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Specifically, the purpose of this paper is to identify the key factors affecting banks’ liquidity in developing/less-developing countries.

In this paper, the author uses the ordinary least-square fixed effect model on an unbalanced panel data set of all conventional banks (686 banks) operating in the organization of Islamic cooperation countries over the period 1989-2008.

The estimation results show that all the determinants have statistically significant relationship with liquidity (except for concentration) but with different signs. On the one hand, capital ratio, foreign ownership, credit risk, inflation rate, monetary policy and deposit insurance negatively affected banks’ liquidity, while on the other hand, efficiency, size, off-balance sheet activities, market capitalization and concentration have a positive link with banks’ liquidity.

According to the best of author’s knowledge, this is the first empirical study to investigate the determinants of banks liquidity in developing/less-developing countries using a large sample of banks (686 banks) and for long period (19 years).

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of Islam banks (IBs) liquidity.

In this paper, the author uses a generalized least square fixed effect model on an unbalanced panel data set of all IBs operating in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation countries over the period 1989-2008.

The estimation results show that all the determinants have statistically significant relationships with IBs’ liquidity but with different signs. On the one hand, foreign ownership, credit risk, profitability, inflation rate, monetary policy and deposit insurance negatively affected IBs liquidity. On the other hand, capital ratio, size gross domestic product growth and concentration have a positive nexus with IBs’ liquidity.

According to the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first empirical study to investigate the determinants of IBs liquidity using cross-country data with a large sample of IBs (110 banks) and over a long period (19 years). Also, the paper included variables that had not been discussed on the previous studies, which used cross-country data, such as efficiency, deposit insurance, monetary policy, concentration and market capitalization.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of internal and external variables on the profitability of conventional banks operating on developing and underdeveloped countries, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) states.

In this paper, the author uses ordinary least squares fixed-effects model on an unbalanced panel data set of all conventional banks operating in OIC countries (52 countries included from 57) over the period 1989-2008, 686 banks.

The results suggest that equity, foreign ownership, off-balance sheet (OBS) activities, real gross domestic product growth, real interest rate and concentration foster banks’ profitability. In addition, the results showed that the banking sector development and loans will increase banks’ profitability in the long run in the countries of the studies. In contrast, the study reported that deposits lower profitability. The study also revealed that GDP per capita, market capitalization and banks size have no impact on profitability.

The findings of this study have considerable policy implications. First, policymakers need to regulate nontraditional activities to avoid any financial crisis because banks in OIC countries are heavily engaged in nontraditional activities to boost its profit. Second, policymakers are advised to improve the deposit insurance system to insure the stability of the financial system as well as improving banks’ profitability. Third, policymakers need to improve the efficiency of the stock market, maintain small banking system and encourage foreign investments in the banking system.

The paper adds to the literature on the commercial bank’s profitability determinants. In particular, such study has not been conducted on OIC countries, and the study included all mainstream banks and incorporated the effect of deposit insurance system so far. Also, pure sample of conventional banks used as many conventional banks in OIC countries have Islamic windows or offer Islamic products. In addition, this study investigated the effect of OBS activities on net interest margin (NIM) because the studies that explored this interrelationship are limited especially for developing and under developed countries. The results showed that OBS activities contributed significantly and positively to return on assets and NIM. Moreover, this paper used a pure sample of conventional banks to avoid any biasness; see data section. Moreover, this study gives an idea about the economic situation and financial conditions of OIC countries during the period of the study.

Existing research has examined English as a foreign language (EFL) students’ attitudes towards flipped learning. However, no study seems to have correlated students’ achievement and their attitudes towards flipped learning. Yemeni EFL students also face pronunciation problems and they lack technology-enhanced language learning. The flipped learning approach promotes active learning and increases students’ learning outcomes. This study aims to measure the achievement level and the attitudes of Yemeni EFL students towards flipped pronunciation classrooms. It also correlates between achievement and attitudes towards this new experience.

Using a correlational research design, quantitative and qualitative data were collected through a test, questionnaire and structured interview from an intact class of Yemeni EFL students at the College of Education in Socotra.

The one-sample t-test analysis shows that the respondents scored high in the achievement test. The analysis of both the questionnaire and the structured interview revealed that the students have a positive attitude towards the flipped pronunciation classroom. The correlation analysis indicated a high-level positive relationship between students’ achievement and their attitudes where r = 0.779 with p < 0.001, two-tailed.

The present study has some limitations regarding the sample size. This context-specific study recruited the available EFL class at the College of Education in Socotra, Hadhramout University. It would be more reliable should the study compared large groups of students so that the results can be generalized.

The study recommends using flipped learning to enhance pronunciation among EFL students.

This study contributes to the correlational studies in flipped learning.

Competent contractors are one of the critical stakeholders to achieve targeted sustainability objectives in green building (GB) projects. Prior to contractor selection, prequalification is an important step, which requires contractors with certain capabilities in addition to traditional features. This study aims to develop a systematic and practical model for prequalification in GB projects using a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach by adopting the analytical hierarchy process (AHP).

The AHP model with 8 main criteria groups and 25 sub-criteria is structured based on literature review and professional opinions accompanied by a pilot study. Then, interviews with experts, who are experienced in the development and application phases of GB projects in Turkey, are arranged to collect judgements. The agreement levels between different groups of experts are analysed via Pearson's and Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. Model applicability is tested on six hypothetical contractors for practicality.

The results show that i) financial capabilities, ii) legal status and iii) sustainability groups are the top three main criteria, while i) compliance with schedule requirements of the client, ii) current legal status including suits, iii) negative litigation history records, iv) contractor's compliance capacity to client's sustainability checklist for the proposed project and v) sustainability with lower life cycle cost (durability, maintenance, constructability) are the top five sub-criteria.

There is a gap in the literature analysing contractor prequalification phase in GB projects. This study attempts to fill this lack provided with a practical evaluation tool.

This paper aims to examine the effect of bank-specific, financial structure and macroeconomic factors on the risk-taking behavior, stability and profitability of banks in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) economies during 1998–2017.

The authors use a two-step system generalized method of moments dynamic model to analyze the data.

The results show that non-traditional activities increase the risk and decrease the stability and profitability of banks that are highly capitalized, highly liquid and large. Banks in this group are less engaged in securities investments and their higher degree of loan exposure leads to a decrease in risk and an increase in their stability and profitability. Higher concentration increases the risk and decreases the stability and profitability of banks that are less capitalized, less liquid and small. Banks with a higher share of non-traditional activities are riskier and less stable and less profitable before the financial crisis. The study finds that banks with relatively higher capitalization and high lending growth rates are riskier, profitable and less stable during the crisis. Larger commercial banks are less risky and more stable and profitable than smaller banks before the global financial crisis. Islamic banks performed better in terms of fee income, capitalization, liquidity, asset quality and have higher market concentration than conventional banks.

The study provides the first comprehensive empirical evidence on the drivers of risk-taking behavior, stability and profitability of the GCC banks. It also investigates the differences across these variables based on the characteristics of financial strength such as capitalization, liquidity and size; before, during and after the financial crisis; and differences between Islamic and conventional banks.

This study aims to determine the design factors that may affect the design of disabled students. Additionally, this study assesses and compares the reality between the public Jordanian universities’ built environment and international universities based on the Americans with Disabilities Act checklist – version 2.1 – to provide an accessible built environment for physically disabled people. Furthermore, this study examines the satisfaction degree of physically disabled people with the built environment in selected universities. Besides, this study examines the relationships/interrelationships between the students’ demographic factors, design factors and the degree of the disabled students’ satisfaction.

This research used different data collection methods to answer the research questions: literature review, observation and questionnaire. Additionally, this study used different analytical and statistical methods, such as comparative analysis between the local cases and the selected international case study based on the Americans with Disabilities Act checklist, version 2.1, descriptive analysis and Pearson r correlational statistics.

This research found that the Jordanian public universities did not apply all required design factors to achieve a high degree of the built environment of accessibility and provide all the requirements and needs of physically disabled students like international universities. Additionally, half of the physically disabled students respondents were satisfied with the availability and quality of pathways, ramps, doors and corridors, non-slippery materials, elevators, accessible entrances, entrances doors, methods of openings, adequate spaces for wheelchair students at the configuration of the entrance and the availability of railing. In contrast, they were unsatisfied with the availability of parking and bathrooms for each gender and signage systems. Moreover, this research found no significant differences between gender and educational level and all factors that may impact the students’ satisfaction with campus environmental design. Furthermore, this research found that there was a strong to very strong positive linear association and a significant correlation/intercorrelation between the availability and the design quality of parking, entrances, doors, lobbies and corridors, bathrooms, signage systems and information, ramps, elevators and stairs and the disabled students’ satisfaction degree.

This research tends to help disabled students participate entirely and independently in the built environment and all aspects of society, involve them within the community and facilitate their access to universities’ urban space. This research considers guidelines and checklists for architects and policymakers to apply through all design and retrofitting processes to meet disabled students’ requirements. This research provides a vital understanding of the needs of disabled students in educational spaces to create a barrier-free campus environment.

Inclusive design is a relatively new architectural concept. It provides means to ensure access and equal participation in the built environment, offers the opportunity to improve and design new equivalent solutions in architecture simultaneously and covers the way for a broad clarification of equality. Applying the concepts of inclusive design is a step toward eliminating the barriers imposed on the built environment in public universities and creating an accessible built environment. In addition, this research can guide future research in other institutions.

This paper aims to investigate the differences in the practice of tawarruq munazzam contracts based on personal financing products. The researcher will then analyse the said differences based on the potential for risk to occur and risk from a Shariah perspective.

This study’s methodology is qualitative, in which the data are collected through library research and field studies. The library research is conducted by examining books, articles, statutes and related circulars. From the practical aspect, field studies were conducted in an unstructured interview method with officers used in Islamic banks. The snowball method was used to determine the number of Islamic banks to be studied until no new information was obtained on the different practices of tawarruq munazzam contracts based on personal financing products.

The results show that there are differences in the practice of tawarruq munazzam contracts based on personal financing products practised by the Islamic banks studied. These differences have brought significant influence in determining the level of Shariah risk potentials and Shariah risks, respectively. The results also show that the highest number of the Shariah risk potential and Shariah risk in the Islamic financial institutions (IFIs) studied is 10 i.e. covering the issues of customer engagement, wa’ad (promise), commodity asset, gharar (uncertainty), wakalah (representative), ta’wid and gharamah, the willing but not an able debtor, qalb dayn and two prices in a transaction. Meanwhile, the least amount of the Shariah risk potential and Shariah risk in the IFIs studied is four, i.e. covering the issues of customer engagement, wakalah, the willing but not an able debtor and two prices in a transaction. Findings prove that there are opportunities for IFIs to minimise Shariah risk potential and risk in the personal financing products offered.

This study is limited to the practice of tawarruq munazzam contracts based on personal financing products practised by IFIs in Malaysia.

The differences in the tawarruq munazzam contract practice show the distinctive elements in both Shariah risk potential and Shariah risk. Therefore, the findings of this study can be a guideline for IFIs to improve the practice of tawarruq munazzam contracts, especially in personal financing products in minimising Shariah risk potential and Shariah risk.

The public confidence in Islamic banking is increasing as Islamic banks can minimise the Shariah risk potential and Shariah risk in tawarruq munazzam contracts based on the personal financing products offered.

This study analyses the differences in the practice of tawarruq munazzam contracts based on personal financing products by IFIs in Malaysia, which can impact Shariah risk potential and Shariah risk.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the reasons for the variance among tenders for conservation projects in Malaysia.

Semi-structured interview approach was adopted because this method allows for effective probing of issues. The interviews are conducted with experienced conservation contractors. The interviews are transcribed and the data are analysed using thematic analysis. Coefficient of variation (CV) measure was also used to determine the level of variance that occurs in tenders for conservation projects.

The study found that contractors faced difficulty in pricing competitively due to the following four factors, namely, uncertain information on the actual work on site, inexperience in conservation construction works, information in the bill of quantities is incomplete and uncertain labour and material cost. The study of 22 tenders also ascertains that there is a high variance among the tenderers for building conservation projects. This is determined by the CV analysis where conservation works has a mean CV of 25.5 per cent as compared to 6.5 per cent for new build works.

While the interviews managed to draw out insights into the reasons for the high variance among the tender amounts, a definitive conclusion cannot be drawn on the level of variance in tendering for conservation projects due to the limited data that is available for analysis.

The paper offers an insight into the reasons why tenders for conservation projects usually have a higher variance than the norm.

This paper studies the current realities of the Islamic banking system of Brunei Darussalam from the perspective of the theories of modern financial intermediation and Islamic financial contracting. The limited information on the banking system of Brunei Darussalam reveals that the first phase of the Islamic banking experimentation has been successful, as Islamic banks command roughly 11.5 per cent of the market share. The financial services industry, however, remains extremely competitive and Islamic banks face formidable challenges from conventional banks. Islamic banks can proliferate if they: advance towards the second phase by gradually consolidating retail banking with investment banking; establish vital links with local and foreign institutions; and use ijtihad in modern financial engineering to optimally design loans while simultaneously reducing their risk exposure. An efficient Islamic financial system can allocate limited capital resources to the most profitable ventures and assist in wealth creation. This can foster the growth not only of Negara Brunei Darussalam but also of the regional economies, particularly at this crucial juncture when Asian economies are reeling from the current financial crisis.