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This study aims to investigate the effects of board attributes, i.e. board independence, gender diversity, board size and board activity, on the sustainability performance of 439 publicly-listed non-financial companies across 20 emerging countries over the period of 2010–2019.

We use Refinitiv environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance scores and board attributes variables derived from Thomson Reuters Eikon database. We examined the relationship between board features and sustainability performance by using the dynamic panel two-step system generalized method of moments estimator.

Overall, our findings suggest that smaller, gender diverse and independent boards that convene frequently achieve better sustainability performance. The authors document a positive relationship between board gender diversity and sustainability performance across a broad spectrum of sustainability indicators. The authors also find evidence that board independence has a positive impact on two sustainability performance measures, i.e. environmental and governance performance. Although board size does not influence aggregate sustainability measures (ESG score, ESG controversies, and ESG combined score), the authors find a negative relation between board size and governance performance. Finally, board activity seems only relevant in explaining ESG controversies, i.e. other things being equal frequently held board meetings significantly reduce sustainability issues (ESG controversies).

The authors’ findings provide implications to support regulators and emerging market companies on how to improve sustainability performance through the design and use of specific governance mechanisms. These interventions will help resolve agency problems among different stakeholders and, in turn, benefit sustainability.

This study also has social implications because it sheds light on how companies may change their attitudes towards sustainable practices through adjusting their corporate governance structures to increase the welfare of the society.

This study examines the behaviour of companies in emerging markets on sustainability performance by discussing a broad range of board characteristics and covering a large sample of emerging markets. Thus, it provides valuable insights to the companies for further growth opportunities in emerging markets.

This study aims to find whether sukuk (Islamic bonds) possess a safe haven property for investors or not.

To analyze this statement, the study used data from MSCI World conventional and MSCI World Islamic indices from August 17, 2012 to June 8, 2022. The study used the generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) variance technique, the most common technique used in stock data analysis.

The results dictate the absence of sukuk as a safe haven for investors as both the conventional and Islamic markets show decoupling behavior. The study finds concrete evidence of a strong association between the debt-based bond market and the Islamic sukuk market. As these markets mostly like to move in a parallel direction, a recession in a conventional bond market likely means a recession in the Islamic sukuk market.

This study is unique in incorporating the MSCI World Islamic Index and other Islamic indices of several Muslim countries, which was absent in previous research. Second, this study is unique because it adds a separate regression for the COVID era to show whether the movement of indices changed during regression.

This study aims to explore the evolution of the Islamic capital market (ICM) from the perspective of research publications.

A bibliometric analysis was applied based on selected publications from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) database from 2000 to 2021. The study adopted VOSviewer software which was developed by Leiden University.

This study has some implications that need urgent action. Firstly, there are some areas that have received little attention among researchers, although they are relevant to the industry, for instance, in fintech and blockchain in ICM. Secondly, the inconsistent frequency of publications in some niche areas may suggest that there are unprecedented events that hinder further research; probably, the researcher may anticipate more information and progress in the industry. Thirdly, the need to strengthen the collaboration between industry and academia to advance research.

This study considered only the WoSCC database. The provider of WoSCC is Clarivate (formerly known as Thomson Reuters), where access to publications is limited to institutional subscribers. The implications of this study are to identify and propose future research trends in the field of ICM.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the present study is among the pioneer studies in analysing bibliometric focusing on ICM. Previous research has focused on Islamic finance and banking, and not specifically on ICM. Accordingly, this study sheds light on research gaps in ICM.

This study aims to examine the nonlinear effects of board size and board independence on the corporate sustainability performance of listed firms worldwide.

This study uses the global environmental, social and governance (ESG) dataset from the Thomson Reuters database, which includes a sample of 23,766 firm-year observations from 33 countries from 2011 to 2022.

The results indicate that board size and independence have positive impacts on corporate sustainability performance; however, these relationships are nonlinear. The authors find an inverted U-shaped relationship for board size. After the optimal point, the positive relationship between board size and corporate sustainability performance becomes negative. Board independence, however, has a positive exponential relationship in which the positive effect increases exponentially after the optimal point. The results are robust to a battery of tests, including alternative measures for corporate sustainability performance, board independence and different estimation procedures.

This study illustrates empirical evidence on the nonlinear effect of board size and board independence on corporate sustainability performance, which explains the mixed evidence involving board size and independence in corporate sustainability literature and offers a complementary research approach in the literature on board dynamics.

This study has practical implications for investors aiming for sustainable and ethical investment choices, as they should be mindful of matters relating to board composition, particularly the appointment of independent directors and ideal board size.

Extensive empirical evidence has examined the relationship between corporate governance variables and corporate sustainability performance. This study introduces the effect of the nonlinear relationship between board size and board independence on corporate sustainability performance using international evidence.

The purpose of this paper was to explore the impact of interest rate shocks on the deposits and financing of Islamic and conventional banks in Saudi Arabia.

The authors use impulse response functions (IRFs) and variance decomposition (VDC) analyses over the period 2008Q1–2020Q2.

The IRFs showed that increasing interest rates reduce loans and conventional deposits. For Islamic banks, the deposits are more affected by interest rate changes than the financing. The VDC analysis found that deposits contribute up to 61% of Islamic financing variations, compared to only 25% in conventional lending ones.

This research contributes to the field of Islamic economics and finance by providing empirical evidence on how interest rates likely impact Islamic and conventional deposits and financing in Saudi banking system.

This study akims to investigate the effectiveness of expansionary monetary policy for Islamic capital markets by studying the impact of decrease in policy rates on seven Islamic equity indices for the period 1996–2019. The transmission mechanism may be different for sampled indices, as they are exposed to Shariah screening that discards certain business sectors and puts limit on debt in capital structure.

This study uses Markov Switching dynamic regression approach of Hamilton (1988).

The results show little effectiveness of expansionary monetary policy in both Bear and Bull states, for most of the sample indices.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no study has made use of dynamic models to assess the association between monetary policy rate and Islamic index prices. Similarly, the authors found no work exploring the effectiveness of expansionary monetary policy actions in different regime for Islamic Indices. This investigation is important in unraveling whether, in the presence of limitations on selection of business activity and choice of capital structure, monetary policy can change the market sentiment, or it will be ineffective. The present study fills this gap.