Probing Corporate Ethical Identity of Shari 'ah Compliant Companies

摘要

The need for Islamic financial system in Malaysia arose from the fact that more than 51 per cent of the population is made up of Muslims. From Islamic perspectives, ethics oversees all aspects of life. Islam places the highest importance on ethical values and principles in all aspects of human life. Ethical norms and moral codes evident from the verses of the Qur'an and Sunnah are numerous and comprehensive (Khan, 2009). Since the awareness and demand for investing in accordance to Islamic principle is increasing, the number of Shari 'ah Compliant companies in Malaysia has increased tremendously over the years. Shari'ah Compliant companies are seen to incorporate Islamic ethical identity, thus the organization should depict the true Islamic Values of corporate strategy, structure, communication and culture embracing both tangible and intangible elements that make them distinctive. Thus this study is trying to assess the extent of Corporate Ethical Identity (CEI) that are being embraced by these Shari'ah compliant companies via company's annual report. The CEI checklist was developed and sent to experts (auditors and academia) to verify all the selected items. Initially, the checklist consists of 88 items, and after taking into consideration the experts' opinions (academia and practitioners), the final checklist with 83 items has been established. Content analysis was used in order to construct the CEI Index. The unit of analysis for this study is the annual report of 153 Shari'ah Compliant public listed companies on Main Board companies of Bursa Malaysia for the year ended 2009. The findings of the study show that the level of CEI of selected companies is lower with the average of below 25 per cent. Furthermore, this study adds to prior related studies on corporate identity that focused mainly on Islamic perspectives.