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The purpose of this paper is to examine how corporate governance moderates the relationship between macroeconomic uncertainty and corporate capital structure.

This paper employs the two-step system generalized method of moments regression, considering a sample of 907 listed non-financial firms from seven Asia Pacific countries during the period 2004-2014.

This study finds that macroeconomic uncertainty has a significant negative impact on the capital structure decisions of firms. The results also reveal that the overall effect of macroeconomic uncertainty on capital structure among firms with better governance quality is significantly negative. The evidence suggests that corporate governance acts as an effective mechanism to curb the usage of leverage during times of high volatility. Further analysis shows that board independence, the separation between the roles of CEO and chairman of the board and blockholders’ ownership are effective governance mechanisms, whereas similar observations do not hold for board size and institutional ownership.

The findings of this study may be useful to policy makers to formulate appropriate policies to mitigate the adverse effects caused by macroeconomic uncertainty. This is important because macroeconomic uncertainty may have potential destabilizing effects on a country’s or region’s development by jeopardizing the firms’ ability to formulate sound investment, production and financing decisions. Additionally, the results suggest that good governance quality can act as a check and balance to ensure that firms use less leverage when they are facing volatility in the macroeconomic environment. These findings could help to reinforce the importance of good governance among policy makers of a country as well as managers of firms.

The authors make the first attempt to examine the moderating effect of corporate governance on the relationship between macroeconomic uncertainty and corporate capital structure.

This paper aims to compare and analyse the aspects of Shariah screening methodologies within the selected Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries as well as comparing the methodologies with the USA, and to examine how Shariah screening methodologies affect financing and investing activities of a firm.

Shariah screening methodologies within the selected GCC countries and between the GCC countries and the USA are compared on the basis of the data collected from secondary sources.

Design, qualification and Shariah governance set the Shariah screening methodologies within the GCC countries apart. Feasibility, duration, economic viability and funds required differentiate these Shariah screening methodologies between the GCC countries and the USA. Shariah screening methodologies implied in the USA is more stringent than in the GCC countries.

The suggestions in this study include using a longer research timeline, examining many more number of countries’ Shariah screening methodologies and exploring other types of Shariah screening methodologies.

The possibility of generalising the implementation of strict and uniform Shariah screening methodologies across all the country-specific Shariah indices amongst Muslim nations, globally, is likely to benefit all the Muslim countries, by strengthening the understanding, interaction and economic co-operation amongst these countries.

People’s needs can be tended to if Maqasid Al-Shariah (objectives of Shariah) is achieved through flexibility, dynamism and creativity within the social policy.

Aspects of Shariah screening methodologies are compared and contrasted within the selected GCC countries as well as between the GCC countries and the United States and the role of Shariah screening methodologies is examined in order to determine the extent of what is Shariah-Compliant and what is Non-Shariah Compliant for a firm.

The purpose of this paper is to study the difference (or lack of difference) in the efficiency level of Islamic and conventional banking in Malaysia. Are the Islamic banks performing as good as the conventional banks, even though they are constrained by Islamic tenets?

Data envelopment analysis is used to measure the efficiency levels of banks in both sectors.

It is found that there is no significant difference in the level of efficiency between Islamic banks and conventional banks.

The period of study is only three years, with only two banks which have been operating for more than three years, while the other Islamic banks in this study are just beginning their operation in Islamic banking. The inclusion of foreign banks operating in Malaysia in this analysis might distort the findings, as foreign banks have different capital structures and objectives compared to local ones.

The paper shows that even though Islamic banks are limited by Islamic tenets in their operations, they are able to maintain a performance that is equivalent to the conventional banks.

The paper makes comparisons of the efficiency levels between two different banking systems.

In spite of the increasing number of Islamic banks offering Islamic investment products, there is, as yet, little academic research on this topic and the consumer acceptance of the products is not yet understood fully. To help in bridging this gap, this study aims to assess the determinants of choice behaviour of Islamic investment products in Malaysia.

Using the Theory of Consumption Value (TCV) as a baseline theory, data are obtained from 460 bank customers who intend to invest in the products.

The results of this study show that emotional value, epistemic value, conditional value, functional value and social value are significantly related to the choice behaviour of Islamic investment products.

Three concerns were found in this study. Firstly, the geographies of this study are narrowed down to bank customers who were resided in specific areas in East Malaysia. Secondly, the authors used the TCV on a particular focus of Islamic banking products. Future studies should address these issues accordingly for improved application and generalisation. Thirdly, some reliability issues were identified in composite reliability values and the related future studies are expected to strengthen the research design to extend the findings at best.

The results are helpful for practitioners to develop new business models of Islamic investment products in Malaysia.

This study provides meaningful insights for theory building of choice behaviour in the context of Islamic investment products, where the TCV comes into play.

This study has aimed to investigate the impact of service innovation capabilities (SIC), supply chain digitalization capabilities (SDC) and customer risk protection (CRP) capabilities of GrabFood on customer satisfaction. GrabFood has been chosen as a case study because GrabPay is one of the Malaysian government's digital wallet partners, and GrabFood is one of the region's leading Online Food Delivery Service (OFDS) providers.

A total of 410 valid responses have been gathered from the GrabFood users for data analysis using the partial least square technique.

The findings reveal that SIC, SDC and CRP of GrabFood have a highly significant influence on customer satisfaction. CRP has been found to partially mediate the relationship between SIC and customer satisfaction and the relationship between SDC and customer satisfaction.

OFDS providers need to consider how to minimize the potential risk to be encountered by customers in delivering services that satisfy the customers. OFDS providers must identify the gap between their capabilities and customer perception and continuously improve their service quality to mitigate the gap.

The Islamic banking system is not very primordial, but recently it is getting popular. Now it becomes a prominent topic to investigate what are the reasons behind it and how it happens. This study aims to identify the influencing factors in the time of opening account in Islamic banks.

A descriptive and factor analysis method were carried out to collect the quantitative data using a validated structured questionnaire. This study is based on a survey of 300 clients from Bangladesh who have at least one bank account in any Islamic banks in Bangladesh.

The findings of the study revealed that the most important factors influencing the people to open an account in Islamic banks including high Riba (Interest) on saving, ATM facility, confirmation SMS on the transaction, availability of branch service in several locations, lower cost on financing (loan), low initial deposit fee for account opening, employees’ prompt service and their behavior, etc. Also, the other religious people, rather than Islam, start a banking relationship with Islamic banks without any obligation.

The study focused only on a certain area of Bangladesh. This study could be extended for a different target market, creative strategy, other media and more countries.

The paper provides guidelines to the management of Islamic banks to decide to attract more customers by focusing on the influencing factors that manipulate a person to open a bank account.

The research is original. There are very few studies available on this topic, particularly focusing on Bangladesh. Consequently, the research findings have significant implications for Islamic banks functioning in a predominantly Islamic atmosphere.