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The purpose of this paper is to discuss the case-based reasoning (CBR) approach to improve microcredit initiatives by means of providing a borrower risk rating system.

The CBR approach has been used to consider the Kiva microcredit system, which provides a characterization (rating) of the risk associated with the field partner supporting the loan, but not of the specific borrower which would benefit from it. The authors discuss how the combination of available historical data on loans and their outcomes (structured as a case base) and available knowledge on how to evaluate the risk associated with a loan request can be used to provide the end users with an indication of the risk rating associated with a loan request based on similar past situations.

The adopted approach is applied and evaluated employing a selection of cases from individual loans. From this perspective, the case base and the codified knowledge about how to evaluate risks associated with a loan represent two examples of knowledge IT artifacts.

The originality of the work lies in borrower risk rating in online indirect peer-to-peer microcredit lending platforms. The case base and the codified knowledge are the two contributions in knowledge IT artifacts.

The purpose of this paper is to examine and illustrate how a relatively young Islamic financial institution has successfully gone international. Despite the fact there are many larger financial institutions in the Arabian Gulf, they either failed to identify the opportunity or were reluctant to go international. But Arcapita seem to have capitalized on this apparently untapped niche market in the international arena through its unique policies and strategies.

Relevant data and literature have been collected from publicly available sources. Basic company information was collected from company annual reports, press releases, and web sites. The Bankscope database has been used to generate the bank's comparative financial performance.

Islamic Investment banking is a relatively new development. This is essentially a niche market and Arcapita has not only identified this opportunity but also has become internationally successful within a short period of time. The case illustrates how the company raises funds from the Middle East region and then invests in the USA, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Being the first of its kind in conforming to the Shari’a Principles (Islamic Law) fully in its business, Arcapita's progress to date is quite spectacular. This comprehensive teaching case study provides the company history and background, as well as insights into its operational and organizational realities, strategies and management practices. Academics, students and practitioners from the region and beyond will find this case study interesting and useful.

This paper aims to examine practical wisdom from the Islamic religion elaborating on how it pertains to the sustainability mind-set. The purpose is to assess whether the Islamic and sustainability mind-sets coincide and if so, how they do.

The first two chapters of the Holy Qur’an were divided into parts based on the divisions in the exegesis by Abu Bakr Al-Jaza’eri. Next, a qualitative content analysis of the main sustainability themes in these chapters was conducted. The first stage of the content analysis involved the collection of Qur’anic verses related to the sustainability concepts. Following that, inductive interpretive analysis was conducted in the second stage of the content analysis, where key sustainability lessons within the agreed upon Qur’anic verses were extracted.

The empirical study reported in this paper reveals 10 lessons from the examined Qur’anic text that pertain to the sustainability mind-set. Each of these lessons appears to foretell the wisdom behind the sustainability mind-set.

This study contributes to the literature on sustainability and Islam in two ways. First, the analysis results in key lessons relating to sustainability, the majority of which were not covered in existing literature. Second, the research takes a holistic approach to finding commonalities between the sustainability mind-set and the Islamic mind-set, instead of focusing on a specific aspect of sustainability such as the environment.

This study/paper aims to evaluate the floral richness of the central part of Chattogram city, Bangladesh. Chattogram is recognized as the largest port city and the commercial capital of Bangladesh, which confronts faster urbanization and swift infrastructure development. Green spaces in and around Chattogram city are shrinking sharply, which resulted in rapid loss of floral and faunal resources in this area. The present study was carried out from February 2018 to January 2019 to enumerate the vascular plant species of the Sulakbahar ward located in the central part of Chattogram City, Bangladesh.

The study area was categorized into 10 habitats to assess the variation of floral composition. The extensive whole area survey method was applied to record the flora from all sorts of plant habitats of the research area.

The study enumerated 418 vascular plant species under 315 genera and 120 families including natural, planted and cultivated from the study area. The habit form of the recorded plant composition indicated that herbs (35%) constitute the major plant category followed by trees (34%), shrubs (17%), climbers (12%), ferns (1%) and orchids (1%). The study also indicated that exotic species (50.3%) became dominant than native species (49.7%) in Chattogram city because of their scenic beauty, easy propagation and ornamental value to the city planners and inhabitants.

It appeared that floral resources of the Chattogram city area are in great threat due to aggressive and unplanned infrastructure development for housing, offices and institutions by replacing the green spaces. The study recommended that urgent protection measures should be taken to conserve and protect the existing floral resources for the well-being of the urban people.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the perception of Islamic bank employees in Malaysia and selected Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, namely, Bahrain, Oman and the UAE, on various issues related to Islamic business ethics and the practices of the Islamic banks at which they work.

The required data to determine Islamic bank employees’ ethical perceptions is sourced from 144 completed survey questionnaires and interviews with 12 Islamic bank senior executives. Islamic model of normative business ethics is used to measure the relationship between attitudes and behaviours of employees and the ethical practices of Islamic banks.

Results show that the Islamic bank personnel working in Malaysia and the GCC perceived that their banks conform to Islamic ethical norms in business. These banks were seen to be concerned with their impact on society, and ethics prevailed over profit-maximisation. The findings also suggest that despite being less regulated compared to Malaysia, Islamic bank personnel in GCC had a better impression of the ethical standard practised in their institutions compared to the feedback given by their Malaysian counterparts. Additionally, this research also proves that, in general, there is a positive correlation between attitudes and behaviours of employees and the ethical practices of Islamic banks.

The main limitation of the study is that the respondents were not selected randomly but rather through a convenient sampling of personal contacts. Despite the inherent limitation of the sampling method because of the constraints of time and resources, the large number of respondents from 12 different banks are representative of the Islamic bank employees in Malaysia and the GCC.

The findings may serve as a useful input for Islamic financial institutions in improving their practices to conform with Islamic ethical norms.

The topic of Islamic business ethics and the practices of Islamic banks have not been fully understood by its stakeholders. This paper aims to give insights on how far Islamic bank business practices in Muslim majority societies fit with the prescribed business framework in Islam and its contributing value for both the organization and employees.

The purpose of this research paper was the study of an affluent Islamic market, going through a rapid economic and social transformation, from an ethical consumption perspective. More specifically, impact of environmentalism, consumption ethics, fair trade attitude and materialism was investigated on the ethical consumption behaviour of Muslim consumers.

A research framework was put together after consulting relevant literature, Islamic scholars and Islamic marketers. The developed research framework was tested in the Islamic State of Qatar. As an outcome of an online questionnaire-based survey targeting Muslim (Qatari) consumers in a public university, 243 usable questionnaires were collected. After reliability and validity checks, AMOS SPSS 20 was used to conduct structural equation modelling analysis on the collected data.

The results showed consumption ethics, environmentalism and fair trade attitude as significant determinants of ethical consumption behaviour. There was an insignificant association between materialism and ethical consumption behaviour. The findings suggested that most Muslim consumers within this affluent market showed an interest in ethical consumption. However, an insignificant association between materialism and ethical consumption behaviour implied that even though Muslim consumers demonstrated ethical consumption behaviour, they were not anti-materialism. The outcome suggests that due to the high levels of affluence among Muslim consumers, it is possible that they may be practising ethical and materialistic consumption simultaneously.

This research should assist marketers in understanding the ethical consumption behaviour of Muslim consumers who are faced with ethical and materialistic consumption options within an affluent Islamic market.

The research should add to the body of consumer behaviour knowledge, as it provides an insight into the consumption behaviour of Muslims who are facing social and religious ideology conflicts which makes their ethical consumption behaviours more sophisticated.

The purpose of this study is to develop an Islamic corporate social responsibility (ICSR) model.

Based on Qur’anic verses and previous literature, the authors aim to develop an ICSR model with an extension of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) theory of Carroll (1979).

This study extends the theory of Carroll (1979) using an operational definition of CSR that encompasses the economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic dimensions of CSR from an Islamic perspective. This ICSR model is applicable to both Islamic and non-Islamic business systems because both Islamic and Western CSR have common humanitarian grounds.

The conceptual research is not tested in this article. Further, not all Islamic principles are integrated in this model.

Many Western theoreticians have attempted to offer theoretical, moral and ethical grounds for CSR initiatives. However, these attempts have been broadly criticized for problems relating to justification, conceptual clarity and possible inconsistency and for failing to provide adequate ethical guidance to business executives who must determine which course to pursue and their level of commitment. Therefore, there is a need to develop the concept of CSR, which has gained popularity and wide acceptance among the Western and Islamic business communities, especially from an Islamic perspective.

Corporate corruption reporting (CCR) is an emerging issue of the corporation for measuring transparency, integrity and accountability to the stakeholders and society. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of CCR and financial management responsibility regarding the issue of corruption control.

To explore the influences of corruption disclosure, this study considers the keywords-based content analysis of the listed financial firms of the Dhaka Stock Exchange in Bangladesh for 2012–2016. The research considers stakeholders and theoretical legitimacy lens for discussing corporate corruption disclosure. This study identified 143 self-driven keywords by classifying, analyzing and selecting the appropriate large set of keywords from the prior literature. This study examines 247 firm-year observations of all financial firms in Bangladesh using secondary data sources.

The results of the hierarchical regression analysis report that financial firms following Sharia principles have a negative and significant association with CCR, while Big4 has a positive and significant influence. Moreover, the interaction effect of Big4 on the relationship between Sharia principles and CCR is negative and insignificant. The findings reported that Islamic financial firms disclose less corruption information than conventional financial firms in Bangladesh.

This study findings are expected to significantly impact corporate management and policymakers of developing and highly corrupted economies to enhance corporate accountability, transparency and reputation. The regulatory body can consider the findings to promulgate anti-corruption reporting rules and regulations.

The authors believe the theoretical lens used to support the method and findings of this paper are unique and novel.