Corporate Governance and Performance of Islamic Banks: A Comparative Study between Banks in Malaysia and the GCC Countries

Abstract

Islamic finance in general and Islamic banking was one of the fastest growing sectors globally during the last decades. This development path has attracted many scholars to do research on this area. This paper aims to add a contribution to the growing Islamic finance literature from international corporate governance perspective. The study discusses the relationship between corporate governance and performance of Islamic banks operating in Malaysia and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries namely, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. The possible effects of board independence and board size on Return on Assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE) and Tobin's Q are examined by using linear multiple regression. Moreover, this study focuses on comparison of bank performances between Malaysian and the GCC countries. It is found that there is a significant and negative relationship between ROA and board independence. Board independence is also found a significant predictor of ROE. Addition to that Malaysian banks performed better than the GCC banks in comparison with average values of ROE and ROA and they also had a more independent board of directors for the period between 2007 and 2011. However, according to the Mann-Whitney U test results, Malaysian banks performed better than the GCC banks in terms of ROE and Tobin's Q ratio.