparison later. Once the new project
has been created, data was loaded into the system.
Stage 2: generating concept seeds
Once the data has been successfully loaded, the next step is to generate concept seeds.
A concept seed is the starting point for the definition of the concept where it is automatically
extracted from the text. Leximancer identified concept as a set of words that travelled together
through the text (Cretchley et al., 2010). A concept also represents a thesaurus where associated
words were weighted according to their relative importance in the concept generation. Next, the
Apply folder tags button was clicked while the other settings were left at default settings as
recommended by the developer.
Stage 3: generating thesaurus
There were two levels of settings in this stage. The first one was to edit the concept seeds.
In this step, the data were cleaned in such ways that similar words despite of its singular
and plural forms were merged together (e.g. business and businesses) and words that do not carry
weights (stop words such as “hmmm” and “aaaa”) as well as conjunctions were omitted from
the analysis.
The second level was to edit the thesaurus settings. In this step, the settings were left at
default settings as they were suitable for this research project.
Stage 4: running project
Next step was to run the project. All three settings in the Run Project settings – Compound
Concepts, Concept Coding Settings and Project Output Settings were left at default setting.
The thematic analysis was performed automatically in this step where it will produce a concept
map in the next step.
Stage 5: generating the concept map
Leximancer generated a concept map (an indicative visualization that presents concepts and
themes) based on the input text in a fully automatic mode (without any human intervention
for coding the concepts) (Grech et al., 2002) in a grounded fashion (Cretchley et al., 2010).
The programme generated concepts and themes from the occurences of words in the input data. Western
Similar concepts often located together in a close proximity. Themes were visualized in circles
where concepts were clustered together to summarize the main ideas in those particular clusters
Australia
(Cretchley et al., 2010). The largest dot in the theme cluster indicated the most prominent concept halal food
in the group, hence is often used to name the theme, though the themes can always be renamed supply chain
whenever appropriate (Cretchley et al., 2010).
With the use of Leximancer, the reliability of the concepts and themes was assessed in terms
of stability and reproducibility (Cretchley et al., 2010). The data were imported into the 347
programme three times, and the same result of concept map was produced at each attempt,
indicating the reliability of the concepts and themes produced.

Stage 6: connecting the concepts to identify themes

The concept map was examined by looking at: the total interconcept co-occurrence (proximity)
(Smith and Humphreys, 2006); rank-ordered themes (Cretchley et al., 2010); text query options
(Cretchley et al., 2010); and knowledge pathway analysis (Letch, 2013).

The total interconcept co-occurrence (proximity)

In terms of positioning, the position of the concepts in the concept map is an indication of:
(1) the closeness of their semantic relationship to other concepts in the concept map; and
(2) the closeness of their semantic relationship to particular groups (tags).
Rank-ordered themes
The themes were ranked with a reference to percentage. The percentage refers to the
“connectivity” score that indicates how important the themes are in relative to one another.

Knowledge pathway analysis

A knowledge pathway illustrates the storyline between concepts. It provides a relationship of
how concepts are linked from one to another by the interviewees. These examinations provided
instances of specific concepts to understand the relationships between the concepts.

Text query options

Text that was attached to the concepts was checked for whether the concepts were generated
from text that can be categorized as such concepts. Examples of the Halal idea logic with the
excerpts from the different group of interviewees are shown below.

Concepts: Quotations: Tag folders:

Halal “Halal means what is acceptable for Muslims […]. This is what Research institute
Halal is, and also what we can do and what we cannot do, in terms of
our actions. In terms of our actions, interactions with other people,
so all these combined, what is Halal and what is not Halal”
“My understanding of Halal is the method for food processing. Government
Procedures are suitable for Halal consumption, that is to me. Department
Nothing serious there”
“There wasn’t thing like this before. This is man- made. All this Certifier
Halal idea logic and thing is man-made. This is my perception of
Halal. So it’s the fear, the fear of Allah SWT (Glorified and Exalted
be He what you want to answer. But I’m going to be answerable”
“[…] Halal to me is a food preparation process […] so to achieve Independent food
accreditation, there are a number of ways, for example advisory body Table AI.
manufacturing processes, arrangements of the factory, how the man Examples of
the food is handled and managed have to comply to a certain excerpts from the
number of criteria” participants
APJML Stage 7: matching between empirical data and literature
As concepts and themes emerged from the Leximancer thematic analysis, they were then
27,2 matched between theory (literature) and reality (empirical data). Then, the systematic combining
approach began. Transcripts were constantly visited back and forth from one to another in each
of the different groups of the interviewees to match the emerging data with the literature. It is in
this step that the analytical technique of pattern matching (Yin, 2009; Miles and Huberman, 1994)
was employed. Patterns were identified by the tag analysis in Leximancer, and then explained by
348 comparing and contrasting with different tagged groups. The emerging patterns (realities) were
compared and contrasted.
Stage 8: corroborating and legitimizing coded themes
Next, the researcher corroborates and legitimizes the coded themes by listing the significant statements
according to the objectives of the study, determining the meaning of those statements and identifying
the essence of the phenomenon (Johnson and Christensen, 2008). The step-by-step process of analysis
that is outlined above shows how the themes were formulated from the initial interview data.

About the authors

Delma Poniman is a Doctoral Candidate in Marketing at The Business School, The University of
Western Australia, a Tutor in Marketing Panel at the Business Administration Department,
Faculty of Management, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. Delma Poniman is the corresponding
author and can be contacted at: delma.poniman@research.uwa.edu.au
Sharon Purchase is a Professor at the UWA Business School. Sharon worked for 13 years
within the engineering sector for both private and public organizations. During this time Sharon
worked in marketing, sales and consulting while completing her MBA part-time. Sharon began
working in academia on a part-time basis as she was studying for her PhD from 1996 to 1999.
Her PhD research investigated the internationalization process of Australian Engineering
consultants through their business networks and relationships. On completing her PhD she has
worked in academia on a full time basis. Sharon has published academic papers in international
journal and leading conferences in the area of business networks and relationships. She has been
invited to join four editorial boards and has been voted onto the membership committee for the
Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy (2007-2013). At the same time she has not lost
her roots with industry and has published commercial pieces with CIPS (Chartered Institute of
Purchasing) and other representative organizations.
Dr Joanne Sneddon is an Associate Professor with the UWA Business School in Entrepreneurship
and Innovation, Small Business Management and Marketing. Joanne holds master of commerce in
management with distinction from the Curtin University of Technology, and MBA and PhD from
the University of Western Australia. Joanne’s doctoral research examined the factors influencing
the adoption and implementation of new technologies in the Australian wool industry. Over the past
12 years, Joanne has been engaged in a series of research projects and consultancies for national and
state scientific research agencies including the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research
Organisation, the Department of Agriculture and Food, the Department of Land Information, the E H
Graham Centre and the new Cooperative Research Centre for sheep. Joanne also consults to
Australian rural research and development corporations, Australian Wool Innovation and Meat and
Livestock Australia, on innovation and research management issues. In addition to her research
work, Joanne was employed as a Program Manager for the Entrepreneurship and Business
Development Unit at the Curtin Business School, and was engaged in the design and coordination of
training and development programs for owner-managers. Prior to working in academia, Joanne
managed M&K Marketing Services, a textile point-of-sale manufacturer in the UK.

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