An Exploratory-Descriptive Review of The Potential For Halal Management Implementation in Indonesian Leather Businesses

The need to apply halal management practices to non-food industries today is still merely seen as a necessity to meet the requirements of Islamic rules. Meanwhile, this approach has demonstrated that it can improve organizational efficacy in a variety of contexts. This study seeks to investigate the depth of halal principles implementation among leather industries and comes up with strategies for how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the leather industry can use halal management practices to move toward halal certification and enhance its performance. An exploratory-descriptive approach was used to get the current state of halal practices among leather industry SMEs through interviews and survey questionnaires. Five stakeholders were interviewed in a semi-structured manner. A survey questionnaire was distributed to 127 SMEs in the leather industry center of Sukaregang, Garut, Indonesia. This paper discusses the key factors of halal implementation and determines which halal practices need more emphasis. The result showed that the current knowledge, awareness, and implementation of halal requirements among leather SMEs in Indonesia are still low. An action plan for the industry, authority, and supplier was provided.  The implication of this research can contribute to the leather industry players that intent to implement halal management system effectively and stakeholders in making decision to accelerate halal certification process.