Sustainability disclosure among Malaysian Shari'ah compliant listed companies: Web reporting

• Main Authors: Mohamed, Rapiah, Muhammad Jamil, Che Zuriana, Alwi, Kasumalinda
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: HF5601 Accounting
• Online Access: http://repo.uum.edu.my/13777/1/10.pdf; http://repo.uum.edu.my/13777/; http://www.iimu.org/international-conference-on-management-of-resources-in-muslim-countries-and-communities-challenges-and-prospects/

This paper advances previous research of sustainability disclosure by focusing on information disclosed in the companies' web site rather than through annual reports.Despite looking on the listed companies in general, this study attempts to consider the practice of disclosing sustainability information in the Malaysian Shari'ah-Compliant listed companies, which represented 87% of the total listed securities or 64.3% of the market capitalization on Bursa Malaysia web site. By using Islamicity Disclosure Index which classified sustainability information into three themes, namely Shari'ah Compliance, corporate governance index and social/environmental index, this study used content analysis to measure the quantity of the sustainability disclosure.The results of the study suggest that the sustainability disclosure by Malaysian Shari'ah compliant listed companies fall significantly on corporate governance index themes, followed by social/environmental index themes.However, Malaysian Shari'ah compliant listed companies did not clearly disclose the items under shari'ah compliance index.Contrary to our expectation, most of the companies disclose the items measured in the annual reports linked to the companies' web site and are thus not fully in the web site.Based on these findings, we hope that Malaysian Shari'ah compliant listed companies have some benchmark to meet the expectations of the Islamic community in terms of sustainability disclosure.