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The purpose of this paper is to improve the quality and efficacy of data collected from Muslim respondents, particularly women, through an examination of Islamic teachings and illustrated using a “conservative” paradigm of practice. The paper is designed to be helpful to researchers in designing both their projects and their data collection methods.

The paper is conceptual, in that it provides an overview of some important, often overlooked or misunderstood areas on which studies have been based and gives frameworks and also ethical pointers to researchers.

Framed to explain approaches to “conservative” Muslim women in societies across the globe, what is presented herein allows insight into all varieties of Muslim practice. This is achieved by explaining the possible objections to different methodologies and techniques of research for Muslim women at the “conservative” end of the practicing spectrum – this allowing a highlighting of ideas and ideals applicable across the spectrum.

Useful for academic researchers and also commercial researchers, potentially saving both time and money by pointing out possible errors in research design while also ensuring good ethical practice. The paper is offered to assist researchers in eliciting full and frank responses from Muslim respondents based on informed and thoughtful research design and data collection and providing possibly contextualisation(s) of what is said to enhance data analysis and interpretation.

Believed to be the first paper of its kind in English, this conceptual paper provides insight for researchers aiming to get the most useful and ethically sound outcomes for those interviewed, as well as those interviewing.

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.

Small and medium enterprises’ (SMEs) capital structure and financial policies are important areas of policy concern. Only a limited number of studies on capital structure have, however, been conducted on SMEs, and this deficiency is particularly evident when investigating what influences funding decisions around Islamic finance. This paper accordingly aims to investigate whether Omani SME owner-managers’ intention to adopt Islamic finance is influenced by their knowledge of Islamic finance, their own characteristics and/or their firms’ characteristics.

The authors administered a questionnaire survey via face-to-face interviews to 385 SME owner-managers operating in Muscat, Oman’s capital city. The Kruskal–Wallis one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) non-parametric test was used to analyse the questionnaire survey data.

The findings indicate that while SME owner-managers’ Islamic financial knowledge and personal characteristics do influence their intention to adopt Islamic finance, their firms’ characteristics have no significant influence on SME owner-managers’ decisions to accede to Islamic financing.

The research’s first limitation is that it gathered data from SME owner-managers in Muscat only. Future studies could survey a wider sample of Omani SME owner-managers. Second, the study’s findings cannot be generalised to large and public firms, as the sample includes owner-managers of SMEs only. Finally, there is a need to investigate other factors such as nonfinancial and behavioural factors, which were not explored in the present study, but which may influence SME owner-managers’ Islamic financial decisions.

Theoretical and empirical studies on capital structure have focused primarily on large listed firms. Only a few studies have paid attention to the capital structure of SMEs, particularly in the context of an emerging market such as Oman. This gap in the literature is mostly evident when investigating the factors that influence the funding decision towards Islamic financing in a country, such as Oman, where Islamic finance represents a new banking sector offering.

The purpose of this paper is to answer the increasing calls to analyse how lending relationship between banks and their small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) work. More precisely, the main aim is to investigate the lending approach(es) and criteria used by banks to assess loan applications from their relationship-managed (RM) SMEs’ clients. Other objectives include investigating the level of congruence in terms of lending practices and processes among the sample banks in New Zealand (NZ) and to discern how the assessment of the SME owner/manager is done within the relationship-banking framework.

The research objectives concern investigating processes and not variances. Thus, a qualitative research approach was used. Extensive data was collected via interviews across representative banks in NZ and thematic analysis was used to analyse the data.

The findings include a detailed analysis of how relationship banking actually works; how in NZ, the main bank brands use three criteria of lending (financials, security and character) as a framework of assessing loan applications from RM-clients – which is different from the character, capital, capacity, conditions, and collateral (5Cs) that are widely used and discussed as the framework of lending; and an elucidation as to why and how character assessment is different from the other criteria of lending.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the mechanisms and processes that banks use to deal with their RM-SMEs, show the existence of a different framework of lending other than the 5Cs and attempt an explanation as to why character evaluation is different from that of the other criteria of lending.

This paper aims to investigate small and medium enterprises’ (SMEs) owner–managers’ awareness, willingness and perceptions concerning Islamic financing instruments as an alternative sourcing decision in SMEs’ businesses.

The research employed mixed methods to gather data. A questionnaire survey was conducted via face-to-face interviews with 385 SME owner–managers operating in Muscat, Oman’s capital city, along with face-to-face discussion on Islamic finance with 86 SME owner–managers. Descriptive and thematic analysis were used to analyse the data.

The findings indicate that SME owner–managers are aware of Islamic banking principles and have knowledge of Islamic financial instruments, despite Islamic finance being new to Oman. Interestingly, although the majority of the participants indicated their intention to adopt this new finance method, they were motivated by special requirements other than finance. Their positive perception of Islamic financing methods could play a significant role in developing the Islamic banking industry.

The research is limited in that its data came only from Omani SME owner–managers in Muscat. Future research could investigate wider samples. Secondly, the study’s findings lack generalisability to larger and public enterprises, because only SME owner–managers were surveyed.

This study will be important for policy makers concerned about SMEs’ financing, Islamic financial institutions and new entrants into the Islamic banking industry, as it provides empirically evidence of Omanis’ views, and more specifically those of Omani SME owner–managers, on the recent introduction of Islamic finance into the country. The insights this study offers should help them to develop the strategies required to attract SMEs and to construct policies and regulations to improve Oman’s Islamic banking industry.

The research is significant, as it is the first study to investigate the awareness, willingness and perceptions of Omani SMEs regarding Islamic banking in Oman. Even though all Omanis are Muslims, Oman was the last of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council countries to introduce Islamic finance. Thus, this emerging market provides an important basis from which to extend future research on Islamic finance to other potential Islamic finance markets.

The purpose of this study is to systematically review the existing literature on Islamic marketing and its major impacts on consumer behaviours. In addition, this study seeks to shed light on global trends and dynamics beyond Islamic marketing and how Islam, as one of the most prominent religions worldwide, affects the consumption and purchasing choices of Muslim consumers.

A systematic literature review of published peer-reviewed articles on Islamic marketing was conducted. A comprehensive search strategy was applied on different databases, including Google Scholar, JSTOR, ScienceDirect, MUSE and Directory of Open Access Journals, and the retrieved articles were then selected from 14 leading journals published between 2010 and 2018.

Islam as a religion has been found to impact the ethical beliefs and behaviours of Muslim consumers from different countries, as well as consumers’ choice of services and some taboo products on the basis of Islamic Shariah law. The results show that Islamic marketing has a significant impact on the characteristics of Muslim consumers and therefore affects their key choices about certain products and services.

The studies included in this review are extensively based on peer-reviewed articles published in high-ranked marketing journals (A* and A in the Australian Business Deans Council list), which may be perceived as a limitation in the present study. Another limitation is that this study only took into account peer-reviewed articles written in English.

The important relationship between Islam and the heterogeneous Muslim consumer will have a considerable practical implication for companies that explore the marketing supply capacity in the Islamic world. The authors hereby expect the current review to significantly impact the identification of methodologies for the main trends in the academic analysis of Islamic marketing and Islamic consumer behaviour.

This review provides a strong contribution to Islamic marketing literature by recommending the need to integrate the Islamic practices related to consumer consumption of goods and services in studies focused on consumer behaviour analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to bridge the gap between previous examinations of advertising standardisation and consideration of Islamic ethics to develop a better understanding of how Islamic values influence global advertising strategy.

This paper is based on a critical review of the literature. The paper presents a conceptual framework which considers both the environmental influences and Islamic ethics which need to be considered when developing advertising strategy in Middle East Islamic States.

The authors assert the importance of considering Islamic ethics when planning advertising in the Islamic Middle East. In particular, six dominant ethical dimensions are provided for marketing scholars and practitioners to observe: unity (Tawheed), Iman (faith), Khilafah (trusteeship), Balance, Justice or Adl and Free will.

The conceptual model presented provides a useful starting point to generate further academic debate and empirical verification.

The paper extends our understanding of the influence of Islamic ethics on advertising and contributes to the wider marketing standardisation literature by considering religion as a key driver in the debate.

This paper aims to examine female entrepreneurship perceptions at the nexus of understandings of Muslim behaviour in Pakistan, the “formula” of Shapero for considering entrepreneurial intentions and the viewpoints of young Pakistani women.

Data collected from 555 women between 18 and 30 years of age, undertaking tertiary-level business studies in Pakistan constitute the sample of the study, and structural equation modelling was used to test the hypotheses.

This study finds that the respondents’ perceptions of Islam positively impact the formula at the feasibility component, whilst also inverting the desirability component, therefore, resulting in a “does not equal” outcome for intentions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work is one of the first to empirically examine the role of Islamic perception in shaping entrepreneurial intentions through the individual components of desirability, feasibility and propensity to act. It puts forth contextual deliberations for a meaningful heterodoxy in light of female entrepreneurship in an Islamic country.

This study aims to examine the short- and long-lived effects of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) mandate on the quality of reporting information of initial public offering (IPO) firms in emerging market economies.

The study used several difference-in-differences models for a sample comprising 102 Saudi Arabian IPO firms for 2003–2017.

It found that mandating the application of the IFRS had a significant short-lived but no long-lived effect on IPO firms’ information asymmetry. When information asymmetry was high such as in the primary market, the IFRS succeeded in alleviating the underpricing of IPO firms. Conversely, in the secondary market, with negligible information asymmetry, the IFRS was not beneficial for the long-term performance of companies in the IPO market.

This study is the first of its kind in the emerging market context and has important implications for IPO investors and analysts, IFRS-IPO researchers and policymakers in emerging economies. The results empirically confirmed that the IFRS mandate had solely a short-lived effect and no long-lasting impact, on the problem of asymmetric information in the IPO market. The effectiveness of the IFRS in producing quality financial reporting is contingent upon large-scale information asymmetry and vanishes when investors and analysts have abundant information about listed firms, even for emerging economies such as Saudi Arabia.