Abstract:
Islamic banks offer distinct financial services and as such have grown significantly in
Bahrain, Bangladesh, Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Qatar, Turkey and U.A.E over the past
two decades. They are unique in the sense that they are accountable to fulfil a social and
ethical role inherent in their character as an 'Islamic' institution. They also have a duty to
discharge their accountability through disclosing corporate social responsibility (CSR)
information consistent with the principles of Islam. However, recent anecdotal evidence
finds that Islamic banks may not be fulfilling their social role in accordance with the
prescriptions of Islam because they disclose less CSR information than expected. It has
been suggested that disclosure may also be driven by the extant economic incentives.
Hence, the exact nature of the CSR disclosure process by Islamic banks remains unclear
due to a paucity of a priori research and statistical analysis of extant data. In light of that,
this study develops an a priori model linking CSR dis.closure to socio-political influences
and corporate governance factors. Then resultant hypotheses are tested on a sample of 47
Islamic banks' annual reports from 14 countries.
