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This study aims to investigate differences between Islamic and conventional banks in Pakistan with respect to their operational efficiency, liquidity risk and asset quality. Importantly, in addition to full-fledged Islamic and conventional banks, this study also investigates a more recently emerged breed of hybrid banks, i.e. Islamic divisions of conventional banks.

Data for the period 2011–2020 was collected from financial reports of all full-fledged Islamic banks (5), Islamic banking divisions of conventional banks (8) and conventional banks (20) in Pakistan. Logistic regressions were designed to test the proposed hypotheses.

The findings suggest that full-fledged Islamic banks are operationally less efficient and experience higher liquidity risk than conventional banks. However, the asset quality of Islamic banks is better than that of conventional banks. Next, in the robustness analysis, the authors extended the sample size by adding the Islamic divisions (window) of the conventional banks; they found almost the same result except for efficiency which turned out to be non-significantly related to bank type.

The findings are beneficial for investors, depositors, consumers and bank management in understanding the financial features of such as efficiency, liquidity and liquidity risk that separate Islamic banks from conventional banks.

The findings of this study present a clear picture to bankers and practitioners about some financial features of banking systems and depict that Islamic banks are in need to improve their liquidity risk management practices to compete with conventional banks.

Scams are indeed malicious attempts to influence people and can take many forms, including online scams. With the increasing availability of technology, scammers have more tools at their disposal to create convincing and sophisticated communications that appear to come from legitimate sources, such as emails, text messages or social media posts. These scams can be designed to trick individuals into clicking on malicious links, downloading malware or ransomware or providing sensitive information such as login information, financial information or personal details. Scammers often use social engineering techniques to persuade their targets to take specific actions, such as creating a sense of urgency, offering a reward or prize or posing as a trusted authority. These tactics can be highly effective, particularly if the target is unaware of the warning signs of a scam or is unfamiliar with how to protect themselves from online fraud. This paper aims to explore the extent and nature of this problem and evokes the concern that the general public is vulnerable and susceptible to scams if they are not resilient and aware. This paper also explores why victims fall for online scams and uncovers preventive measures to enable a direction in tacitly strategizing ways to create more impactful and effective awareness campaigns.

This study explores these aspects through a holistic qualitative approach. Using in-depth interview techniques with six victims, six non-victims, four law enforcement officers, four scammers and seven stakeholders from various agencies such as banks, telecommunication agencies and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission involved in combating the issue of scams.

The findings generally revealed that participants who were victims of scams felt Malaysians were susceptible to scams, easily fooled and had a nonchalant attitude. Most participants also highlighted that public safety is important for ensuring a high quality of life for citizens that should work closely between the government and non-government agencies, including effective law enforcement and crime prevention strategies.

The uniqueness of this study is the feedback from scammers themselves and their input towards authority and victims. Overall, the respondents provide their views drawing strength from the ever-changing technological background as well as the susceptibility of security features and vulnerability of human engagement.

This paper aims to investigate the zakat disclosure of Islamic banks at the global level. It is important for depositors and shareholders of Islamic banks to know whether the bank is paying zakat on their behalf or not. Additionally, disclosing the calculation method used is also necessary to eliminate uncertainties resulting from ambiguous reporting that can mislead the stakeholders. This issue becomes more obvious when considering that depositors and shareholders may have different accounts with different Islamic banks, which makes it quite confusing to have multiple ways of zakat calculation or different approaches on who is the party that pays it. This study analyzes the current practices across 13 countries and recommends best practices.

The objective of the paper objective is achieved through analyzing the annual reports of 34 Islamic banks in 13 countries for the years 2014 and 2019. It further quantifies the zakat disclosure by constructing a zakat disclosure index. This index considers the disclosure of four major constituents covering the amount and the responsibility for payment, the calculation method, the involvement of the Shariah board and the zakat duty on investment account holders. For further robustness, this study is further supported by content analysis measures using the zakat word count in annual reports.

The results indicate a major issue in zakat disclosure. The overall average of disclosure index is low. Most of the banks disclose limited information about zakat, such as the amount and the responsibility for payment, in their annual reports. Less than 40% of the examined banks disclose information about the role of the Shariah board in zakat calculation, and a very limited number of banks (9%) are found to disclose enough details about the zakat calculation method. Furthermore, none of the examined banks mentions the zakat due for the investment accounts. Overall, zakat disclosure of most of the banks, whether following Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions or otherwise, are found to be not up to the expected best practices.

Among the limitations of this study is the sole dependence on annual reports of Islamic banks without considering other means that banks might be using to communicate zakat-related matters to stakeholders. Examples of such means include a website, social media and other direct or indirect marketing materials. Additionally, the results of this study shall not be overgeneralized regarding differences between countries because the sample does not include all Islamic banks in the selected country. Future research may use the proposed zakat disclosure index on a country-specific data sample.

The findings have significant implications as they raise a serious concern regarding the sufficiency of the Islamic banks’ disclosure about a core area of their responsibility, that is, the zakat. The index developed can be a tentative measure of zakat disclosure transparency pending further review. The result further suggests looking at the composition of members of Shariah boards to include at least one member with a sound accounting background. Zakat is a religious duty; therefore, a perceived lack of transparency on the amount, method of calculation and how the zakat is paid may affect the future injection of capital into Islamic banks.

An important contribution of this paper lies in the fact that the collected data is not provided in any available database. Rather, it is manually captured from the individual annual reports of reviewed Islamic banks. Further, this paper proposes an index to measure the zakat disclosure at bank and country levels.

This paper aims to derive a compatible Shariah opinion on the permissibility of using cryptocurrencies by Muslims by reviewing the opinions expressed by Shariah scholars on the permissibility of cryptocurrencies.

This is a qualitative desk review research where the opinions expressed by the Shariah scholars on the permissibility of cryptocurrencies and the issues related to it have been analyzed using the literature. All the Shariah parameters checked pertaining to currencies have been studied and assessed to derive the Shariah opinion.

The research findings suggest that cryptocurrencies do not fully meet the characteristics of money according to Shariah principles. Scholars debate their classification as a medium of exchange due to concerns about volatility, intrinsic value and governance. The treatment of cryptocurrencies varies, and their decentralized nature prevents monopolization. Governance and resistance to manipulation are facilitated by blockchain technology. Classifying cryptocurrencies as hard money and their recognition as the primary unit of account face challenges. While they can be a store of value, price volatility and regulations must be considered. The network effect is crucial for their success, and their supply is controlled through complex protocols. These findings have implications for policymakers in Islamic finance.

The differences in Shariah opinions on using cryptocurrencies have been a major debate in the Islamic financial industry. A clear and comprehensive study is not found on the differences in the Shariah opinions on their reasonings, which is important for researchers and professionals in the field. Therefore, this research provides valuable insights for policymakers, scholars and practitioners in Islamic finance, contributing to the understanding of applying Islamic principles to cryptocurrencies.

The aim of this paper is to examine the strategic approach of culturally responsive and communicative teaching (CRCT) through a critical assessment of interracial teachers in their daily school interactions.

The empirical data were obtained through interviews among ten interracial teachers. The analysis was made through a thematic approach to obtain substantial data from interviews.

The findings reveal that attempts to gain sufficient comprehension of CRCT are actualized through routine interaction in the multicultural school environment hence resulting in embedding self-awareness of cultural competence in a multicultural classroom, constructing emotional and social development on cultural awareness and internalizing responsive awareness on social engagement in global learning.

The contribution of this research provides an insightful value on expanding key consideration to support the multicultural classroom environment with an active engagement and enhancement of CRCT as fundamental basis of the multicultural classroom.

From 1979 to 2023, the takaful structure has been adopted in many jurisdictions, making the documenting of its early days of establishment relatively difficult and somewhat unreliable. This is unlike conventional insurance, where the history and legislation are well documented and archived in various research (Hellwege, 2016; Marano and Siri, 2017). The purpose of this paper is to provide a chronology for the establishment and development of takaful via the takaful establishment in each jurisdiction, documenting its first takaful operator and first takaful regulation.

This paper has used a qualitative method in the form of reviewing literature and available data such as journals, books and official resources. The data is thoroughly analysed in order to build the chronology for takaful. It adopted an exploratory research design, which is deemed suitable in situations where few works of literature have examined the subject (Neuman, 2014). The paper explores the establishment and non-establishment of takaful in 57 countries. The paper categorises the countries into seven regions starting with the GCC, Levant, Asia, Central Asia, Africa, Europe and Others.

The takaful chronology presented in this paper shows that takaful operations exist in 47 jurisdictions, starting from Sudan and the UAE in 1979, with the most recent adopters being Morocco and Iran in December 2021. It is found that 22 jurisdictions do not have takaful regulations, and the Takaful Act 1984, issued in Malaysia, is considered the first takaful regulation that sets the basis for other regulations that follow.

The paper contributes to the literature by providing a comprehensive chronology of takaful, especially as the few existing timelines have been found to be incomplete and consist of contradictory information.

This study aims to examine the correlation between the readability of financial statements and the likelihood of future stock price crashes in nonfinancial companies listed on the Egyptian Stock Exchange. It further explores the possible moderating effect of audit quality on this relationship.

The study uses ordinary least squares regression, generalized least squares estimation and two-stage least squares methodology to examine and validate the research hypotheses. The sample comprises 107 nonfinancial companies registered on the Egyptian Stock Exchange from 2016 to 2019.

The results reveal a significant negative association between the readability of financial statements and stock price crash risk. This suggests that companies with more complex financial statements tend to experience higher future crash risks. Additionally, the study identifies audit quality as a significant moderating factor. Higher audit quality, often indicated by engagements with Big-4 audit firms, strengthens the influence of financial statements readability on stock price crash risk. This implies that while high audit quality enhances investor confidence and market stability, it also accentuates the negative consequences of complex financial statements.

The findings of this paper have significant implications for regulators and standard-setting bodies in Egypt. They should consider refining and revising existing standards to emphasize the importance of enhancing the readability of financial reports. Additionally, auditing firms should actively engage in efforts to ensure clearer and more transparent financial reporting. These actions are vital for boosting investor confidence, strengthening Egypt’s capital market and mitigating potential risks associated with information opacity and complexity.

This study represents a pioneering endeavor within the Arab and Egyptian financial environments. To the best of the author’s knowledge, it is the first examination of the association between the readability of financial statements and stock price crash risk in these contexts. Furthermore, it explores factors such as audit quality that may influence this connection.

This study aims to investigate the dynamic interaction between interest rates and commercial property financing offered by Islamic banks in Malaysia.

The authors use the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) cointegration methodology to analyse the short- and long-run effect of the interest rates and rental rates on commercial property financing of Islamic banks in Malaysia between 2010: Q1 and 2018: Q2.

The findings reveal that changes in interest rates affect Islamic commercial property financing. This indicates that Islamic banks still rely on interest rates as a benchmark without fully implementing Islamic rental rates. This corroborates the subsequent finding, where overnight policy rates influence commercial property financing.

Despite the authors’ attempt to provide insights into Islamic commercial property financing, the study is limited to secondary data; further research can use survey information to obtain other details that are not included in this study. Similarly, this study does not cover the operation and financial lease debate in Musharakah Mutanaqisah. Future studies can examine the challenges faced by the financial institution towards implementing rental rates in other emerging and developing countries using a different methodology.

This study is the first to investigate the dynamic changes in overnight policy rates, average lending rates and rental rates on Islamic commercial property financing in Malaysia using ARDL techniques. The authors uncover the research and institutional implications of Islamic commercial property financing rates and provide policy and future research directions coupled with the proposed modified rental rate to be developed.

Blockchain technology has brought about significant transformation among organizations worldwide. This study aimed to explore the effects of organizational and technological factors on blockchain technology adoption (BTA) and financial performance (FP) in Pakistan.

This is a co-relational study which used the cross-sectional data. We gathered the data from the managers of Pakistan’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which functioned their industries with blockchain technology. We applied convenience sampling to identify the respondents. Finally, we based this study’s findings on 274 valid cases.

We used structural equation modeling (SEM) in this study, to exert a positive and significant impact on organizational factors such as organizational innovativeness (OI), organizational learning capability (OLC), top management support (TMS) and organizational work climate (OWC) on BTA. In addition, the technological factors, such as complexity (CTY), technology readiness (TR), compatibility (CBTY) and technology capability (TC), have a positive and significant effect on BTA. Finally, this study’s findings show that BTA positively and significantly impacts FP.

This study’s findings will help policymakers and planners to design policies to adopt other blockchain technologies to improve SMEs’ operations. Moreover, this study’s findings will inspire policymakers and planners to actively seek new ideas, knowledge and skills through acquiring new knowledge to assist with their IT-related decisions.

This study empirically confirms the role of organizational and technology factors toward BTA and FP among Pakistan's SME managers.

Environmental performance (EnPerf) needs to be critically studied so organizations can understand enhancing it. The purpose of this study is mainly to examine and explain the influence of beliefs and values of the human resources regarding religiosity (REL) and workplace spirituality (WS) on shaping an environmentally friendly work culture comprising environmental ethics (EE) and environmental passion (EP), to enhance EnPerf.

A survey methodology was used, and 316 responses were collected from the employees working in industries on the top list of polluting the environment using purposive sampling. Structural equation modeling was deployed to test the hypotheses.

This research is conducted to identify specific relationships of variables with the environment. It was discovered that WS affected EP and EE, positively affecting EnPerf.

This study guides organizations and their management to adopt WS, EE and EP, as these all increase EnPerf in the organization.

Not much work has been conducted on the environmental culture based on REL and WS, using the ability-motivation-opportunity theory. This research analyzes employees’ intrinsic factors, such as REL and WS, to develop EP and EE. Thus helping to comprehend how they can use to enhance EnPerf, which is the current priority for the organizations.