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This paper aims to examine the reasons behind the low level of Sharia-related disclosures, particularly Sharia-compliant companies, to gain an understanding on how these companies disclose Sharia-related information in their annual reports, and how professional users of these reports search for such disclosures.

The study is an exploratory research based on structured interviews with individuals involved in the preparation of annual reports of Sharia-compliant companies and professional users of annual reports.

Most Sharia-compliant companies and professional users interviewed agree that the most relevant Sharia-related information is most commonly understood as the information found in the financial statement and its notes (accounting-related disclosures). Their responses indicate that there is a disjoint between the conventional disclosure practices on corporate social responsibility items and the Sharia-related information.

The idea of full disclosure needs to be further understood from the perspectives of Sharia. This study provides insights into the types of Sharia-related information that are important for disclosure. Future research should focus on examining a larger number of companies and interviewing more professional users from different jurisdictions to generate more knowledge about the nature of Sharia information and its disclosure.

Users of the Sharia screening methods, especially regulators, such as the Securities Commission Malaysia should encourage the disclosure of the required aspects of Sharia in the annual reports of Sharia-compliant companies, as professional users are interested in this type of information.

This study offers insights into the reasons behind low Sharia disclosures in annual reports of Sharia-compliant companies.

This study aims to analyse whether Sharia-compliant companies have better sustainability performance, especially in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic context is worth investigating as there is a concern that companies will reduce their sustainability activities to focus more on economic recovery, thereby leading to lower sustainability performance.

This study uses data from companies listed on Indonesian and Malaysian stock exchanges. These two countries have experienced rapid developments in Islamic finance and possess similar criteria in assigning the Sharia compliance label to a company. The data on sustainability performance and its three dimensions (environmental, social and governance) were gathered from Refinitiv (Thomson Reuters) and analysed using panel data regression.

The results show that Sharia-compliant companies had a higher sustainability performance in all research periods, but not during the COVID-19 pandemic. This implies that the pandemic has not triggered a need for Sharia-compliant companies to improve their sustainability performance. The results can be interpreted that sustainability performance is not only at stake during the COVID-19 pandemic but it can also indicate a “business-as-usual” approach applied by companies regardless of the Sharia-compliant label.

Sustainability performance has been intensively investigated in prior research, but how it is related to the current health crisis and Sharia compliance has been scantily studied and becomes the originality of this research.

The study aims to examine the difference of financial-based brand equity of Sharia-compliant and non-Sharia-compliant companies listed in the stock market.

The five-year data were collected from 561 companies listed in the Indonesian stock market (349 Sharia-compliant firms and 212 non-Sharia-compliant firms).

Based on five years of observations, the study shows that Sharia-compliant companies have much higher brand equity than companies that are not Sharia-compliant. However, the study did not find consistent results when the study examined the differences between brand equity in newly listed Sharia-compliant firms in the short run (two-quarters of the observations). In other words, Sharia-compliant status positively impacted a company’s brand equity only in the long run.

The study examines only the brand equity of Sharia- and non-Sharia-compliant companies in the Indonesian stock market.

The study suggests that companies should list their equity in the Islamic stock market as the empirical evidence shows that the companies listed in the Sharia index have much higher brand equity than companies listed in the non-Sharia index, although this impact can only be seen in the long run.

The study integrates finance and marketing perspectives, which are often disconnected in daily business. In addition, the study provides a piece of empirical evidence on the effect of financial decision to be listed in the Islamic stock market on the establishment of brand equity, which represents the long-term intangible assets of the firm in the eyes of the customers.

Sharia compliance states that the compliant company operates not only under regulations but also to the restrictions and permission of Islam. This study aims to reveal whether Sharia compliance enhances the financial reporting quality.

The sample is constructed from 15 Muslim majority countries, 2,300 companies for the periods between 2005 and 2017 with 23,810 firm*year observations. Financial reporting quality is measured with discretionary accruals and audit aggressiveness. Discretionary accruals is the absolute of Kothari, Leone and Wasley’s (2005) “performance matched discretionary accruals model.” Audit aggressiveness is calculated with Gul, Wu and Yang’s (2013) model.

This study reveals the behavioral differences in financial reporting quality between Sharia-compliant and non-compliant companies. According to the analyzes, Sharia compliance increases the financial reporting quality by decreasing the discretionary accruals and audit aggressiveness. This result is supported by the robustness tests.

Sharia compliance is not limited to business activity, financial restrictions and supervisory board for Sharia-compliant companies. It also enhances the companies’ financial reporting quality. Robustness analysis also showed that the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) increases the financial reporting quality by reducing discretionary accruals and audit aggressiveness.

This study contributes to the accounting literature by providing an insight on the use of Islamic financial instruments. The empirical results also show that the use of IFRS and Islamic financial instruments decreases the discretionary accruals and audit aggressiveness.

There is a great deal of research that has been done to investigate the investment characteristics of conventional socially responsible investment portfolios compared to their broader conventional counterparts. However, the impact of incorporating sustainability criteria into the traditional Sharia screening process has not so far been investigated. Therefore, the study aims to give empirical evidence as to whether or not incorporating sustainability socially responsible criteria in the traditional Sharia screening process has a significant impact on the investment characteristics of the Islamic investment portfolio.

The paper examines the investment characteristics of four groups of investment portfolios mainly, Dow Jones Global Index, Dow Jones Sustainability World Index, Dow Jones Islamic Market World Index and Dow Jones Islamic Market Sustainability Index. To improve the robustness of the study, the analysis was carried out at different levels. First, absolute mean return and t‐test were used to examine whether the difference between the different groups of investments is statistically significant or not. Second, risk adjusted equilibrium models, both single‐index and Fama and French multi‐index, were employed. This is to control for different risk exposure and investment style bias associated with different investment portfolios examined.

The paper finds that neither the Sharia nor the sustainability screening process seems to have an adverse impact on the performance and systematic risk of the investment portfolios compared to their unrestricted conventional counterparts. Therefore, Muslim as well as socially responsible investors can choose investments that are consistent with their value systems and beliefs without being forced to sacrifice performance or expose to higher systematic risk.

The study contributes to the existing literature by giving new evidence on the impact of incorporating sustainability criteria into the traditional Sharia screening process that has not so far been investigated.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the existence of underpricing in the cooperative insurance sector in the Saudi Arabian market and to examine whether Sharia compliance requirements have an impact on the level of underpricing.

Underpricing and the effect of Sharia compliance are analysed using a comprehensive sample of 33 insurance companies with data collected between 2007 and 2013, after taking into account market movements, as well as some factors well-known in the literature.

The authors find that underpricing not only exists but also is among the highest in the world (455 per cent), which contradicts the literature on initial public offerings (IPOs)’ pricing in highly regulated sectors. In light of one of the other findings of the authors, namely, the small number of insurance underwriters, the authors attribute these very high levels of underpricing in part to the monopsony power of insurance underwriters in Saudi Arabia. Regarding the Sharia compliance effect, they find that it does not significantly reduce the underpricing of insurance offerings. The authors interpret this as the fact that Sharia status might not be taken into account by underwriters when they price the offerings of insurance companies, due to a major drawback in the implementing regulations of cooperative insurance which have been highly criticised by practitioners.

Future research should try to include more factors that might explain the underpricing and its determinants. Two important recommendations flowing from this study for regulatory and supervisory institutions are the need to improve disclosure and transparency conditions and to work towards reducing the monopsony power enjoyed by the underwriters. As for Sharia effect, the Saudi central bank should resolve the issue of Sharia compliance by adopting one of the Sharia-friendly models suggested by Islamic finance scholars, such as wakala or mudaraba.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this paper is among the first to offer empirical evidence of the impact of Sharia compliance on the initial return of the IPOs of cooperative insurance firms.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent of underpricing in the Saudi Arabian market of initial public offerings (IPOs), offer explanations and consider whether Sharia-compliance had a significant impact on the initial returns.

A comprehensive sample of 72 IPOs in Saudi Arabia between 2004 and September 2010 is used to analyse the initial return after adjusting it to the market movement as well as controlling for some common factors.

This paper finds that not only underpricing occurs but it is also among the highest levels in the world. While traditional factors affecting initial returns include age, market timing and firm size, it is found that Sharia compliance significantly reduces underpricing in Saudi Arabia. This may imply that Sharia compliance helps to reduce the uncertainty and consequences of the limited information inherent in IPOs.

Further research is needed to see if the effect of Sharia compliance status on the short-run performance of IPOs extends to other Islamic countries or is a country-specific characteristic. More firms need to be examined to identify the market characteristics that drive the returns.

Very substantial sums are being “left on the table” and more efficient pricing of IPOs would be of considerable benefit to firms.

By considering two different regimes, this paper offers some important lessons for the treatment of risk-taking, particularly in Islamic countries.

This paper is among the first to provide an empirical evidence of the impact of Sharia compliance on the initial return pattern in the IPO market.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of companies’ Shariah compliance (SC) debt financing decisions, financing with retained earnings (REs), cash holdings, capital expenditures and dividend pay-out policies.

The sample consisted of 1,648 firm-year observations of GCC non-financial firms from various industries. The authors scrutinised the firms over a period of eight financial years from 2012 to 2019. To analyse the research hypotheses, the authors used a panel data model using ordinary least squares and generalised method of moments, depending on historical data.

The results of this study show a negative effect of SC on debt financing decision and dividend pay-out policies but a positive effect on financing decision with REs, cash holdings and the decision on capital expenditures.

This study's findings provide a better understanding of the role of restrictions of financing options in SC companies on financing decisions in the GCC. Whether religious or simply interested in investing in SC companies, investors can benefit from knowing that these companies make financial decisions that may affect their short- and long-term profits for policymakers and regulators. This study may be valuable in evaluating the effect of restrictions imposed by Islamic Shariah on how firms make different financial decisions. Policymakers should encourage the issuance of Islamic financial products and prepare two financial indicators to classify SC firms.

The main contribution of this study is to obtain empirical evidence on the effect of SC on a set of financial decisions. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to focus on non-financial companies committed to Shariah. They do not depend on interest-bearing loans for their financing but are limited to financing by shares, financing with REs and financing using various Islamic financing formulas.

The paper aims to assess the performance of investors that are discriminated based on their risk-appetite who intend to invest in listed Sharia-compliant (SC) stocks to maximize their portfolios’ wealth through two different models (i.e. regime-switching [RS] and non-RS).

Study period (i.e. November 18, 2015–May 31, 2019), well described in two distinct volatility-related bull-regime and bear-regime, is divided into in-sample and out-sample where Rs. 1.00 is invested on the out-sample start date. Each investor’s cumulated wealth forecasted through different models is checked daily throughout the out-sample period, and then, analyzed based on investors’ cumulated ending wealth, and Sharpe ratio (SR) is obtained through different models.

The ending wealth of risk-averse and risk-neutral investors obtained through RS-models increased 5.27 times while that of risk-taker investors increased 5.13 times. However, ending wealth obtained through non-RS models remained far low. The SR remained unchanged among investors. However, the SR of RS models (i.e. 1.0867) is higher than that of non-RS models (i.e. 0.8681). Overall, RS model-based investments outperformed in all categories of investors.

The study helps the investor during the process of portfolio diversification in their asset(s) selection and limited capital apportionment decisions. It also helps market regulators in formulating regulations and the policymakers in articulating/implementing policies that may protect the stakeholders form consequent disasters, particularly when market switches regimes.

The uniqueness stems from its focus on risk-appetite discriminated investors’ portfolio wealth maximization issue examined through technical analysis using two completely distinct models in the emerging market’s listed SC stocks.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent by which consumer acceptance of an Islamic insurance product (Takaful) in a non-Muslim majority country would be affected by consumer knowledge about its Islamic origins. Furthermore, this study identifies the degree to which various psychological traits and demographics of the consumers influence purchase intentions.

A questionnaire was distributed to a national sample of 390 respondents, half of whom were told that this insurance product is Islamic and the other half were not. The questionnaire was identical between the two groups and the only difference was the disclosure of the product’s Islamic origins. Additional measures related to consumer demographics, cognitive style and prior experience with insurance products were obtained from the respondents. Regression analysis was used to determine the drivers of consumers’ purchase intentions.

Purchase intentions for Takaful were found to be lower when the product was presented to subjects as Islamic. In addition, it was established that a consumer’s cognitive style, political orientation, yearly insurance expenditure and views of Islam influence purchase intentions for Takaful.

This paper is the first to explore the degree of acceptance of an Islamic insurance product in a non-Muslim majority country (USA) and to investigate the effects of a product’s religion of origin on the purchase intentions of American consumers.