Does the board of directors influence Shariah governance in Islamic banks?

Abstract

This paper examines whether and how the board of directors influences Shariah board governance in Islamic banks. We use data from 54 Islamic banks from 10 countries where Islamic banks are systemically important from 2003 to 2019. The results show that the board of directors positively impacted Shariah governance. Our findings remain robust after using the dynamic panel GMM estimator and propensity score matching techniques as alternative estimation methods. We further document that the impact of the board of directors on Shariah board governance is more pronounced in large banks, publicly traded banks, and countries with better national governance.