Moderating role of religiosity on Zakat compliance behavior in Nigeria Abubakar U. Farouk Department of Accountancy, Kano State Polytechnic, Kano, Nigeria, and Kamil Md Idris and Ram Al Jaffri Bin Saad Department of Accounting and Taxation, Tunku Puteri Intan Safinaz School of Accountancy, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Sintok, Malaysia Abstract Purpose – This paper examines the moderating effect of religiosity in the theory of reasoned action (TRA) on intention to comply with the Zakat on employment income (ZEI). Design/methodology/approach – A survey of civil servants in Kano State, Nigeria was carried out and 474 valid observations were retrieved from the 700 distributed questionnaires. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to validate the instrument that measures the variables, examined the structural model and the predictive relevance of the study's model. Findings – The results revealed the suitability of both the TRA and the PLS-SEM in the study of ZEI behavioral intention in a developing country. All the hypothesized direct relationships were supported on the one hand. On the other hand, one of the two indirect relationships, subjective norm and behavioral intention moderated by religiosity was supported, but the other tests for moderating effects of religiosity on the relationship between attitude and behavioral intention was not. Practical implications – Public and private Zakat institutions in Muslim majority societies in Nigeria and in other Muslim countries may use the findings to focus their attention on the formulation of policies based on the findings of the study to strengthen eligible Zakat payers’ intention to comply to further boost their Zakat collections. Originality/value – This study extends the TRA in the context of ZEI by proposing religiosity as a moderator in the predictive capacity of TRA on ZEI. Moreover, the suitability for the use of PLS-SEM as a statistical tool in investigating the extended TRA with religiosity as a moderating variable as well as its implications for theory and practice were also discussed. Keywords Nigeria, Religiosity, Theory of reasoned action, Zakat on employment income Paper type Research paper Introduction Zakat is a topical issue that has the capacity for poverty reduction but is grossly under- researched (Johari et al., 2014). This underscored the growing calls for empirical examination of Zakat in the Muslim majority countries (Ammani et al., 2014), the use of different context, bigger sample and different environment for generalization (Oladimeji et al., 2013). As a result of the prevalence of poverty in developing countries, a lot of efforts and strategies have been put in place by successive governments to effectively fight poverty, but little has been achieved (Ammani et al., 2014). However, according to Sohag et al. (2015), it is evidently clear that religious leaders always have a role particularly in African societies in solving the multi-dimensional poverty issues in areas of creating awareness, health issues, educational Role of religiosity on Zakat compliance Received 17 May 2017 Revised 21 August 2017 26 October 2017 Accepted 16 December 2017 International Journal of Islamic and Middle Eastern Finance and Management © Emerald Publishing Limited 1753-8394 DOI 10.1108/IMEFM-05-2017-0122 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/1753-8394.htm Downloaded by Göteborgs Universitet At 13:30 09 February 2018 (PT)