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The study explores the existing Shariah audit practice of Islamic banks (IBs) in Bangladesh aiming at providing suggestions for improvements on the detected shortfalls in the relevant areas.

This research applied a qualitative method, and data were collected through conducting semi-structured interviews in Bangladesh. A total of 17 interviews were conducted for accomplishing the research objectives.

The study finds that there is no comprehensive Shariah audit manual in the current operation for IBs in Bangladesh, and as such, the requirements of their Shariah compliance remain a big question. Although the Shariah audit is conducted within IBs, and the Shariah audit officers or Shariah officers inspect necessary documents while conducting the Shariah audit, they only cover 10–20% of total investments and transactions. Based on the findings of this study, it is recommended that the Shariah auditing tasks should broadly cover at least 80% of the investment portfolios, documents and financial contracts and activities.

The findings of this research are expected to significantly contribute to the regulatory authorities concerned in Bangladesh and beyond, which include the suggestions that IBs can adopt to strengthen their Shariah governance system. The study also pinpoints that in the current system, Shariah auditors' roles are somehow limited in examining and checking the investment sides with a minimal portion (10–20%), for which they are unable to perform their responsibilities in a befitting manner to provide assurance services and overall Shariah compliance of IBs activities.

This study explores the current Shariah audit systems and provides recommendations to improve the existing systems which will be beneficial for Islamic banks of Bangladesh.

To the researchers' knowledge, perhaps this is the first research of its kind which seeks to explore the current Shariah audit practice in Bangladesh qualitatively, and it provides some practical suggestions for making the necessary developments of the current audit process of IBs. In addition, there are no empirical studies in the entire Emerald insight publishers and Scopus database regarding Shariah audit practices. The study contributes to the agency, stakeholder and legitimacy theories by exploring the Shariah audit of IBs.

This study looked into the scope of integrating the aspirations of zakah and corporate social responsibility (CSR) to counter poverty, inequity, illiteracy, malnutrition and environmental pollution to ensure peace, happiness, prosperity and sustainability as envisaged in sustainable development goals (SDGs).

This is a qualitative research study conducted using both primary and secondary data. Primary data were collected from 29 business enterprises in Bangladesh employing a semi-structured interview protocol. The secondary data were collected through content analysis of annual reports, websites and CSR publications of sample organizations. Finally, collected qualitative data have been analyzed thematically following the due procedures to address the research questions.

The findings reveal that integration of the aspirations of zakah and CSR is a convenient and wholehearted approach for entrepreneurs resulting in pursuing SDGs. In addition, business entrepreneurs in Bangladesh consider such practices as killing two birds with one stone because this approach warrants performing both religious and social obligations simultaneously. Interestingly, the study explores that shariah compliance acts as a guiding force for selecting well-being-oriented projects in zakah-funded CSR resulting in pursuing the priority goals – No Poverty (1), Zero Hunger (2) – of SDGs, thereby addressing some of the most critical issues of emerging economies such as Bangladesh.

The findings of this research can be used as a guide to incorporate the spirit and principle of zakah into the CSR programs aimed at pursuing SDGs mainly in Muslim countries representing one-fourth of the world population.

Integration of the aspirations of zakah and CSR is an innovative move and net addition to the literature on sustainability, CSR and zakah because Muslim business entrepreneurs will now conveniently be able to use the entrepreneurs' zakah money – readily available in each financial year – to fund the entrepreneurs' various CSR projects (within shariah framework) relating to poverty alleviation, humanitarian and disaster relief, health and sanitation and environmental conservation which will eventually contribute to pursuing various SDGs.

This study aims to explore the challenges and prospects of using e-wallets in Malaysia, and what it means for businesses and customers. Suggested here are strategies to leverage the strengths and opportunities as well as overcome the weaknesses and threats. Suggested here are strategies to leverage the strengths and opportunities as well as overcome the weaknesses and threats.

This study analyses the e-wallet phenomenon using a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis to assess Malaysian business development. It is supported with findings from the literature and secondary data. The relevant secondary data were collected from Bank Negara Malaysia and the World Bank.

This study shows that e-wallets in Malaysia have still not achieved their purpose but there is huge potential to do so. The SWOT analysis identified several strengths (e.g. financial incorporation, easy to access, protection and safety, simple for other accounts to connect to, product and consumer service management, quick to implement/administer), weaknesses (e.g. lack of infrastructure and the “tapping” of devices already cornered by the mobile phone market, opportunities (e.g. eliminating fraud, better customer service, promotion/loyalty that can be built into customer experience) and threats (e.g. attacks from viruses, frequent inquiries whether multiple wallets can be used by clients, the concerns of reckless spending behaviour of the e-wallet users).

This study is crucial for assessing the current situation and the prospects of e-wallets in Malaysia. This study also offers significant insights for policymakers and e-wallet service providers to develop appropriate strategies to enhance e-wallet services in Malaysia.

This paper is the first of its kind to integrate a SWOT analysis and the rapid development of the e-wallet market in Malaysia. Hence, the findings could broaden our knowledge on the fintech industry and enable firms to participate in the e-wallet market.

This study aims to look into the scope of exploring and promoting business zakah for the enhancement of the well-being of the underprivileged in society.

This is mainly a qualitative research conducted using both primary and secondary data. Primary data have been collected from 34 business entrepreneurs in Bangladesh through semi-structured in-depth interviews. The secondary data have been collected from annual reports with a view to calculating business zakah of five business enterprises for providing an indicative picture of prospective volume of business zakah in Bangladesh. Finally, collected qualitative data have been analyzed thematically following the due procedures with a view to addressing the research questions.

The findings reveal that around thirty five percent of sample entrepreneurs have used business zakah fund for fully and partially financing their social projects. It also reveals that on average annual business zakah fund amounts to nearly 144m BDT (around US$1.7m) per business enterprise. These findings bear clear witness that business zakah has extensive scope and promising prospect to be an instrument of financing social projects aimed at ensuring social well-being of the disadvantaged.

The findings of this research can be used as a guide to promote business zakah to finance social programs aimed at ensuring the well-being of the underprivileged of all societies particularly of Muslim countries representing one-fourth of the world population.

Exploring and promoting business zakah as an initiative of broadening the base of zakah is an innovative move and net addition to the literature of Islamic finance. It contributes greatly to the poverty alleviation movement in the sense that Muslim business entrepreneurs will now find their business zakah fund readily available to finance their social projects aimed at ensuring well-being of the impoverished.

There is increasing interest in the connection between Industry 4.0 (I4.0) and operational excellence approaches; however, studies on the integration between Six Sigma (SS) and I4.0 have been absent from the literature. Integration with I4.0 technologies can maximize the positive effects of SS. The purpose of this study is to understand what types of relationships exist between SS and I4.0 and with I4.0's technologies, as well as the benefits derived from this integration and future directions for this field of study.

A Systematic Literature Review (SLR) was carried out to analyze studies about connections between I4.0 technologies and SS. SLR analyzed 59 articles from 2013 to 2021 extracted from the Web of Science and Scopus databases, including documents from journals and conferences.

The SLR identified relationships between SS and several I4.0 technologies, the most cited and with the greatest possibilities of relationships being Big Data/Big Data Analytics (BDA) and Internet of Things (IoT). Three main types of relationships were identified: (1) support of I4.0 technologies to SS; (2) assistance from the SS to the introduction of I4.0 technologies, and, to a lesser extent; (3) incompatibilities between SS and I4.0 technologies. The benefits are mainly related to availability of large data sets and real-time information, enabling better decision-making in less time.

In addition, the study can help managers to understand the integration relationships, which may encourage companies to adopt SS/Lean Six Sigma (LSS) in conjunction with I4.0 technologies. The results also drew attention to the incompatibilities between SS and I4.0 to anticipate potential barriers to implementation.

The study focuses on three previously unexplored subjects: the connection between SS and I4.0, the existing relationships with different technologies and the benefits resulting from the relationships. In addition, the study compiled and structured different types of relationships for SS and I4.0 and I4.0's technologies, identifying patterns and presenting evidence on how these relationships occur. Finally, exposes current trends and possible research directions.

Purpose – The paper explains how internal reporting systems, as embedded practices informing organizational actions and “know-how”, contributed to the inertia in implementing a corporate form of governance in a transitional public organization in a developing country – Egypt.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper synthesizes an institutional theory framework in order to capture the case study mixed results. Drawing on DiMaggio and Powell's (1983) notions of isomorphic mechanisms, Ocasio (1999) and Burns and Scapens’ (2000) notions of organizations’ memory, history, cumulative actions and routines, Brunsson's (1994) notion of organizational institutional confusion as well as Carruthers's (1995) notion of “symbolic window-dressing” adoption of new practices, the paper explores the dynamic of a public hospital corporatization processes. Data collection methods include semi-structured interviews, documentary evidence and direct observation.

Findings – The case study evidence shows that the interplay between the new form of “corporate” governance and the intra-organizational power, routines and “know-how” created internal organizational confusion and changed organizational members’ narrative of risk and uncertainties.

Research limitations/implications – The paper does not reveal the role of reformers involved in the public sector “governance” reform in developing countries. Exploring such a role goes beyond the scope of this paper and represents an area of future research.

Originality/value – The paper provides a comprehensive account of public sector “governance” reform in a developing nation, while exploring the role of management accounting and costing systems in facilitating or otherwise that reform processes.

This study examines the dynamics of financial institution development among economies in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and how volatility in forex-adjusted price of key globally traded, commodities and macroeconomic risk influence such development.

The study is based on data collected from the period starting 2001 to 2019 for relevant variables; and the empirical test was performed using the two-step system generalized method of moments (TSS-GMM) estimation method.

Empirical estimates suggest that volatility in forex-adjusted prices of crude oil and cocoa are inimical to development of financial institutions among economies in the sub-region. On the other hand, volatility in the price of gold is found to have a significant positive effect on development of financial institutions. Additionally, political instability is found to exacerbate the adverse effect of volatility in the price of globally traded commodities on the development of financial institutions in the sub-region.

The study verifies how volatility in forex-adjusted prices of key traded commodities on the global market influence development of financial institutions in the sub-region. Additionally, the study examines the impact of macroeconomic risk, a principal component analysis (PCA) constructed index on the development trajectory of financial institutions. Finally, the authors examine the moderating role of institutional quality and political instability in the relationship in question.

The purpose of this paper is to study the flow and heat transfer of a hybrid nanofluid, Cu–Al₂O₃/water, past a permeable stretching/shrinking sheet. The effects of Brownian motion and thermophoresis are considered here.

Similarity transformations are used to reduce the governing partial differential equations to a system of ordinary (similarity) differential equations. A MATLAB solver called the bvp4c is then used to compute the numerical solutions of equations (12) to (14) subject to the boundary conditions of equation (15). Then, the effects of various physical parameters on the flow and thermal fields of the hybrid nanofluid are analyzed.

Multiple (dual) solutions are found for the basic boundary layer equations. A stability analysis is performed to see which solutions are stable and, therefore, applicable in practice and which are not stable. Besides that, a comparison is made between the hybrid nanofluid and a traditional nanofluid, Cu/water. The skin friction coefficient and Nusselt number of the hybrid nanofluid are found to be greater than that of the other nanofluid. Thus, the hybrid nanofluid has a higher heat transfer rate than the other nanofluid. However, the increase in the shrinking parameter reduces the velocity of the hybrid nanofluid.

The present results are original and new for the study of the flow and heat transfer past a permeable stretching/shrinking sheet in Cu–Al₂O₃/water hybrid nanofluid.

The purpose of this study is to present both effective analytic and numerical solutions to MHD flow and heat transfer past a permeable stretching/shrinking sheet in a hybrid nanofluid with suction/injection and convective boundary conditions. Water (base fluid) nanoparticles of alumina and copper were considered as a hybrid nanofluid.

Proper-similarity variables were applied to transform the system of partial differential equations into a system of ordinary (similarity) differential equations. Exact analytical solutions were then presented for the dimensionless stream and temperature functions. Further, the authors introduce a very nice analytic and numerical solutions for both small and large values of the magnetic parameter.

It was found that no/unique/two equal/dual physical solutions exist for the investigated boundary value problem. The physically realizable practice of these solutions depends on the range of the governing parameters. For a stretching/shrinking sheet, it was deduced that a hybrid nanofluid works as a cooler on increasing some of the investigated parameters. Moreover, in the case of a shrinking sheet, the first solutions of hybrid nanofluid are stable and physically realizable rather than the nanofluid, while those of the second solutions are not for both hybrid nanofluid and nanofluid.

The present results for the hybrid nanofluids are new and original, as they successfully extend (generalize) the problems previously considered by different authors for the case of nanofluids.

Very limited research has been devoted to answering the question of whether the religious beliefs of the upper echelons of management and gender diversity have any impacts on the communication of corporate social responsibility (CSR) information in the marketplace. This study aims to fill the void in the literature by posing the two research questions: first, does the CEO religion affect a firm’s CSR behaviour?; second, do the women on the boards influence CSR reporting?

The authors performed the tests on a sample of 133 firms listed in Bursa Malaysia that have analysts following using a self-constructed CSR disclosure index based on information in annual reports in 2009. A total of 23 per cent of the sample firms have Muslim CEOs, and women made up only 8 per cent of board members.

The authors find that Muslim CEOs are significantly associated with greater disclosure of CSR information. The authors also find a moderate relationship between board gender diversity and CSR disclosure. This is probably because of insufficient number of women on boards.

The disclosure index is based on unsubstantiated CSR information provided in annual reports, and the authors examine only two aspects of board diversity, namely, Muslim religiosity and gender mix.

This study advances the research on upper echelons theory by illuminating the importance of religious value in influencing the CSR behaviour of corporate leaders. This has been largely overlooked because of lack of data.