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This paper proposes and demonstrates that leading digit frequency analysis offers a potential framework to examine the accuracy and authenticity of data values in numerical data sets. Leading digit frequency analysis maintains that the frequencies of leading digits in an original and unmanipulated data set follow a predictable distribution as suggested by Benford’s law. The results of an experiment with random numbers revealed distinct differences between the observed leading digit distribution in the random numbers and the expected distribution as suggested by Benford’s law. This suggests that leading digit frequency analysis offers a useful procedure to evaluate data accuracy and authenticity and offers several useful managerial implications.

This paper aims to examine the relationship between the readability of annual reports and corporate performance in Qatari listed firms while controlling for a firm’s competitive position, governance structure and specific features such as size, age and industry type.

This study relies on both agency theory and legitimacy theory to develop testable hypotheses. It uses a sample of 126 firm-year listed companies in the Qatar Stock Exchange to test obfuscation in the annual reports through examining the association between the readability of Narrative Disclosures (NDs) and corporate profitability, financial risk and agency costs for the period from 2014-2016.

The findings show that firms with higher annual report readability are more profitable and have lower agency costs, which is an indication of the existence of “obfuscation.” Qatari firms may use narrative complexity as a disclosure strategy to enhance their image and consequently maintain their social legitimacy.

Although the study findings suffer from limited global generalization, they can be generalized across Gulf Cooperation Council countries. Thus, future cross-country research is encouraged.

The findings encourage Qatari policymakers to instate a policy for “Plain English” writing to make NDs easy to read by international investors.

This study is one of very few studies that examines the readability of annual reports in emerging market economies, i.e. Qatar. The study contributes to the paucity of research that examines English-written annual reports in non-English speaking countries.

Islamic banks (IBs) place significant importance on their religious identity, prompting the utilization of impression management (IM) strategies to emphasize such identity. This paper aims to discuss the motivations behind using IM in the creation of religious identity by IBs, and to explore the use of religious symbols and language as a form of religious rhetoric. It is argued that to counteract the threats to their religious identity, IBs use IM techniques, predominantly through the inclusion of religious symbols and rhetoric.

An empirical exploratory study, using content analysis, was conducted on the annual reports of the largest IBs for the year 2022. The analyses involved a total of 39 banks based on a filtered list from The Banker’s Top Islamic Financial Institutions of 2022. A manual content analysis was undertaken to extract religious symbols, images and contents.

The findings reveal the use of IM techniques that emphasize the religious identity of these banks. Notably, IBs consistently reaffirm their commitment to Sharia compliance and disclose their contributions to Zakah. In addition, the analysis reveals the incorporation of Quranic verses, religious iconographic images and other religious rhetoric statements in the annual reports of many IBs.

The analysis concludes that the assertion by IBs that their guiding principles are rooted in Islamic values are supported by the religious terminology and imagery embedded in their annual reports. Alongside mere religious symbolism, the terms and images are integral part of the corporate identity of the Islamic that not only sends persuasive signals to stakeholders but also help build an impression on the activities of the IBs.

IM has been a key objective and strategy of companies. This study aimed at exploring whether and how IBs used religious symbolism as an integral part of IM and corporate identity.

This paper aims to investigate the level of compliance with, and disclosure of, corporate governance best practice recommendations and the firm- and country-level factors that can explain discernible differences in the level of compliance with, and disclosure of, corporate governance best practice recommendations in a number of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries.

The authors use the widely used content analysis technique to examine the level of compliance with, and disclosure of, corporate governance best practice recommendations in a sample of listed corporations in MENA countries. In addition, the authors use the ordinary least square multiple regression analysis technique to examine the firm- and country-level antecedents of the level of compliance with, and disclosure of, corporate governance best practice recommendations. The findings are generally robust to different types of firm- and country-level factors, alternative measures and potential endogeneity problems.

The findings of this study are two-fold. First, the level of voluntary compliance with, and disclosure of, corporate governance best practice recommendations among MENA listed corporations is low and differs substantially across firms. Second, the evidence suggests that firm- and country-level factors, including religiosity, national governance quality and macroeconomic factors, have a positive and significant impact on voluntary compliance with, and disclosure of, corporate governance best practice recommendations.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to examine both the potential firm- and country-level factors affecting voluntary compliance with, and disclosure of, corporate governance best practice recommendations among MENA listed corporations from a neo-institutional theoretical perspective. The results of our study provide regulators and policymakers with the impetus to encourage greater efforts towards pursuing reforms that seek to improve national governance quality, economic environment and positive religious practices.

The authors investigate the impact of disclosure tones and financial risk on the readability of annual reports in the banking sector. The authors also examine the moderating effect of banks' financial risk on the tone–readability relationship.

This study relies on the agency theory and the social psychology theory to formulate its testable hypotheses and explain the empirical findings. It uses a sample of 390 bank-year observations from banks listed in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Stock Exchanges during the period 2014–2019. It also employs random effect regressions to analyze the data and to examine the reverse causality/endogeneity in order to obtain robust findings.

This study’s results demonstrate that easy (difficult) to read annual reports is significantly associated with positive (negative) tone. Bank managers characterized as “too positive/optimistic” and banks with higher financial risks publish less readable annual reports. The results also show that the interaction between negative tone and a bank's financial risk is inversely associated with reading difficulty, indicating that managers prepare easy text to clarify causes of their banks’ high risks, yet they communicate this easy text with a negative tone that reflects their feelings/emotions towards the financial risks of their banks.

This study’s findings call for the use of a plain English text that bears a neutral tone and urge financial analysts to go beyond the financial aspects of annual reports. They also stimulate policymakers to draft policies, which ensure the presence of audit committee members who possess a broad expertise to uncover the linguistic issues embedded in the annual reports.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study dedicated to exploring the tone–readability association in the GCC's banking sector.

Highlighting the need for a profound move towards desecularisation of Islamic scholarship, this conceptual paper aims to clarify the concept of causality from the Islamic marketing research perspective and extends a number of suggestions for improving theory building and hypothesis development in the field.

The approach taken is largely conceptual. In addition, this study collates the stated hypotheses in the articles published in this journal in the past five years and analyses the structure of causal statements to uncover key tendencies.

The review of historical and current views on causality indicates that most commentators agree that assuming the existence of the necessary connection between cause and effect is misleading. The Islamic traditions based on occasionalism and modern science agree that causal statements reflect, at best, probabilistic assumptions.

This paper offers a number of insights and recommendations for theory building and hypothesis development in Islamic marketing. By following the occasionalism perspective and the notion of Sunnah of Allah, researchers will be able to build methodologically coherent and genuine Islamic marketing knowledge.

Correctly stated and tested hypotheses can be used by public policymakers to enforce effective consumer and market policies.

This paper tackles a complex issue of causality in Islamic marketing research which has not hitherto been discussed well in the literature. This research is also a unique step towards developing pioneering avenues within the domain of Islamic marketing research methodology.

The purpose of this study is to review the prior empirical studies that investigate the corporate governance (CG) determinants and provide a synopsis, and explore the main factors that drive the level of CG disclosure in the Greek context.

The authors perform an extensive review of the relevant literature and identify 24 papers that use various potential factors. Afterwards, the authors construct two different GC indices to investigate these potentials, and the authors conduct multiple regression analysis to identify and explain these determinants.

The empirical analysis shows that large Greek listed firms are more likely to disclose more CG information in the CG statement. In addition, the analysis shows statistically significant association with performance-related variables (such as Tobin’s Q and liquidity) and CG-related variables (such as independent members, board meetings and women on board).

The results of the study support theoretical arguments that Greek listed firms disclose CG information not only to fulfill task-related requirements but also to be perceived as social and legitimate.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that provides a synopsis of the prior literature in CG determinants, while it goes one step further by using the majority of the potential factors that have been used so far. Moreover, this study uses a multi-theoretical framework to address theoretical development, an approach that generates an outline of fruitful directions for future research.

This paper aims to investigate the economic substance of Islamic banks’ transaction as perceived by the employees and regulators of banks and the effect of such substance on the need for special accounting standards for Islamic banks. If there is a distinctive “Islamic economic substance”, then special accounting practices may be necessary such as the standards of the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions.

A qualitative inquiry on one of the leading Islamic banks in the Middle East was conducted to investigate the economic substance of the bank’s main two transactions; the deposit system and Murabaha financing, as perceived by informants within one of the earliest Islamic banks and its regulators.

It is found that despite the belief that the transactions under examination were different from equivalents within conventional banking, practice within the bank was not consistent with such a belief. Informants largely perceived the economic reality of the investigated transaction as being not different from conventional banks’ transactions, and this would affect the need for special accounting and regulatory frameworks.

This investigation is confined to informants working within one Islamic bank; their views and perceptions may not coincide with those working in other Islamic banks in the world.

The results of this investigation provide policy implications for Islamic banks, regulators and standards setters in regard to the need for special accounting standards for Islamic banks.

The paper is one of the first papers that uses a qualitative inquiry on the main transactions of Islamic banks and the related need for special accounting practices. The paper provides a new perspective on the debate over whether Islamic banking is genuinely innovative or is merely a replicate for conventional banking.

This paper aims to investigate the supply and demand side of sustainability assurance in Bangladesh.

Drawing on signalling theory, a logistic regression model is used for a sample of 100 of the largest Bangladeshi companies to study the relationships between assurance, sustainability disclosure, industry membership and reporting format.

Authors’ results show that companies which produce more sustainability information are more likely to get their sustainability assured, to be from non-carbon intensive industries, and are more likely to integrate their sustainability information with the financial annual reports. Authors’ results support the argument that organisations based in weaker legal environments are more likely to secure assurance as this adds to the credibility and reliability of sustainability reports.

This paper has limitations which raise some issues for future research. First, the authors have covered only large companies; therefore, future research could examine the differences between small and large companies in relation to assurance. Secondly, the authors’ data consist of company sustainability disclosure information in the fiscal year 2015. Longitudinal studies are recommended to extend this research. Finally, future research could examine the moderating effects of geographical location on the relationship between assurance (and its providers) and other variables.

The findings of this paper will prove valuable to practitioners and researchers. Practitioners, including assurance providers and sustainability reporting managers will benefit from authors’ study as it covers both the demand and supply side characteristics of assurance. Researchers will benefit from the study as it investigates assurance practices in the developing country of Bangladesh.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine both the supply and demand sides of sustainability assurance in Bangladesh. Authors also introduce reporting format when measuring the relationship between assurance and its determinant factors at micro level. The study also links assurance to signalling theory.