Factors Influencing Information Disclosure by Malaysian State Islamic Religious Councils: Evidence from Interviews

Abstract

This paper aims to identify factors that influence the expectations of a wide range of stakeholders on the information disclosure in the Malaysian State Islamic Religious Councils (SIRC) annual reports, employing semi-structured interviews. The majority of interviewees perceived accounting standards as the main factor contributing to their expectations and further influenced the reporting practices among accountants in SIRC. Others are state fatwa (Islamic rulings), audit expectations, and individual perceptions. The result of the interviews revealed that on the top of accounting standards and government guidelines on the reporting for all government agencies, SIRC should take into account their greater accountability, which should be reflected in their reporting practices. Therefore, Islamic accountability through fatwa, audit expectations, and public demands could be considered. Such awareness is important in SIRC, to differentiate them from other government agencies. The existence of governance is similar to the board of members in a company, in SIRC through the fatwa committee. Therefore, this study suggests that the extent and quality of disclosure depends on the demand from the regulators, auditors, and funders. The findings suggest that SIRC should have an incentive to provide more information to satisfy various stakeholders’ needs. Future studies can be carried out to suggest a set of disclosure items that should be disclosed in the SIRC annual reports in order to increase the level of disclosure, discharging their accountability.