Corporate governance in Islamic banks: A comparative study of conservatives, moderates, and liberals

Abstract

This study seeks to fill the gap in the current literature on corporate governance in Islamic banks. A major limitation of these studies, leading to skewed results when analyzing corporate governance and other issues, is their treatment of all the Islamic banks in one category. This study addresses this issue with results showing that corporate governance is not uniform across various categories of Islamic banks. The study analyzes various aspects of corporate governance in Islamic banks by first classifying them into three categories (i.e., Liberals, Moderates, and Conservatives). A comparison of four important variables of corporate governance (i.e., size of SSB, size of audit committee, size of board of directors, and board composition) within these three categories was expected to yield some new findings. The study uses a sample of 80 fully Islamic banks for the years 2009-2014, from the countries of the GCC, Yemen, Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, Syria, Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the UK, and South Africa. The study aims to strengthen and enhance our knowledge of some relevant corporate governance mechanisms in Islamic banks. The results of this study are expected to be useful to practitioners of corporate governance in Islamic banks, customers, and financial regulators including central banks and other relevant stakeholders. In addition, it may allow further research to bring necessary reforms to the corporate governance of Islamic banking and thus generally strengthen its practice.