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This study aims to revisit the relationship between Shariah-compliant firms and earnings management. Specifically, the authors examine whether Shariah-certified firms have lower earnings management than non-Shariah-certified firms and how often a firm must hold its certification to observe considerably reduced earnings management. This study also explores how senior management ethnic dualism affects the association of Shariah certification and earnings management.

The authors analyze the hypothesized association between Shariah certification and earnings management using a panel regression model and several robustness tests, including the Heckman selection model. The sample consists of 547 nonfinancial firms listed on the Bursa Malaysia stock exchange, with 5,478 firm-year observations over the 2001–2016 sample period.

Shariah certification is found to mitigate earnings management, particularly for firms that consistently retain their Shariah status. The longer firms retain their Shariah certification continually, the lower the earnings management. Additionally, the results indicate that the negative impact of Shariah certification on earnings management is driven by ethnic duality when a specific ethnic group dominates the top management.

Firms’ commitment to religious-based screening and continuation of certification plays a significant role in improving earnings quality. Firms are committed to abiding by the Shariah code of conduct instead of using the Shariah status for reputation purposes to attract investors.

For investors, the continuous compliance status is a crucial indicator of a firm’s commitment to comply with Shariah principles and to mitigate earnings management. Regarding policy implications, Shariah-compliance guidelines can constrain earnings manipulation, especially among firms lacking ethnic diversity.

The study shows that Shariah certification must be maintained consecutively to reduce earnings management. Shariah certification’s governance function is crucial in ethnically homogeneous firms, primarily when one ethnic group dominates the senior management.

This paper aims to examine two specific research issues among future members of the Malaysian accountancy profession. First, it explores the extent of committed academic dishonesty (AD) among accounting students in two institutions of higher learning in which Islamic orientation and emphasis are observably different. Second, it investigates whether pious accounting students are dishonesty-resistant, premising the investigation on the maintained assumption based on the Islamic religious scriptures that piety should be placed at the forefront of the crusade against academic malaise particularly AD.

Using a questionnaire survey to measure both AD and piety, the usable responses were analyzed using mean score and independent sample t-tests.

The results indicate that AD practices are within the safe and non-disturbing limit. The results on piety which form the crux of the research suggest that findings are sensitive to different piety measurement, indicating the need for a refine piety proxy in future Islamic piety research.

Notwithstanding the small sample based on only two universities, the results provide a critical basis for reality check and policy input on issues relating to AD and piety for all stakeholders, particularly in designing the relevant and necessary trainings and relevant policy formulation in addressing integrity issues in accounting education.

Despite the abundant research on social movements, there is sparse scholarly investigation of the link between community settings and how they contribute to persistent protest participation. This paper illuminates the cultural and social mechanisms within a religious retirement community that engender members’ sustained commitment to a ten-year long peace protest. A shared religious-based collective identity also deepens activists’ commitment to this cause. This study draws on semi-structured interviews with 14 peace protesters who reside in this community at two points in time: 2010 and 2013.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how and under what conditions employees’ participation in high potential (HiPo) programs leads to various employee outcomes (i.e. affective commitment, job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs), and turnover intent).

Data were collected by a cross-sectional survey among 242 employees who had HiPo programs in their current organizations.

Findings provided support for the mediating role of commitment-focused HiPo attributions in the relationships between HiPo program participation and employee outcomes (affective commitment, job satisfaction, OCBs, and turnover intent). The results also demonstrated significant interaction effects of HiPo program participation and organizational trust on commitment-focused attributions. Additionally, the results provided support for several mediated-moderated models.

This study opened the “black box” by examining the processes through which talent management (TM) shapes employee attitudes and behaviors, and demonstrated that these relationships are not necessarily direct.

To ensure employees’ career success, organizations need to build trustworthy relationships with their employees, and must consider the processes related to the talent identification, as well as the messages this identification communicates to employees about their contributions.

This study is the first to examine employees’ attributions about their participation in HiPo programs. Further, this study is also the first to empirically investigate the role of employees’ perceptions of organizational trust in the context of TM.

This paper looks at the relationship between judgments of ethical behavior and organizational promotion prospects. The purpose of this study is to examine if an independent dimension of ethical performance should be recognized. When managers and others in organizations compare candidates for promotion or other organization rewards, what role is played by information about the candidates’ previous ethical behavior? Are all prior ethical transgressions perceived in the same light or do some types carry more weight for organizational rewards? And, how do organizational values effect these evaluations?

A questionnaire was developed which asked respondents to rank a set of six candidates for a promotion. All candidates were said to be qualified for the promotion, but each was described differently in terms of past ethical transgressions. While information about a candidate’s prior ethical behavior is expected to be impactful for promotion consideration in the general population as well as among members of religious-oriented businesses, types of ethical transgressions may be weighted differently by the two groups. The survey was administered to a sample of 204 employees of business organizations at all levels obtained through a survey research firm, as well as a sample of 52 employees of organizations in the Christian publishing industry. Nonparametric statistics were used to analyze the results. A comparison was made between the respondents sourced through the research firm, seen as representing the general population, and those from the Christian-oriented group.

Ethical transgressions were weighted differently by each group. And some transgressions were deemed more unethical than others. Overall, our work suggests that ethical transgressions can matter with regard to promotability. Differences between the groups of respondents from the general population and the group representing Christian-based firms are discussed.

This paper focused on the selection for promotion of six candidates, ranked by two groups. As expected, the ethical transgressions were weighted differently by each group. And some transgressions were deemed more unethical than others. Overall, this work suggests that ethical transgressions can matter with regard to promotability. This research contributes to practical implications within organizations.

Only a few studies have looked directly at the relationship between judgments of ethical behavior and organizational promotion prospects. These have focused on ethical leaders rather than rank and file employees. In a study of ethical leadership and promotability, Rubin et al. (2010) found that managers rated high on ethical leadership by their subordinates are more likely to be viewed by senior managers as eventually promotable to senior leadership than those who were not – although they were no more likely to receive a promotion in the near term.

This paper aims to explore ethics in Islamic economics by establishing the micro-foundations of Islamic economics. This is done by conceptualizing the behavioural assumptions of the individual in an Islamic framework. It also argues that ethical positions that attached endogenously in individual behaviour would have implications in the macro-socio realm influencing society, institution and organization in an Islamic economic system.

The study is qualitative-based research. It explores the literature on ethics in Islamic economics to understand and analyse the concept of individual behaviour in the Islamic perspective that will be the micro-foundations of Islamic economic analysis.

It is found that the ethical commitment of individuals (as envisaged in the micro-foundations of Islamic economics) would bring socio-macro implications in the practical realm. The micro-foundations of Islamic economics would function as the basis of the economic explanation of the aggregate relationship of individual, state and society. It also serves as the basis in explaining socio-macro dynamics influencing individuals, society, as well as organizations and institutions.

The paper limits its analysis of developing the concept of ethical endogeneity in Islamic man behaviour to be the micro-foundations of Islamic economics and its macro-implications.

This study attempts to show that ethics should not only be inseparable in an economic framework but also an endogenous dimension in individual behaviour. The micro-foundations of Islamic economics are developed based on Islamic values on the characteristics and behaviour of an individual that would not only describe the true nature of man but also support his well-being.

The article aims to provide a discussion of societal norms concerning “attractiveness,” the existence of appearance discrimination in employment, the presence of “preferring the pretty”, and then the authors examine important civil rights laws that relate to such forms of discrimination. Finally, the authors apply ethical theories to determine whether such discrimination can be seen as moral or immoral.

It is a legal paper which covers all the laws related to discrimination based on look. Court cases and Americans laws related to this concept are reviewed and critically discussed.

The paper finds that appearance‐based discrimination is not illegal in the USA so long as it does not violate civil rights laws.

This research is limited to Federal and State laws in the USA and may not be relevant in other countries as the local laws might vary.

Managers and employees can protect themselves in the workplace from illegal discriminatory practices.

Employees know their rights and enhance their understanding of laws related to appearance, attractiveness, and why companies look to hire those who are considered “handsome”, “pretty” and “beautiful”.

This is an original and comprehensive paper by the authors.

The purpose of this paper was to uncover various factors that make the young consumers in emerging Asian market devotees of brands and sacrilize brands giving rise to a phenomenon called brand sacralization where the individual consumer considers brand as sacred as religion. Another objective of this research was to investigate the acculturation process taking place among the young adult consumers in emerging Asian market.

Based on prior literature review, the concept of brand sacralization has been defined to bring theoretical sensitivity. Grounded theory method has been used to collect, analyze and interpret the data collected through semi-structured depth interviews.

Data analysis reveals various underlying dimensions of brand sacralization and various actionable antecedents and consequence of brand sacralization.

Value of the article lies in developing a grounded theory framework for brand sacralization that can guide the marketers doing business in emerging markets to build a strong brand that the consumers would sacralize.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the (in)tolerance level of accounting major students in Oman toward identified integrity destroying academic activities.

A triangulation approach was adopted whereby a questionnaire survey on academic fraud (AF) was administered to a group of Omani major accounting students. The descriptive statistical results were further analyzed and validated using in-depth interviews in exploring further the students’ tolerance decisions.

A conceivably low and non-disturbing tolerance level toward the myriads of integrity destroying academic activities was documented. The tolerance is, however, observed to be dynamic in nature as it is sensitive to fraud “severity” and “seriousness”, i.e. it increases as AF activities become less severe and serious. Minor free-ride is tolerated the most, followed by minor plagiarism and seldom forgery. These AF activities were tolerated most by female and academically weak students. The varying results suggest that demographic factors do play a role in shaping Omani future accountants’ AF tolerance. The interview results further point to the intertwined factors of academic, family and peers, as well as religion that primarily influence their AF tolerance levels.

The research fills the extremely scarce accounting education literature in Oman by documenting fresh evidence of AF (in)tolerance among future members of the country’s accountancy profession. As academic is the primary source of accountants’ accountability and integrity knowledge and training base, investigating accounting students’ tolerance toward integrity in the acute context of AF would effectively provide a reflection of the profession’s future integrity environment.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the main factors that motivate customers to deal with Islamic banks particularly in a dual banking environment, like in the case of Malaysia. A discussion on factors relating to corporate social responsibility initiatives as part of potential customers' banking selection criteria is also included.

The paper presents primary data collected by self‐administered questionnaires involving a sample of 750 respondents from four different regions in Malaysia. The Islamic banking criteria ranking as perceived by the respondents are analysed using Friedman Test. To further explore the customers' understanding of the banking criteria, an exploratory factor analysis is employed.

This study reveals that the selection of Islamic banks appears to be predominantly a combination of Islamic and financial reputation and quality service offered by the bank. Other factors perceived to be important include good social responsibility practices, convenience and product price.

The empirical evidence of this paper affects two aspects; first, Islamic banks must offer quality services while maintaining its Islamic credential and reputation; second, Islamic banks should also embrace good customers services policies to reap its potential as a strategic tool to achieve competitive advantage, enhance reputation and secure customers allegiance. This research will be of interest to both incumbent and potential entrants into this niche market.

The paper reports findings from the first nationwide study carried out in the area of Islamic banking selection criteria.