Perceived Transaction Costs of Hijri Calendar Fragmentation: Qualitative Evidence from Indonesian Business Actors and Consumers

Rusli Siri; Rahmi; Misbahuddin; Anwar Enre; Andi Faisal Syam; Muh. Azri Hamka

doi:10.61255/jeemba.v4i5.1699

Authors

Rusli Siri Politeknik Lembaga Pendidikan dan Pengembangan Profesi Indonesia Makassar, Makassar, Indonesia.
Rahmi Politeknik Lembaga Pendidikan dan Pengembangan Profesi Indonesia Makassar, Makassar, Indonesia.
Misbahuddin Sekolah Tinggi Ilmu Ekonomi AMKOP Makassar, Makassar, Indonesia
Anwar Enre Universitas Cokroaminoto Makassar, Makassar, Indonesia
Andi Faisal Syam Institut Bisnis dan Keuangan Nitro Makassar, Makasssar, Indonesia
Muh. Azri Hamka Politeknik Lembaga Pendidikan dan Pengembangan Profesi Indonesia Makassar, Makassar, Indonesia.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.61255/jeemba.v4i5.1699

Keywords:

Global Unified Hijri Calendar, Hijri Calendar, Islamic Economics, Maslahah, Transaction Cost Economics

Abstract

Purpose – This study explores how business actors and consumers in Indonesia perceive the temporal uncertainty arising from Hijri calendar fragmentation, and how they evaluate the Global Unified Hijri Calendar (GUHC) as one possible institutional response among several. The everyday economic dimension of this persistent divergence over Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr has received little attention in a literature dominated by fiqh and astronomy.

Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative design combined phenomenologically informed interviewing with framework-guided thematic analysis. Fifteen participants were purposively recruited in South Sulawesi (Makassar, Gowa, Maros, and Pangkep): twelve business actors from the transportation, retail, and logistics sectors and three household consumers. Meaning units were coded inductively and then organised against the categories of Transaction Cost Economics (TCE), with maslahah serving as an interpretive lens.

Findings – Participants reported three interrelated categories of perceived transaction costs: information, coordination, and adjustment costs. Within this small sample, transportation participants most often described rescheduling burdens, retail participants demand-timing uncertainty, and logistics participants distribution disruption; these are sample-level patterns, not statistically established sectoral differences. Adaptive strategies appeared to redistribute, rather than remove, the uncertainty described.

Originality/Value – The study offers early qualitative evidence linking lived experience of calendar fragmentation to an institutional-economic vocabulary, providing an exploratory basis for further research on the GUHC as a candidate, though not empirically validated, institutional response.

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