The Effect of Corporate Governance in Islamic Banking on the Agility of Iraqi Banks

Abstract

The primary purpose of the research is to investigate the effect of the quality of corporate governance in Islamic banking on the agility of Iraqi banks. For this purpose, the structural-equation-modeling (SEM) method was used to investigate the effect of independent variables on the dependent variable. The statistical population of this study is all managers, employees, and customers of the public and private banks of Iraq, and a total of 70 questionnaires were included and analyzed to test the paper’s hypotheses. The research results indicate that corporate governance in Islamic banking has a positive impact on the agility of Iraqi banks, meaning that with an increase in corporate-governance mechanisms in Iraqi Islamic banking, the capability of banks to make timely reactions to potential changes is likely to increase. In this regard, the provision of various services in a flexible and snap manner to a wide range of customers, the acceptance of innovation and IT-related processes, the identification and application of environmental opportunities, and having a culture of learning and cooperating are expected to be realized by improving the quality of corporate-governance mechanisms. Our findings may apply to policymakers to improve market efficiency through designing regulations and bank managers to increase their general performance. The current paper is among the initial attempts to determine the influential factors on bank agility in emerging markets.