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The purpose of this paper is to examine and report on the extent and firm characteristics that determine the practices of online financial disclosure (OFD) by the Islamic banks in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.

Data were collected using the websites of 48 Islamic banks listed on the stock markets in the GCC countries. Moreover, the study used the websites of the stock markets to get more financial information which was not found on the websites of the banks. The study covered a period of three years from 2015 to 2017. A checklist was used to compute the total level of OFD.

This study found that the overall level of OFD in the GCC by Islamic banks is 72.4 percent. The results also report a significant and positive relationship with firm size. On the other hand, the results show an insignificant relationship with profitability (ROE and ROA), leverage and age.

The paper provides awareness regarding OFD that might prove beneficial to the various stakeholders of the banks including investors, regulators and preparers of financial statements.

This paper is an important contribution to filling the gap in the literature, as there are a negligible number of studies dealing with OFD from an Islamic perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to present the evidence of accounting undergraduates’ attitude toward entrepreneurship, in particular, whether entrepreneurial skills developed in accounting education engender cognition of skills and intentions of starting a business.

The study uses a χ² test statistic used to evaluate a logistic regression to gauge the effect of delivering six entrepreneurial skills (risk taking, critical thinking, problem solving, innovation, autonomy and need for achievement) on entrepreneurship attitudes (cognition of skills and intentions). Data consist of questionnaire responses obtained from 668 undergraduates attending Egyptian and Bahraini universities.

The results reveal that accounting students perceive the following four entrepreneurial skills as a key for starting their own business: risk taking, critical thinking, problem solving and innovation. In addition, Egyptian students incline toward cognition, whereas Bahraini students head toward intentions.

Some changes to accounting curricula are proposed to enhance entrepreneurial intention.

This paper offers a new contribution as it focuses on the challenges and the considerations in the Arab World Universities.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between the composition of Sharīʿah supervisory boards (independence and frequency of meetings) and the performance of Islamic banks in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.

The study developed a multiple linear regression model, and data were collected from the annual reports of 48 standalone Islamic banks listed in the GCC countries covering the period between 2013 and 2017.

The results showed a statistically significant and negative relationship between the composition of the Sharīʿah supervisory boards and the performance of Islamic banks.

As the current study used only one indicator, that is Return on Assets to measure performance, it is recommended to expand the framework of this study, through the addition of market-based performance indicators such as Tobin’s Q.

This study recommends the GCC countries to follow a more proactive Sharīʿah governance model to strengthen their frameworks from both regulatory and non-regulatory aspects.

The study contributes to the Sharīʿah governance and Islamic banking literature relating to the GCC countries as previous studies gave no attention to the composition of Sharīʿah supervisory boards.

This study aims to examine the relationship between online financial disclosure (OFD) and profitability of Islamic banks in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.

An extensive review of the literature was carried out and a checklist of 90 items (71 for content and 19 for presentation) was adopted to measure the level of OFD for the Islamic banks that are listed on the GCC stock exchanges. Additionally, the study used three indicators to measure profitability, namely, return on equity, return on assets and earnings per share.

The findings show that the overall OFD by Islamic banks in the GCC is 72.5 per cent, and a negative and insignificant relationship between OFD and profitability.

The study recommends that regulatory bodies should develop a guideline of disclosing information through the internet to enhance the transparency and performance among Islamic banks, which leads to reasonable economic decision-making.

The study contributes to the financial reporting and the Islamic economy literature relating to the GCC countries as previous studies gave no attention to Islamic banks.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the association between online financial disclosure (OFD) and firms’ performance in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

Extensive literature review was carried out and a checklist of 90 items (71 for content and 19 for presentation) was developed to measure the level of OFD by the firms that are listed in financial sectors of the GCC Bourses.

The findings show that the overall OFD in GCC is 77 percent. The results indicate a positive association between OFD and firms’ performance.

The study recommends that regulatory bodies should develop a guideline of disclosing information through the internet in order to enhance the corporate transparency and performance among the GCC listed companies leading to reasonable economic decision making.

Additionally, the study contributes to financial reporting and performance literature relating to the GCC countries.

This study aims to examine the relationship between the three dimensions of Web 2.0 disclosure (Shariah, content and presentation) and the firm value of listed Islamic financial institutions (IFIs) in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) stock exchanges.

A checklist of 118 items was used to measure the level of Web 2.0 disclosure for the IFIs that are listed on the GCC stock exchanges. Data were gathered from the websites of the IFI samples, where researchers looked for annual reports, RSS, widgets, web-casting and the layout and design of the websites.

Based on the results, the level of the Shariah dimension by GCC IFIs was 74.93%, the level of the content dimension was 76.33%, the level of the presentation dimension was 78.03% and the level of the overall Web 2.0 disclosure was 75.73%, and a positive and significant relationship between the content dimension and Tobin’s Q.

In addition to other reforms, this study recommends IFIs to improve their regulations, risk management and standardization.

This study offers a new contribution as it adds a new perspective to the online financial disclosure literature, which is the Shariah dimension. Furthermore, this study provides empirical evidence for interested parties in the Islamic banking industry such as users and regulators in the GCC countries concerning the importance and usage of Web 2.0 applications for disclosure and its positive impact on adding a premium to IFIs.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between board structure and performance from an Islamic point of view.

Consequently, the researcher developed a multiple linear regression model to investigate the nature of this relationship, whereby return on assets (ROA) was used to measure the performance of listed Islamic Banks in Gulf Cooperation Council, covering the period between 2013 and 2016.

The results indicated a negative relationship between board structure and the performance of Islamic banks.

Because the current study only used accounting-based performance indicator (ROA), the researcher suggests expanding the framework of this study through the addition of market-based performance indicators such as Tobin’s Q.

Therefore, the researcher recommends that regulators of Islamic banks in the GCC need to develop a set of strict restrictions for the selection of independent members of the board and to minimize the meetings of the board to reduce the cost of preparing information and the information asymmetry, thus improving performance.

This study provides guidelines regarding the appropriate number of independent directors and board meetings that will result in reduced monitoring costs and improved profits.

This study aims to examine the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the financial performance (profitability and market value) of firms listed in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries’ stock markets.

The sample of the study consisted of all the listed companies in the GCC bourses for the period of 2010-2017. CSR was calculated by using the total amount of donations and charity disclosed in the financial reports. The three performance proxies used as the dependent variables included return on assets (ROA; profitability), return on equity (ROE; profitability) and Tobin’s Q (market value).

This study found that the UAE had the highest level of CSR compared to the other GCC countries. Additionally, the findings showed a negative and significant relationship between CSR and ROA, and a positive and significant relationship between CSR and Tobin’s Q.

In addition to other reforms, this paper recommends the GCC governments to impose a CSR framework and SMART platforms in line with the UAE’s initiatives.

This paper offers new contributions to the GCC literature and recommendations to their firms and governments.