Determinants of Sukuk Issuers’ Financial Stability: Evidence from Malaysia

Financial stability and Sukuk expanded swiftly into the financial industry after the 2007-2008 global financial turmoil. Malaysia's Sukuk market is arguably the most prominent in Islamic finance globally, and its inherent nature gives it a better security on the premise of guaranteed firms’ financial stability and returns to investors. This study aims to explore the extent of the Malaysian firms’ financial stability are being influenced by the characteristics of Sukuk and also the firms’ characteristics. Sixty-one listed companies that have issued Sukuk from 1997 to 2017 have been selected for this study. The na ï ve distance to default (DD) developed by Bharath and Shumway was used as a measure of the firms’ financial stability. Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) was employed in this study, and the results confirmed that Sukuk could promote the firms’ financial stability. The variables related to the characteristics of Sukuk that were found to influence financial stability were the intensity of Sukuk and the proportion of Sukuk financing. The firm size, valuation, solvency, and profitability were the firms’ characteristics that have also affected the firms’ financial stability significantly. All these provide evidences that Malaysia should play more active role in promoting the development of Sukuk market, and at the same time should be aware that financial stability is a systematic element which involved many complex factors.

INTRODUCTION
Financial stability and Sukuk expanded into financial industry swiftly and become the recent interest after the global financial turmoil which happened in 2007 and 2008 (Taoual, 2016;Dusuki, 2010). Like financial stability, Sukuk is also relatively a new instrument that has been introduced into financial system. It is a Sharia-compliance asset-backed financial instrument which can be referred as Islamic bond and usually treated as one substitute of conventional bond (Alshamrani, 2014;Saeed & Salah, 2014;Jamaldeen, 2012;Wilson, 2004). As one of the most popular instruments under Islamic finance, Sukuk represents undivided interest or shares in the ownership of the underlying asset, where profit and cash flow will generate via this kind of ownership, meanwhile, the relative risk matched with those benefits that should be borne by its owner (Franklin Templeton Investment, 2014).
Sukuk market may be thought as a late bloomer compared with banking and equity market, and the modern history of the Islamic finance industry is considerably young which was just began about the 1970s (Jamaldeen, 2012). Based on the information gathered, Sukuk was first introduced to the global world with only $600 million in 2002 and the issuance amount reached to $118.84 billion in 2014 within only twelve years, which was an increase of approximately $9.85 billion per year (Thomson Reuters, 2015;Malaysian International Islamic Finance Centre, 2015a).
The Bank of England's Financial Stability Report (FSR) has shown its importance, and therefore became the primary objective of most central banks around the world; about 80 central banks committed to publish their report by 2011 (Bank of England, 2015;Cihak et al., 2012). Malaysia has also started to publish its financial stability and payment systems report from 2006 as a response to the booming of financial transactions, more complexity of financial markets and closer interaction of the global economy. Furthermore, international institutions also joined the bandwagon to track financial stability; they include the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Bank for International Settlements (Alawode & Sadek, 2008;International Monetary Fund, 2017;and (Bank for International Settlements, 1997).
Financial stability is mainly considered in the context of macro-economy, and regarded as a necessary condition for the normal operation of the entire national economic system to achieve the stable economic growth (Pera, 2017;Bank of England, 2015;Bank Negara Malaysia, 2015b;Rosengren, 2011;Schinasi, 2004). Similar with the financial stability at the national level, this concept is also the main goal of a company and treated as an indispensable condition for the long-term sustainable development of the company (Cernavskis, 2014). Financial stability of a company means that even in the presence of disturbances, the company can stick to its development goals, withstand shocks and quickly return to the development path (Pera, 2017). At the same time, Cernavskis (2014) believed that stability can be treated as solvency, and according to this, a company's financial stability is to have enough free cash flow available to repay the company's short-term and long-term debt.
In terms of the measures of financial stability, lots of methods have been used. In the perspective of firm level, Z-score model and Merton (1974) distance to default (DD) model are mainly adopted for the measurement of company's financial stability. Among them, the Merton DD model is easily to be modified, for example, Bharath and Shumway's naïve DD model was developed based on Merton (1974) DD model and its naïve DD was used as one proxy of financial stability from firm level (World Bank, 2016;Bharath & Shumway, 2008).

The Growth of Sukuk Market
The growth of the Sukuk market has been rapid and has made gratifying achievements. Only twelve years later after the first global issuance, the amount of Sukuk issuance has reached $118.84 billion in 2014, and it is somewhat clear that the issuance of Sukuk is increasing rapidly, especially during the financial crisis of 2007. The global circulation of Sukuk in 2006, 2007.99 billion and $34.3 billion respectively. Its issuance rapidly rebounded to $34.3 billion in 2009 after a brief decline in 2008, which was higher than the circulation in 2006. Hereafter, the Sukuk market reached a total issuance of $137.14 billion in 2012 with an average annual growth rate of about 60% globally ($51.24 billion in 2010, $85.07 billion in 2011 and $137.14 billion in 2012) (Malaysian International Islamic Finance Centre, 2015).
Malaysia is the world's largest Islamic founder and has been the pioneer of Sukuk development (Oladunjoye, 2014;Rezaei, 2013;Alhabshi, 2013). The latest data showed that Malaysia continue to be accounted for the first place with 50.4% of total global Sukuk shares in 2018 (Malaysian International Islamic Finance Centre, 2019). Other countries also participated in Sukuk market actively, such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Indonesia, Brunei, Pakistan, Gambia, UAE and so on (Said & Grassa, 2013;Zaidi, 2008). Saudi Arabia is considered as the second-largest player from the Middle East for Islamic finance with 30% of its total financial assets are in Islamic finance products. In 2004, the first Sukuk of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) was issued on behalf of HANCO Rent-A-Car (Alshamrani, 2014;Jamaldeen, 2012). Bahrain is another world's leader in Islamic financial services with a dual banking system (Rezaei, 2013;Wilson, 2004). In the year of 2007, the Dubai International Financial Exchange (DIFX) had about $10.43 billion worth of Sukuk listed on it (Alshamrani, 2014).
In addition, more and more non-Muslim countries are also been attracted to participate the Sukuk market. England became the first non-Muslim country to issue sovereign Sukuk with a five-year maturity of $0.35 billion on 25 th June 2014 (Edwards, 2014). Hong Kong also issued $1 billion Sukuk successfully on 11 th September 2014 (Rezaei, 2013, Hanefah, Noguchi & Muda, 2013. The government of Ningxia Hui, an autonomous region of China, signed an agreement with the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) to decide on the issuance of $1.5 billion Sukuk on 24 th December 2014 (China Development, 2015).
Usually, Sukuk can be treated as one alternative to conventional bond which complied with Sharia laws (Jamaldeen, 2012). Sukuk and conventional bond are quite similar and have no such differences in terms of financial perspectives. Consequently, this has brought about rapid development in Sukuk, and sometimes, market participants tend to treat Sukuk as the conventional bond (Jamaldeen, 2012). However, Sukuk and conventional bond are distinctly different. One of the biggest differences between them is that Sukuk means ownership of underlying asset together with the associated risk and potential return while the conventional bond is the certificate of pure debt (Jamaldeen, 2012). Table 1 compares Sukuk and conventional bond side by side so that makes it clearer and easier to understand. • Represents a share of debt.
Face value • Based on the market value of the underlying asset.
• Based on the credit worthiness of issuer and its rating. Investment rewards and risks • Profit and loss come from the share of underlying asset. The principle amount not guaranteed by the issuer at maturity.
• Get the interest payment based on the regularly scheduled during bond period and the principle will return at the maturity date. Costs and investor's profit • Negative relationship existed between investors' profit and the cost of underlying asset.
• Investors are not affected by the performance of the underlying asset. Invest area • Prohibited to invest some area relate to gaming, tobacco, alcohol manufacturers and other include uncertainty.

Types of Sukuk
A number of different Sukuk types that have been structured based on a different mode of financing and Islamic transactions. Fourteen different types of Sukuk structures were established on the basis of Islamic financial contract and are acceptable in the AAOIFI Sharia standard 17 "investment Sukuk" (Saeed & Salah, 2014;Hanefah et al., 2013;Infosys, 2012). AAOIFI (2014) and Infosys (2012) pointed out that the most common types of Sukuk are Mudaraba, Musharaka, Murabaha, Ijara, Salam, Istisna and Hybrid Sukuk. In addition, Oladunjoye (2014) believed that Murabaha and Ijara are the most popular Sukuk structures based on the issuance and the number of issuers in 2012. Furthermore, Franklin Templeton Investments (2014) stated that the most popular type of Sukuk are Musharaka, Murabaha and Ijara based on the issuance volume. Thomson Reuters (2015) depicts the trend of global Sukuk based on five different structures from 2010 to the third quarter of 2014, which are Musharaka, Murabaha, Ijara, Wakala and Hybrid. This is as shown in Figure 1.
The volatility of financial markets and the desire for stability linked bond/Sukuk market and financial stability closely. Attention has grown on bond/Sukuk and financial stability from different perspectives by policymakers, market participants and academicians. Although the types of Sukuk are numerous, three main parties are normally involved when Sukuk is issued, which are obligator, trustee or issuer and investors. Sometimes, underwriter may also be included as an optional party (Jamaldeen, 2012). Obligator refers to a government or a corporation who will achieve some financial benefit via Sukuk issuance. Trustee or issuer is a part connecting the obligator and the investors and this part usually know as special purpose vehicle (SPV). Investors are the parties who hold the Sukuk. While underwriter usually acts as an insurance of SPV to guarantee any unsold Sukuk will be purchased. Taoual (2016) comprehensively studied and analysed the development of Sukuk market in the Gulf Corporation Countries (GCC) from the following five aspects: 1) the maturity of Sukuk, treated as short term if the maturity less than 12 months; 2) the issuance currencies of Sukuk, divided into domestics and international markets based on whether it was issued in local currencies; 3) the industry distribution of Sukuk issuer, which included basic materials, government, consumer prod, industrial, financial, and oil/gas/electricity industry; 4) the structure and potential risk of Sukuk, which contained Mudarabah, Musharakah, Murabahah, Ijarah, and Hybird Sukuk; and 5) the Islamic securitization by basic collateral of Sukuk, which included residential mortgages, trade receivables, property lease receivable, and lease receivables. The finding of this study indicated that Sukuk could indeed achieve the effective contribution to the financial stability of GCC.

Sukuk and Financial Stability
Although the development of Sukuk has also been affected by financial crisis in 2007 and 2008, the performance of Sukuk during and after financial crisis deserves attention. As mentioned earlier, the global circulation of Sukuk increased 554% approximately from $20.99 billion in 2008 to $137.14 billion in 2012 (Malaysian International Islamic Finance Centre, 2015). At the same time the development of Sukuk in Malaysia was propitious during the financial crisis where it accounted for half of the total stock of Malaysian corporate bonds in 2008 (Jobst et al., 2008), and corporate Sukuk's issue amount as a percentage of total bond issuance was 65.5%, 47.6%, 53% and 57% in 2007, 2008, 2009  In addition, scholars and relevant policy makers have affirmed the positive effects of Sukuk on financial stability. The Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysian (Bank Negara Malaysia), Dr. Zeti Akhtar Aziz gave a speech at the 10 th World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF) in 2014, she confirmed that the dynamism of the Sukuk market has contributed towards strengthening financial stability (Aziz, 2014). Besides, Zin et al. (2011) and Taoual (2016) stated that the Sukuk market is now the most powerful part in Islamic finance and affirmed the role of Islamic bonds in promoting financial stability. Although some studies have begun to focus on Sukuk and financial stability, most of them were only been discussed theoretically to provide understanding of those two topics from a basic perspective, such as development history, definitions and so on (Saeed & Salah, 2014;Rosengren, 2011;Zin et al., 2011;Alawode & Sadek, 2008).
Furthermore, Sukuk provided one option for a company to issue fixed-yield securities, which at the same time follows Sharia Islamic law that prohibited uncertainty, interest and gambling. These unique properties of Sukuk allowed the issuers to access longer-termed funding at lower financing costs, and thus have attracted more domestic firms to tap into Malaysian Sukuk market to meet their financing needs (Bank Negara Malaysia, 2015a;Alhabshi, 2013). Meanwhile, Singh (2015) pointed out that debt management was seen as a key factor to achieve financial stability. As a substitute of conventional bond, Sukuk was also a debt security. Thus, Sukuk could influence Malaysian firms' financing significantly via enhancing rationality of capital structure (Patuta & Pryshko, 2016;Haron & Ibrahim, 2012). Zin et al. (2011) pointed out the development of the Sukuk market can promote financial stability as it could participate in international market and could generate important cross-border capital flows that could be realized outside the domestic market. In its infancy, the government was the main player in the Sukuk market. As demand for long-term financing grows, the private sector has become an integral part of the Sukuk market. In this highly competitive environment, the depth and liquidity of the Sukuk market, as well as the huge role that Sukuk market can enable large cross-border flows of money outside the domestic market are conducive to promoting global economic growth and financial stability. Figure 2 depicts the relationship that existed among the variables in this study. The dependent variable was the financial stability of the firms that issued Sukuk, and the independent variables were divided into two parts. First, the specific Sukuk characteristics, which included intensity of Sukuk, tenure of Sukuk, coupon rate of Sukuk and proportion of Sukuk financing. The second group of variables were the firms' characteristics, which included firms' size, the valuation, the liquidity, the solvency, and the profitability of the firms.

The Dependent Variable
The dependent variable used in this research was financial stability of each firm that issued Sukuk, and proxied by the naive distance to default (DD) probability based on Bharath and Shumway's naive DD model which developed in 2008. The model which originated from Merton model (Cui & Cai, 2014;Falkenstein & Boral, 2001;Bharath & Shumway, 2008). The original Merton DD model can measure the firms' solvency risk as well as liquidity risk. The most difficult part of this model was that the company's total value (V) and volatility of the company's asset ( ) which were not easily obtainable; therefore, two non-linear equations were required for these two parameters. Moreover, since Merton DD model can be easily improved, the theoretical circle had made continuous attempts and efforts to do the contribution of Merton DD model so that to make this model easier to be used (Cui & Cai, 2014;Falkenstein & Boral, 2001).
Through their empirical research, Bharath and Shumway (2008) proposed a new and easier way to predicting default based on Merton DD model, namely, naive DD model. The naive DD model built a simple alternative probability based on Merton DD probability that does not require to solve for the firm's equity value and the volatility of the equity ( ). This naive DD model provided a reduced-form of Merton DD model, meanwhile, it had the same functional form and the basic input variables as Merton DD model; and it was easier to compute DD. The naïve DD model might be one of the most important theoretical improvements to Merton model in recent years (Cui & Cai, 2014;Bauer & Agarwal, 2014. In order to predict financial stability more concisely and accurately, this study also adopted the Bharath and Shumway's naive DD model and the following part of this section elaborates on this new naive DD model. Before establishing the new probability, Bharath and Shumway (2008) let the market value of each company's debt equal to the face value of its debt approximately: ̈ = (1) And according to the accounting identity, the company's assets (V) were equal to the sum of the market value of the risky debt (D) and the equity value (E), in this way: After this, Bharath and Shumway (2008) were of the opinion that a company on the brink of default were usually with the risky debt, and debt risk was closely related to equity risk. Thus, the debt volatility of each company could be approximated as: where 0.05 representative the term structure volatility and the 0.25 equity volatility made the volatility correlated with default risk. And and were the volatility of debt and volatility of equity respectively. Therefore, the following weighted algorithm can estimate the volatility of the company's asset value approximately: where ̈ was the firm volatility, E was the market value of equity, F was the market value of total debt which would be measured by total liabilities. Then, Bharath and Shumway (2008) set the expected return on the company's assets equal to the return on the company's stocks in the previous year: So far, this iterative procedure focused on the data of equity return over the entire year and had made it possible to capture some information same with Merton DD model. Then, the naive distance to default can be defined as follows once the parameter ̈ has been obtained: where: ̈ = naïve distance to default; E = market value of equity; F = market value of total debt which will measured by total liabilities; −1 = stock return over the previous one year; T = time to maturity T is set to one year; and ̈ = the firm volatility.
Equation (6) preserved the Merton DD model and the calculation was extremely simple. The naive DD probability was then written as:

Independent Variables
The first part of the independent variables was related to Sukuk. Followed the study done by Taoual (2016), this study explored the relationship between the characteristics of Sukuk and financial stability. And in line with studies done by Smaoui & Nechi (2017), Taoual (2016), Jamaldeen (2012), and Hmida & Brahmi (2016), the variables related to the specific characteristics of Sukuk included were Sukuk intensity, tenure, coupon rate and proportion of Sukuk financing.
Intensity of Sukuk, refers to the total number of Sukuk issuance per company per year. This means that a company may have issued Sukuk more than once in a year. This variable served as one indicator of the Sukuk development (Smaoui & Nechi, 2017). Tenure of Sukuk, means the length of time from Sukuk issued date to the maturity date, and measured by years. The same variable "Sukuk maturity", was used by Taoual (2016), and served as one of the characteristics of Sukuk. Coupon rate of Sukuk is different from the coupon rate of the conventional bond. As interest is prohibited in Islamic finance, coupon of Sukuk refers to a stable payment flow which comes from a certain percentage of profits derived from the underlying asset. Thus, the coupon rate of Sukuk is a pre-determined specified profit rate. And it should be noted that the profit of Sukuk to investors is not guaranteed, the investors may suffer losses (Jamaldeen, 2012). Proportion of Sukuk is similar to the "ratio of bond financing" which was used by Hmida and Brahmi (2016) and means that how much of the total asset that was funded by Sukuk. Those four proxies specific to Sukuk are expected to have positive correlation with financial stability, as many researches confirmed the role of bond/Sukuk in promoting financial stability (Taoual, 2016;Zin et al., 2011;Burger et al., 2009).
In addition, the specific characteristics of the firms are incorporated as control variables in this study. In line with prior research done by Skribans (2009) 2019), after a comprehensive consideration, the variables related to the company's specific characteristics included five aspects of the company, namely, firm's size, valuation, liquidity, solvency, and profitability.
Firms' size is an important and basic characteristic of a company (Dang, Li & Yang, 2018), and usually measured by the natural logarithm of the total asset (Orazalin et al., 2019;Lemus-Esquivel et al., 2015). As stated by trade-off theory, large firms were stronger in facing bankruptcy cost as they were far more diversified (Mohamed et al., 2015), and hence the larger the company, the higher the company's financial stability (Skribans, 2009). Thus, it is assumed that a positive relationship exists between the firm size and financial stability.
Firms' valuation, which determines the potential value of a company and provides information about the company's share price. Price to earnings ratio (P/E ratio) was the proxy of the firms' valuation in this study which was normally used to explore the reasonableness of stock price by investors, and usually used to estimate their future earnings. The lower the value of this ratio means that the investment payback period is a shorter and with smaller risk, and thus a larger value of the investment (Danielson & Dowdell, 2001). Valuation has a great significance to a company's sustainable development which is closely related to financial stability (Pera, 2017;Yu & Zhao, 2015;Cernavskis, 2014). Thus, a positive relationship is assumed between valuation and firms' financial stability.
Firms' liquidity, reveals the company's ability to fulfil its short-term financial obligations. Quick ratio was selected to represent the liquidity of the company (Lemus-Esquivel et al., 2015). A company with high liquidity indicator tends to perform better during the 2008 financial crisis (Vieira, 2010). Thus, a positive relationship is assumed between liquidity and the firms' financial stability.
Firms' solvency ratio refers to the company's ability to fulfil its long-term debts and financial obligations. Debt to equity ratio (D/E ratio) was normally used as the indicator of the firms' solvency or leverage ratio (Lemus-Esquivel et al., 2015). D/E ratio indicates how much capital is in the form of debt and whether a company is able to meet its debt obligations persistently. The firms would face higher risk if this ratio increases (Lemus-Esquivel et al., 2015). And Orazalin et al. (2019) found that leverage of the firms was significant and negatively related with firms' financial stability. Thus, a negative relationship is assumed between solvency and firm's financial stability.
Firms' profitability, reveals the result of the company's decision on investment and production planning, and the ability of a company to generate profit. Return on asset (RoA) was chosen as its proxy (Lemus-Esquivel et al., 2015;Reynaud & Thomas, 2013). Obviously, the higher the value of RoA means that the better the performance of the company. Thus, a positive relationship is assumed between profitability and firm's financial stability.

DATA DESCRIPTION
As mentioned earlier, the objective of this study is to explore the influence of Sukuk on firms' financial stability in Malaysia spanning from 1997 to 2017. Malaysian listed firms that have issued Sukuk were the main concern of this study. Data for this study was obtained from Bond Info Hub, the website under Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) which was responsible to publish all bonds information in Malaysia and provided the historical data about Sukuk since 1997. While the data of the calculation of firm's financial stability and also firms' characteristics were obtained from Thomson Returns DataStream.
The sample size of this study consisted of 61 firms listed on Bursa Malaysia that have issued Sukuk. The sample selection involved 5 steps. Firstly, all the firms that issued Sukuk were obtained from Bond Info Hub. There were altogether 164 firms that issued Sukuk from 1997 to 2017. Secondly, 58 company were excluded because they were not listed on Bursa Malaysia. Thirdly, 13 financial institutions (banks and insurance companies) were excluded from the sample because of the high leverage and high level of industry regulations imposed on them (Cooper, Jackson III, & Patterson, 2003). Subsequently, 23 sample companies were excluded as they were subsidiaries and their data had been merged into the parent companies'. This is because the study only focused on the parent companies. Lastly, further 9 firms were discarded since the financial data related to the company was not sufficient. After these five criteria, 61 sample firms were included in this study. The whole sample selection procedure is as shown in Table 2 below. Out of these 61 Malaysian listed companies they were be further classified as in Table 3.  Table 3 shows the number of companies that issued Sukuk from year 1997 to 2017. Based on the table it was found that there were only one company issued Sukuk for five years, which were years in 1997, 2001, 2004, 2013, and 2014. Besides, there were six companies that issued Sukuk for three years. Furthermore, there were eleven companies in Malaysia that had issued Sukuk for two years. Additionally, there were forty-three companies that had been issued Sukuk for one year. Finally, the total obtainable observations were eighty-eight.
It was observed that companies did not issue Sukuk every year, and they could only have issue Sukuk once in their life time. According to the data collected, more than 70% of the sample companies issued Sukuk once only, thus, the data could not be formed as panel data. Then, this study would list down all the sample companies by the time Sukuk was issued and then the time factor to be ignored. Therefore, the data used in this study was treated as cross-section data.

SPECIFICATION OF THE STUDY MODEL
The naive DD model created by Bharath and Shumway based on Merton DD model in 2008 was adopted to measure the default probability of the Sukuk issuers. And based on the functional form developed by Hmida and Brahmi (2016) and Orazalin et al. (2019), the empirical model of this study was established as follow: In Equation (8), naive was the distance to default of company i, which was the proxy of company's financial stability and worked as the dependent variable in this study.

RESULTS AND FINDINGS
The main analytical technique employed in this study was multiple regression analysis, and this was used to explore whether the characteristics of Sukuk as well as the company's characteristics could influence the financial stability of listed firms that have issued Sukuk.

Multiple Regression Analysis
The results of the analysis are as shown in Table 4. According to the table, the computed R-squared ( 2 ) of the regression equation was 43.66%. In terms of the test for overall significance, F test was conducted to determine whether a significant relationship existed between the dependent variable and the independent variables. From the results it was found that the F value is significant at 1% level.
Subsequently, the individual tests which included t-test was employed for the individual significance of each independent variable in the regression equation. Three of the variables were found to be significant at 1% level; they were proportion of Sukuk financing, firm size and P/E ratio. Three variables were significant at 5% level. The variables were intensity of Sukuk, debt-to-equity ratio and return on assets. All in all, six out of nine independent variables' t-values were greater than the critical value at 5% significant level. Thus, it can be concluded that six independent variables were significant and have influenced on the financial stability of the Sukuk issuers.

Discussion on the Independent Variables
As indicated earlier, the independent variables consisted of two groups, namely, specific variables related to characteristics of Sukuk, and variables related to characteristics of the company. Intensity of Sukuk (Int) was the first proxy of Sukuk's characteristics and this variable displayed a positive effect on firms' DD; the higher the Sukuk's intensity, the more stable the company. This is in line with the finding of Smaoui and Nechi (2017) which indicated positive association between Sukuk development and economic growth. This variable was significant at the 5% level.
Tenure of Sukuk (Ten), the second proxy of Sukuk's characteristics, also shown a positive relationship with firms' DD, the longer the tenure of Sukuk, the more funds of the issuing company, hence, the more stable the issuing company. This had supported Taoual's (2016) finding which argued that more long term of Sukuk were issued in the Gulf Corporation Countries (GCC) region. However, this variable was insignificant even at the 10% level.
Coupon rate of (CoR) was the third proxy related to the Sukuk's characteristics. The estimated coefficient of this variable was negative and insignificantly related to firms' DD even at 10% significant level. This suggested the higher the coupon rate of Sukuk, the more profit should be distributed to investors, hence, the lower the financial stability of firms. Durbin-Watson stat 1.8186 Prob(F-statistic) 0.0000*** Note: C, constant term; Int, intensity of Sukuk; Ten, tenure of Sukuk; CoR, coupon rate of Sukuk; PS, proportion of Sukuk; lnTA, total asset in natural logarithm form; P/E, price to earnings ratio; QR, quick ratio; D/E, debt to equity ratio; RoA, return on asset; The asterisks (**) and (***) denote rejection of the null hypothesis at 5% and 1% significant level respectively.
The last proxy of Sukuk's characteristics was the proportion of Sukuk to total financing (PS). The coefficients of this variable were positive with firms' DD and significant at 1% significant level. This high significant might be explained by the Pecking Order Theory (Myer & Majluf, 1984) that the company's managers preferred to raise fund via debt, and debt financing indicated that the managers acknowledged the company's situation well and they were confident with their investment activities. This finding was similar to a study done by Hmida and Brahmi (2016) that ratio of bond financing was significantly affected financial stability.
Generally, Sukuk could promote the firms' financial stability, and this positive and significant influence was more telling mainly by intensity of Sukuk and proportion of Sukuk. Moreover, three out of four variables related to Sukuk's characteristics which were intensity of Sukuk (Int), tenure of Sukuk (Ten), and proportion of Sukuk (PS) were positively related to firms' financial stability, while there was negative relationship existed between coupon rate of Sukuk (CoR) and firms' financial stability.
The variables that were related to the characteristics of the company itself were the second group of independent variables in this study, it included five aspects of the company as follows: total asset, valuation, liquidity, solvency, and profitability.
Total asset (TA) was the first basic characteristic of a company that was found to have positive and significantly relationship with DD, and it was significant at 1% level. This finding was in line with the study done by Skribans (2009) which indicated that the larger the company, the higher the company's financial stability. This appears to indicate that a bigger company would be able to withstand unforeseen financial shock.
The second variable related to the company's characteristics was the price to earnings ratio (P/E) used to measure the valuation of the firms. The estimated coefficient of P/E showed that valuation had a statistically positive and significant relationship with the firms' DD at the 1% level. This supported the result of Yu and Zhao (2015) and Pera (2017) which indicated positive influence on financial stability as implied by a higher P/E value. The higher the P/E value, the higher the share price which indicated that investors had plenty of confidence in the company's future, and thus, the higher the financial stability of company.
Liquidity variable (QR) was the third variable that was related to the firm's characteristics. The estimated coefficient of this variable was found to be positively related to DD, and unfortunately it was insignificant even at the 10% level. This finding suggested that the impact of company's short-term debt repaying ability on firms' financial stability was limited. This finding supported by study done by Vieira (2010), and could be explained by the study done by Pera (2014) and Cernavskis (2014) that financial stability was an indispensable condition for the company's long-term development, and firms' financial stability was firms' solvency which related to the firms' ability to repay long-term obligations.
Next, the proxy variable for solvency or leverage (D/E), and its estimated coefficient was statistically significant at the 5% level and negatively related to the DD. This suggested that the higher the solvency or leverage, the higher bankruptcy probability, and this result supported the finding by Orazalin et al. (2019). Furthermore, this finding also supported the trade-off theory (Modigliani & Miller, 1958) that managers should be aware that marginal benefit from debt financing would decrease as the debt financing ratio increased. Thus, although Sukuk would enhance firms' financing stability, this did not mean that there was no limit. Managers should seek the balance between debt financing and equity financing that was in line with the reality of the firms.
Subsequently, the coefficient of the profitability of the company that was measured by the return on asset (RoA) was statistically significant at 5% level and positively related with the DD. The finding supported the result of Vieira (2010) and Hmida and Brahmi (2016) that profitability was important to company's financial stability. This indicated that the better the company's ability to generate earnings from its assets, the better the financial stability.

CONCLUSION
The results of the regression analysis indicated the Sukuk could promote the firms' financial stability in Malaysia, especially the intensity of Sukuk (Int) and proportion of Sukuk (PS) to total financing, both of them were significant and positively related to firms' financial stability. The findings provide evidence on the importance of Sukuk in influencing the financial stability of firms. Thus, Sukuk has a significant role to play in the capital market. In addition, it is becoming an important asset class for investors to consider. Not only that, the issuance of Sukuk adds to the diversity of funds available to companies. Apparently, it is essential for Malaysia to get involve actively in promoting Sukuk as important source of financing.
With regard to variables related to firms' characteristics, firm size, firm valuation (P/E ratio), firm solvency/leverage, and firm profitability were found to be highly significant in influencing their financial stability. Therefore, it provides indications that firms that wish to issue Sukuk should be concerned with their size, solvency standing, P/E ratios and also their profitability. The issuing of Sukuk without due consideration to these factors may be detrimental to their financial stability.


Impact of Influencer Marketing on Consumer Purchase Behavior during the Pandemic

Social Media has turned from our regular photos and thought dumping platform to a marketing space mainly led by influencers. Influencers, the ones who influence, hold a firm grasp on people all over social media through their content, views, thoughts, and uniqueness that they have to offer. These influencers are known to impact people especially the younger generations. We can mark them as a new form of marketing that works beyond traditional marketing and is not limited to just selling a product but broadens the horizon to building a brand identity and creating a trustful relation between the audience, the brand, and the influencer. As the number of people who use social media grow, so grows the number of influencers and so does the number of companies choosing to use influencer marketing. The scope is big, the audience is endless and the influencers are professionals at creating engaging marketing content that is a long-term investment for any company big or small. The aim of this paper is to bring to light the recent uproar of Influencer Marketing on social media during the pandemic and how it has had an impact on companies and on the audience’s purchase behavior. The data for this paper has been taken through a small research survey that has also been done on a sample size of 50 consumers to study the impact of influencer marketing on their purchase behavior and decisions. All data used is particular to the pandemic and hence data post-2020 to now has been used.

Introduction
Influencer marketing involves marketing products and services on social platforms through influential people on the platform, popularly known as Influencers. Influencers can be Nano, Micro, Macro, and Mega depending on the number of their followers and average engagement on their pages. Since social media is widely popular among individuals of all ages especially youngsters, a lot of these users grew on to become influencers mainly because of their content and what they post. Influencers are, as a lot of social media users have defined, your virtual friends who recommend you products and services through well-curated content. Influencers also work in niches and genres like beauty, food, fashion, lifestyle and create content on their forte genres and hence start building a following and soon achieve the influencer status. Becoming an influencer is directly related to them becoming a trustworthy source for their followers and an opinionated who has thousands of people agreeing with them. This is the key thing that attracts companies to use influencers to market themselves online. They try to get along with an influencer's key audience through the influencer and with the help of some smartly made marketing material, they try to drive sales and attention towards their brand.
As the pandemic hit the world like a wrecking ball, a lot of people took to social media to express themselves through various content on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and more. As they gained traction and popularity among users, who now flock to the online spaces even more than usual, they also gained valuable brand collaborations that have now turned into a whole marketing prospect in the marketing industry. More and more companies irrespective of their size have dropped all their other marketing plans to invest in Influencer marketing, which as of today is an industry worth billions of dollars.
The recent uprise of influencer marketing is also credited to the flawless compartmentalization of influencers based on their niche and area of interests. Companies pertaining to a particular niche now find it easier to get in touch with influencers who create content on the same niche. Hence it makes it easier for the companies to 1. work closely with people who know their industry and can create content and promotional material with their own expertise in the field, and 2.
Get in touch with the influencer's audience who are interested in their industry.
If a beauty influencer promotes a beauty brand, it will reach more of the beauty brand's target audience as the influencer, known for beauty-related content, has most of their followers be either people interested in beauty or people who work in the beauty industry themselves.
While this was a view of the company side, on the consumer side, as they interact more with an influencer they like and consume their content, they grow more trustful of them and hence if they see the influencer promoting a certain beauty brand, they will trust ISSN: 2349-7300 IJIRMPS2104018 Website : www.ijirmps.org Email : editor@ijirmps.org 155 their judgment and all the positive things they have to say about the brand and soon enough turn into a consumer of the brand themselves.
This research paper will look exclusively into the impact of influencer marketing on consumers and their purchase behavior as well as any considerable impact it has had on consumers during the pandemic and social media. Literature Review  What is influencer marketing? Influence marketing is the development and delivery of advertising messages through influential people, opinion leaders, and not through the brand itself. They influence by example, more so than using word of mouth to explain why someone should buy the product. (Referral Rock Learn, 2020) Influencer Marketing is a hybrid of old and new marketing tools. It takes the idea of celebrity endorsement and places it into a modern-day content-driven marketing campaign. The main difference in the case of influencer marketing is that the results of the campaign are collaborations between brands and influencers. (Influencer Marketing Hub, 2019) Influencer marketing involves a brand collaborating with an online influencer to market one of its products or services. Some influencer marketing collaborations are less tangible than thatbrands simply work with influencers to improve brand recognition. (Influencer Marketing Hub, 2019) In recent times influencer marketing has seen tremendous growth as a way of marketing as more and more brands have chosen influencer marketing over traditional means of advertising. Not only have bigger brands have easily shifted to influencer marketing, it has been a key tool for smaller businesses as well.

Limitations and Advantages
This research paper dwells deeper into how in the recent times, as a pandemic struck world moved online, influencer marketing got a major grip and grew to massive levels on various social media platforms. It will also dig into how brands and businesses have seen absolute profits and growth in sales and visibility due to influencer marketing.


Previous and newer trends of influencer marketing and its rise. In the next few years, brands are on track to spend billions of dollars on influencer marketing. This form of marketing-currently utilized with great success on Instagram and YouTube-is not a short-lived fad, but a tectonic shift for the future of digital advertising. It's the way of the future, and the responsibility is on business leaders to keep up. Modern marketing professionals looking to adopt influencer marketing for their brands face equally modern challenges. Like finding the right talent, tracking and measuring results and quantifying how this new marketing opportunity aligns with the overall strategy. Influencer Marketing for Brands is the field guide for the digital age. (Levin, 2020) As stated by Levin, the influencer marketing phenomenon had already been a hit until a pandemic forced more brands to take this route of marketing. While it was already dominating Instagram and youtube, this paper will focus on how it took over more platforms like twitter, TikTok, Tumblr and more.
Influencers play an integral role in social media marketing as vehicles for discovery, inspiration and awareness. The idea of having separate content strategies, social strategies and influencer strategies is a thing of the past.

IJIRMPS2104018
Website : www.ijirmps.org Email : editor@ijirmps.org 156 Influencer marketing isn't a "fad", but a complete and necessary part of a holistic marketing strategy. (Makropoulos, 2020) Brands have definitely taken a risk by shifting from traditional marketing to an influencer based marketing. Over time brands have recorded much more input in terms of sales, interest, visibility, feedback and profits that have created more rock solid influencer marketing strategies in the marketing sector.

Influencer marketing and its impact on consumer behaviour
The theme of trust comes up over and over again these days when speaking of influencer marketing and there's a reason for that. People have learned that commercials lie and stars are paid to promote things they don't necessarily care about. While influencers, those individuals have built a following around what they are passionate about, on the other hand, are a lot more likely to only promote products they have thoroughly vetted as they'll lose their following otherwise. This is why their audience trusts them. (Cobain, 2020) Part of the reason why influencer marketing is gaining steam is also because of ad blocking. Not only do people prefer to hear from influencers; they actually block advertisement. If you look at these trends and numbers it becomes pretty obvious that influencer marketing and user generated content shape consumer buying behaviour and influence their purchases. And while celebrities have reach, micro influencers have power. (Cobain, 2020) As Cobain mentioned, influencer generated marketing content does play a role in shaping buying behaviour more so because of it being more trustworthy, real, well presented and attractive in nature. Apart from this, the content change that an influencer brings is something regular marketing doesn't hence its impact on audiences and their will to purchase a product immediately increases.
Consumers are more likely to trust peer recommendations, as they're generally considered more trustworthy than claims in brand ads, and social media influencers can be very powerful in this respect. If a product is accepted within their circle, that immediately boosts its reputation and affiliated connection -which means the strongest voices within any group have huge sway over that initial relationship. (Barker, 2020) Over the recent years, influencer marketing has become increasingly popular, representing a specific type of social media marketing. The aim of this scientific contribution is the systematization of knowledge about the position and roles of influencers as opinion leaders in the social media environment in order to identify their typology, influence factors and the intensity of their impact on consumer decision making process, based on the comparison of knowledge from the results of global research studies and the quantitative online research study processed by authors. The findings of the survey showed that the promotion of some products through influencers may be more advantageous than others. Influencers will have the greatest impact when buying clothes, shoes, cosmetics and, surprisingly, services. Meanwhile, people rely heavily on other factors to buy food, jewelry and electronics, but it is not excluded that influencer marketing could affect them as well. (Stefan Zak, 2020) In respect to this paper, a more specific approach to the idea of consumer and purchase behaviour is taken. On the same lines as Cobain, this paper deals specifically with how influencer marketing's massive rise during the pandemic has impacted consumers and their purchase habits.
With an increase in influencers, there is definitely as increase in the variety of marketing content from these influencers which has got hold of different audiences who have all been somehow influenced by them to if not buy but get aware of a brand or business and their work.
We've established that consumers place a lot of weight on the recommendations of influencersbut why? Influencers are able to establish trust with their community of followers because they are viewed as experts. In fact, a study by Olapic found that 39% of consumers rely on an influencer's expertise when weighing the value of their endorsements. Expertise on the internet isn't anything new, but influencers have turned their expertise into a way to impact consumer buying behavior. (Wiley, 2019) People like people. People trust people. People trust people more than they trust brands and more than they trust marketers.
Influencers are real. The best influencers are honest, know and respect their audience, don't lie about products just to make a buck, and can deliver real value for both brands and the audience of friends and followers they've amassed over the years. Trust is key.
Influencers are also -or can be -entertaining and offer new and exciting ways of sharing a brand's message. They are discovering personalities, products, methods of application, tricks and tips that they are eating up. And they love the influencers who are sharing this information and these products with them. From what I can see, those influencers love them right back. It's a relationship, not a one way sales channel that brands and agencies have been accustomed to in the past. (Kramer, 2019)  Influencer marketing and various social media platforms Many Instagram-users who follow influencers do not mind that promotion and thus influencing is happening. Every Instagrammer is free to follow and unfollow whomever they want. Since it is one's own choice to press the 'follow' button, people are aware that sponsored posts come with certain people they want to follow. Many people follow influencers because they like a certain aspect ISSN: 2349-7300

IJIRMPS2104018
Website : www.ijirmps.org Email : editor@ijirmps.org 157 about this person or this person's Instagram, or they feel like they recognize a part of themselves in the influencer. Because of a shared aspect of identity, followers will often also like the products that are being promoted. (Diggit magazine, 2020) The impact will also relay on the influencer marketing agencies since TikTok over the time forged very strong partnerships with the marketing agencies that enabled brands across the country to put the pedal to the medal with TikTok influencer campaigns. TikTok's emergence was leading to a shift where brands were moving out of mega-influencers in YouTube and Instagram space to micro-influencers on TikTok across the chartered and unchartered territories. (Mahal, 2020) Popular micro-influencers, like those found on Instagram and Snapchat, are known for their strong engagement rates among niche audiences and a loyal following can be even more powerful on TikTok when influencers tap into their following and weave branded messaging into trending topics and challenges. (Working influencer , 2019)  Impact of Influencer marketing on company sales Influencers on Twitter make your existing advertising efforts work even harder. Our research showed that those who were exposed to brand Tweets had a 2.7x lift in purchase intent over participants who did not see an advertiser Tweet. When participants were exposed to a campaign that featured both brand and influencer Tweets, the lift in purchase intent more than doubled to 5.2x. (Aka, 2016) A majority of marketers believe that influencer marketing attracts higher-quality customers to their business. This could be because social media users tend to be more affluent and more likely to recommend products to family and friends. Blogs and Facebook are by far the most effective outlets for influencer marketing, dwarfing YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. 37% said blogs were their most effective platform, and 25% said Facebook. (Foster, 2019) Marketers rated influencer marketing as their fastest-growing channel for acquiring customers online. Organic search and email are too mature to provide the same yearly growth that influencer marketing now delivers. Affiliate marketing and display advertising performed poorly, scoring below 10%. Influencer marketing is quickly becoming one of the most important online marketing channels. Budgets are growing fast, and marketers are seeing strong returns. The vast majority of marketers are generating real revenue from influencer marketing. With returns like this, budgets will keep increasing for the foreseeable future. (Foster, 2019) It's important to note that those "influenced consumers" are all of different age groups, and on average 55 percent of those consumers who discovered new products, services, and brands through social media influencers, vloggers, niche bloggers, and celebrity endorsers left a product review in the last month. Those numbers are higher than the average digital consumer behavior and, for brands in search of reviews that give their products credibility and lead to purchases, significant. (Kramer, 2019)

Research Findings
A total sample size of 50 consumers of all age groups were surveyed to understand the influence of influencer marketing on their purchase decisions and its impact during the pandemic especially. The data is interpreted and incorporated in the graphs and diagrams below.
The survey participants consisted of young people from ages 13-30 who are all avid social media users and a consumer of many social media trends. The survey had 10 questions including name, age, and various questions about their knowledge of influencer marketing, personal experience with it, and how the trend works out for them.
The survey produced the following results: A majority of people from this sample size of 50 picked Twitter and Instagram as social media platforms they use the most while Facebook and TikTok were the least used, YouTube held a middle-ground. This data points to how platforms with the most number of influencers: Twitter and Instagram also have a high number of users and users who spend a lot of time on these platforms hence coming in contact with influencer marketing content frequently.
TikTok also has a hard grip on influencer marketing to the point where TikTok influencers move to Instagram to set up a parallel channel to broaden their prospects. Indian consumers unfortunately due to the ban of TikTok cannot enjoy TikTok influencer marketing content but sans India, TikTok is also a hub for viral blown up creators to become influencers who get paid to make 15-30 seconds videos for promotion.
While YouTube is a long-form content creation app where a lot more serious and well put together marketing content goes on. Usually established influencers on TikTok, Twitter or Instagram move to YouTube once they get mildly popular and take their brand endorsements with them to create long-form content which is more indulgent and impactful.

Q 2 What niches of influencers do these users follow the most?
As per the survey results: Fashion, Food, Beauty, Travel, and Gaming Influencers were some of the most popular niches of influencers users follow on social media. Fashion and Beauty as well as Gaming and Food have emerged as really popular forms  of content online and have seen a considerable growth in the number of influencers who make content in this niche. Due to the pandemic and a severe hit on the travel industry, Travel influencers are not the top chosen niche but are still mildly popular.

Niches of influencers
Influencer marketing perpetuates a lot among Fashion and Beauty influencers who collaborate with clothing lines and makeup companies and promote them on their own pages. These influencers make content on outfit ideas, makeup looks, reviews, hauls, and much more.
While Gaming influencers engage their audiences in promotional content by joining hands with new game developers, gamer communities, patreons, and exclusive merch collaborations as well as companies that produce gaming essentials like headsets, gaming chairs, gaming setups, monitors, and devices. Their content is mainly streaming videos where they play games and live stream it or play games with fellow gamers or their followers.
Recently, Food blogging has turned into Food influencing where these influencers create content on recipes, food they make, food hacks, trends, and much more. These influencers often promote companies that sell kitchen essentials, ingredients or even market cookbooks and diet plans.
With how useful and entertaining these niche contents are and how people have gained popularity within communities of these niches, it is only valid for companies to scout these influencers and promote themselves through them.

Q 3 Do the influencers these users follow promote any brand or product? Or have these users come across influencerpromoted content on social media?
The survey delivered a 100% positive result for this question as every user mentioned YES to seeing influencers they follow or influencers on social media promote a brand, business, and product.
This solidifies that influencer marketing and content produced out of a marketing collaborating between influencers and companies have widespread reach and almost every user on social media has come across such promotional material while navigating through social platforms irrespective of whether its from influencers they follow or influencers who ended up on their feeds due to algorithm and interactions.
And a noticeable increase in the visibility and frequency of this content has been reported during the pandemic as traditional marketing took a severe hit and a majority of companies turned to influencer marketing to maintain their brand and sales.
With how compartmentalized the influencer marketing industry is and how social media algorithms work, users are often suggested similar content to what they have shown interest in, which also includes influencer-promoted promotional content that makes its way to their feeds. This results in users coming across influencer-marketed content more frequently and hence points towards the excessive use of this marketing form on social media. Almost every user chose more than one option with the second, fourth and first way of content integration being the most popular among both influencers and users. All the options were voted for but not as prominently as most of them making it clear that influencer content takes a lot of forms and is marketed exclusively as well.

Majority of users have seen influencers casually mention the brand/product in their regular posts/videos/stories or tweets which is
a subtle yet effective way of marketing through an influencer. It brings the brand/product into a conversation among the followers and starts building up trust and turns into a personal recommendation from the influencer who incorporates the brand/product in their lives and hints at the benefits of it whenever they can. This is efficient and a great way to market skincare, beverages, movie promos, and more and helps the brand become a regular name in their industry.
Users have also seen influencers often sharing the brand's content on their page and urging their followers to check the brand out, buy their product, or just share their posts/products/updates on their feed for their interested followers to see. This has shown mixed results for companies as users often don't engage in such promotions since they are strictly sales/brand building-based marketing. This does give visibility to businesses especially small businesses who can benefit a lot from this type of promotion and reach a wider audience.
Another way of promotion users has seen a lot is option 5 and 6 (which are the same) wherein an influencer collaborates with a brand and they create an exclusive discount code for the influencer's followers. This discount code is exclusively shared by the influencer urging their followers to make a purchase using the code and avail a discount or a great deal. It is definitely marketed to generate more sales instead of the regular or subtle brand building. Companies with skincare products, clothing items, accessories, or even online courses engage in this form of promotion. Users feel a little compelled to buy like this as it comes from a trustworthy recommendation of their favorite influencer and they get discounts and deals in their favor.
A wildly popular way and one that has been a part of influencer marketing since the start is review videos/posts. More than half of users have chosen review content as one of the types of marketing content they have seen influencers make. This is the most direct form of influencer marketing and its practicality depends a lot on the type of brand/product, the way the influencer reviews it, and the influencer's impact on their followers. Influencers tend to create meaningful bonds with their followers and create an environment of trust and loyalty. Users tend to buy something on the recommendation of an influencer if they like the influencer, their content, and trust their taste and judgment to share a review about a brand/product.
A lot of influencers have dedicatedly been making specific content about the brand/product which is not just reviews but also skits, music acts, role-plays, performances and so much more. They try to curate content that matches the brand/product features and prepare their mainstream content but for marketing purposes. This is smart and effective marketing if pulled off well and as per the results of the survey, a lot of users have come across such content often.
A few users have pointed out how influencers have also made engaging content that doesn't seem like an advertisement but promotes the brand/product quite effectively. They keep it simple and genuine so users don't feel like it's forced and hence get interested in the brand/product. This has worked quite well for a lot of offbeat companies and influencers who have creatively used their talents to make content that promotes them subtly but with impact.
It is evident that users have come across all types of influencer marketing content whether they are effective or not and it has made a considerable impact on users the majority of the time.

Q 5 Does influencer marketing content appeal to users and make them want to check out a brand or buy a product?
A majority of consumers in the survey answered Yes to this question which speaks volumes of how impactful and appealing influencer marketing can be at times. With how widespread it is and how frequently it shows up on people's feeds, well-made content often catches the eye and even if a consumer doesn't make a purchase, they are likely to check the brand's page or website.
A lot of users in this survey who said Yes believe that products/brands promoted by influencers seem useful, genuine, tested out, high quality, trustworthy, appealing, convincing and are available at a good deal. They also believe that influencers they like will only suggest them good products/brands and in the best interest of their followers. And if the content is well made then users may look into the brand if not buy from it. Users have also mentioned that the likability of an influencer directly impacts the likability of a product/brand hence affecting the purchase decisions of consumers.
A handful of survey participants said No to the question with a justification that since influencers are paid to promote, they do it to earn and often don't use the products they promote themselves. And often the brand/product being promoted isn't that good and that consumers should look into user reviews instead of influencer promotions before making a decision to buy. Some participants argued that influencer marketing content looks forced at times and is not appealing enough to make someone buy a product. Users have also mentioned self-research and word of mouth as a better option to make a purchase decision.
While a small part of the survey participants have said that it depends on their need. If they see a product being marketed and they need it then the marketing content is more appealing to them as it satisfies their needs. If they don't need the product they may not find it as appealing and important and either they won't engage or engage to the extent of checking out the brand. A lot of these maybes also depend on the price of the product and the ethics and values of the brand as well as the influencer. The more these resonate with the consumer, the more likely they are to make a purchase or engage with a brand. IJIRMPS2104018 Website : www.ijirmps.org Email : editor@ijirmps.org 162 Q 6 Have consumers ever purchased a product or want to purchase a product that was promoted by an influencer?
The appeal of influencer marketing has definitely got a hold of most of the participants and the majority of them to have their eyes on many products they want to buy and will buy in the future if possible. Most of them discovered said products and their brands through the influencer and have been monitoring how effective and useful it is to make a sound decision. While others have their heart set on buying them as they look genuine and trustworthy and the influencer has been using it too.
A few of the participants have ended up purchasing clothes, makeup, accessories, gaming equipment, and even ordered food from places promoted by an influencer. They have availed the influencer's discount codes and have majorly made these purchases because they discovered the products through the influencer, were convinced by the marketing, and loved the description of the product as given by an influencer they trust. All of these participants have mentioned that they are satisfied with their purchases and will make more such future purchases in the future on the recommendation of influencers.
A minority of the group completely refused to buy a product promoted by an influencer for many reasons including the exaggerated marketing technique, sales-minded promotion, and their personal disconnect with influencers. Some have also said that most of the marketed products don't fit their budgets or needs or that they don't believe or fall for this type of marketing and will choose otherwise.

How many consumers have/want to buy a product promoted by an influencer
Have Will buy in the future Don't want to Q 7 Do consumers think influencer marketing is more effective than traditional marketing and has been more impactful especially during the pandemic?
Half of the consumers part of the survey agree that influencer marketing is more effective and impactful than traditional marketing. Especially citing the pandemic as a booster for this form of marketing. These users believe that influencers become "friends" with their followers, posting tidbits of their daily life and incorporating advertisements effortlessly making them seem more convincing.
Some other users mention that influencer marketing is more effective than traditional marketing because people are more likely to engage with products if it's coming from someone they've chosen to connect with whose values and judgments match their own. It is also a highly relatable source for them as compared to traditional marketing forms. Mainly because consumers t end to follow influencers similar to their taste and body shape, getting a better idea of what may suit their lifestyle more whic h traditional marketing eliminates.
Consumers also feel it is more impactful because it reaches a large audience, builds relations between fans-influencers-brands, and feels more personal and specifically catered to than traditional forms. Moreover, it is deemed as a turning marketing tac tic for businesses as well, bringing in more success than traditional forms do.
Some users held a middle-ground view about this where they believe that target audience, product, brand, influencer, and their content are variables that determine influencer marketing's success which can at times be less effective than traditional techniques and sometimes more effective. Its effectiveness depends on the situation and as a marketing technique working only on social media, it is limited but impactful in its own ways.
There were also users who consider both marketing forms to be equally effective as they both target and impact different people differently. Both have the same end goal but work differently and while influencer marketing is effective for the young generation, traditional marketing is still much needed for the older ones where it is still quite effective.
And a few consumers simply refuse to believe that influencer marketing is more impactful than traditional marketing. They refer to influencer marketing as a temporary form of marketing that gained traction during the pandemic and will die down as the pandemic dies down. It is effective but for a limited number of people and still poses gaps that are filled by traditional marketing strategies. Equally impactful Not impactful Is influencer marketing more impactful than traditional marketing for consumers?

Number of Consumers
Q 8 Do consumers feel like influencer marketing has benefited small businesses during the pandemic by helping them reach their target audience and build their brand to get more sales during these tough times?
A majority of the survey participants agree that influencer marketing has helped small businesses during the pandemic by amplifying them and their products and helping them reach bigger audiences to increase sales. Since online shopping increased by ten folds, a lot of consumers found that they were introduced to some amazing small businesses through influencers who helped the business grow by promoting them.
Some consumers have testimonies as to how an influencer has helped skyrocket a small business by continuously making purchases through them, taking photos of it, posting it on their socials, and tagging them for more visibility. Users also mention the rise of social media users due to the pandemic as a key element in making people influencers and being loyal consumers to influencer marketing.
Some users partially agree as they have seen both successes for small businesses and also losses. In their opinion, small businesses that could afford an influencer gained this traction while businesses without a big influencer budget were left out. It benefited some but overshadowed the others. Either way for users, influencer marketing did produce some productive results at times hence they partially do credit it for helping some small businesses make it through the pandemic.
A good number denied that influencer marketing helped small businesses during the pandemic as none of the influencers they came across vouched for smaller brands. In fact, they believe that influencer marketing only benefits big companies that can afford it whereas the smaller ones find it harder to get an influencer to market them.

Conclusion
The survey findings to get a consumer view on influencer marketing have produced mixed results with more inclination towards the positives than negatives. More than half of the participants believe that influencer marketing has had a significant impact on their purchase decisions and their overall lookout on what type of marketing convinces them to buy a product or engage with a brand. It is evident through various online platforms and researches that influencer marketing has proven to be very impactful and has played a key role in many consumers' purchase decisions.
A lot of consumers who are also avid social media users agree to being exposed to influencer marketing content every day and hence being an indirect target of various advertisements all over social media. A lot of them have at some point checked out the brands and products mentioned in these influencer advertisements which have either resulted in a purchase or a thought for a purchase in the future.
Most consumers agree that while they see influencer marketing content through influencers they follow, they also come across this content from influencers they don't follow. Which still has an impact on their purchase decision as they do check the brand or product out. This proves that even indirect influencer marketing has made consumers aware of brands and products and made them contemplate a purchase or has resulted in a real purchase.
Internet trends have shown that during the pandemic, a lot of creators rose to garner fame and became influencers and then further became influencers who promote brands. It became the new trend on social media and it has benefited plenty of companies who needed a way to continue business during a rather dull period. There has been substantial growth in the number of users who consume influencer marketing content on a daily and the number of users who go through the four stages of the AIDA model as they approach a purchase/not purchase stage of decision making.
Small businesses, big businesses, medium businesses, and homegrown businesses have all received much attention once they were Was influencer marketing beneficial to small businesses during the pandemic Yes definitely To a certain extent Not really promoted by a popular influencer and it has impacted their sales majorly because not only did they reach their target audience through a mediator, they did so through a popular one among a big group of people who will make purchases if recommended to them by said influencer.
Not only have many consumers come to be regular buyers of things marketed through influencer marketing, but they also think it is the best type of marketing to get to their heart and mind and place a product in it. Consumers also believe the way these are marketed by influencers through skits, funny videos, satirical content, heartwarming videos and more really makes the marketing 10 times more convincing but also genuine.
A good part of the regular influencer marketing enthusiasts have been regular purchasers of products that influencers heavily market and in their opinion, those are some of their best purchases and they will continue to buy things if an influencer has promoted it well and it fits their needs. Lots of others have been satisfied with what they bought through an influencer's recommendation and they find it a more trusting recommendation given to them to suit their tastes so they feel like they are exclusively catered to.
In conclusion, we can say that influencer marketing holds deep grounds for consumers' purchase decisions and has at least 7/10 times made a consumer buy a product or consider buying one. It has helped consumers get aware of many brands, products, and options of products to buy from while also giving them incentives in the form of discounts and deals. It has helped many consumers learn about market trends and things to buy and from where helping them make a sound decision when they decide to put in their money and energy into making a purchase. For many, it has become an ultimate recommendation source that they trust immensely and cross-check with before making a purchase. And for many, it is idolization turned into a parallel expression of relativity with the influencer they take a product/brand recommendation from. Either way in recent times it has become a more concrete phenomenon and has shown major impacts on consumers, all ages and tastes, and their purchase decisions and behaviors.
It is safe to conclude that influencer marketing holds an upper hand in the market when it comes to influencing their target groups effectively and turning it into a one-time or a regular purchase and engagement pattern.