Behavioral determinants and their impacts on customers’ saving deposits in Islamic banks

The purpose of this paper is to determine the factors that affect Islamic ethical behavior of customers in Malaysian Islamic banking sector.A survey has been conducted by using questionnaire that was adopted and created.The data from 530 respondents were collected from customers of Islamic banks located in Malaysia.The study reveals that there were differences between age, marital status and income based on the independent sample t- test and one -way ANOVA analysis of the demographic factors while there was no difference for race, gender and educational level.The regression analysis indicates a significant positive relationship between religious obligation and reputation with the Islamic ethical behavior of Malaysian customers.Conversely, profit and investment shows insignificant effect on the Islamic ethical behavior of Malaysian customers. The paper contributes to the literature on Islamic Banking in South East Asia economy

A proposed framework on the relationship between Islamic microfinance related factors and women entrepreneurs business performance in Nigeria

Microfinance plays a key role in poverty alleviation, employment generation, mitigating rural urban migration, utilization of local resources and raw materials and contributing to the gross domestic product (GDP) of Nigeria. Women, majority of who are poor and engaged in informal/micro, small and medium scale businesses are mostly the target of microfinance institutions.However, women entrepreneurs find it difficult to have access to the products and services of the conventional banks due to their stringent lending requirement.The presence of Islamic banking which promotes the profit and loss sharing (PLS) concept increases the awareness among women entrepreneurs to alternative funding sources. Despite availability of financing options, women entrepreneurs are constrained by their reluctance to use interest based microfinance services.This paper aims to provide a proposed framework that examines the impact of Islamic investment and financing contracts (Murabaha financing and Mudharabah savings) and other microfinance related factors (training, social capital and self-esteem) on women entrepreneurs business performance.Religiosity is a new moderating variable within the framework that is hypothesized to enhance business performance of women entrepreneurs.The proposed framework will fill the gap in Islamic banking and finance studies since the area of Islamic microfinance and the moderating effect of religiosity has not been empirically investigated

Islamic entrepreneurship in the light of maqasid al-shari’ah: a critical review

The objectives of entrepreneurship in Islam are guided by the Maqasid Al-Shariah.However, there is a mismatch between Islamic entrepreneurship objectives and Maqasid Al-Shariah based on available literatures, which have not been critically investigated.This paper presents a critical review of the literature within the Islamic entrepreneurship objectives and Maqasid Al-Shariah framework.The exploratory study adopting content analysis to achieve its aim found that the existing literature covered both the Din and Mu’amalah based objectives of Islamic entrepreneurship.However, there is dearth of literature that integrates the connection between objectives of Islamic entrepreneurship and Maqasid Al-Shari’ah.It is therefore suggested that researchers should conduct more researches to examine the integration of Maqasid Al-Shariah in Islamic entrepreneurship, particularly in respect to decision making in handling entrepreneurship issues

Relationship between culture and work ethics: the Islamic perspective

This study determines Islamic work ethics (IWE) in the Nigerian context with the aim to provide a proposed model for the country, since most of the existing literature on work ethics is derived from non-Islamic perspectives.There has been a paucity of literature, which provides evidence on how work ethics is to be used in our society. In Nigeria, the IWE is traced back during the Islamic sharia period of the Sokoto caliphate. However, immediately after the Nigerian independence, the formation of Nigerian constitutions work ethics on Islamic sharia was terminated, and that gave rise to unethical behaviors in all sectors of the country’s development.Therefore, this study is to provide a model that could be useful for work ethics in the Sokoto state as well as other states of Nigeria

Moderating role of hisbah institution on the relationship of religiosity and Islamic culture to Islamic work ethics in Nigeria

An immoral act such as hoarding, interest dealing (riba), false swearing, inexact weight corrupt practices and market instability are some of the problems facing the Nigerian business environment. Despite all efforts by the government and researchers, the problem persists.This is implied to the weaknesses in the existing conventional measures which are mainly based on western literature taken by the authorities on work ethics and also a lack of religiosity and good culture on the part of the stakeholders.To enhance business performance of Muslims in business, this study intends to employ a new framework based on Islamic approach and also develop a new relationship between religiosity, Islamic culture and Islamic work ethics (IWE) with a moderating role of Hisbah institution. The proposed new framework will fill the gap in the field of IWE in Nigeria and beyond

Assessment of the Biocompatibility and Biomechanical Characteristics of Experimental Nickel Titanium Wires

The aim of this study was to compare the mechanical and biological properties of an experimental NiTi archwire coated with nanocarbon tubes, a mechanically-treated NiTi archwire and an as-received NiTi archwire. To test this, NiTi wires from American Orthodontics (AO) with a cross-section of 0.019” x 0.025” were used for all the tests, except for the friction test where 0.017” x 0.025” wires were used. The three groups were compared for hardness, roughness, friction, yield strength, load deflection and modulus of elasticity, as well as biocompatibility. The first group was treated mechanically with the addition of carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The second group was only treated mechanically without the addition of any material. The third group was the as-received group. Ten specimens were investigated for each group. The results for surface hardness using the ANOVA test showed a statistically significant difference between the groups (p-value=0.0097). The nanocarbon coated group was (343 HV), while the mechanically-treated and as-received groups were (328 HV). Also, the yield strength ANOVA test showed a statistically significant difference between the groups (p-value=0.0184). The nanocarbon coated group was (255 MPa), the mechanically-treated (327 MPa), and the as-received (338 MPa). On the other hand, the results for roughness, friction, corrosion, and modulus of elasticity showed no statistically significant difference between the three groups. The cytotoxicity results for the nanocarbon coated group showed no statistically significant difference when compared to the as-received wires, although it showed variability in the results, this high sample variance and standard deviation relative to the mean, requires further investigation. The mechanically-treated wires showed the highest cytotoxicity. Clinically, improving the strength and hardness of the NiTi archwires will produce a wire that is more durable and less likely to break, which happens frequently with smaller diameters. If proven to be sufficiently biocompatible, this could be a good improvement on the current available archwires

Similarities and differences between ethical codes of conduct of AICPA and IFAC

An accountants’ ethical code of conduct represents the moral values, principles and rules that accountants should have.The ethical codes of conduct of AICPA and IFAC are the two main codes most countries adopt to guide their members on how to deal with accounting information from the ethical perspective.While the AICPA ethical code of conduct was developed specifically for the USA, the IFAC ethical code of conduct was developed by taking into account the different practices of ethical code of conduct in various countries.The main purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the similarities and differences of these two codes.The comparison of the two documents is made on the following issues: establishment, structure and approach of the codes, the public interest principle, and the independence principle. The comparative analysis shows that the AICPA and IFAC codes are more similar than different even though some differences are noticeably important

Quantitative Assessment of the Risk of Release of Foot-and-Mouth Disease Virus via Export of Bull Semen from Israel

Various foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) virus strains circulate in the Middle East, causing frequent episodes of FMD outbreaks among Israeli livestock. Since the virus is highly resistant in semen, artificial insemination with contaminated bull semen may lead to the infection of the receiver cow. As a non-FMD-free country with vaccination, Israel is currently engaged in trading bull semen only with countries of the same status. The purpose of this study was to assess the risk of release of FMD virus through export of bull semen in order to estimate the risk for FMD-free countries considering purchasing Israeli bull semen. A stochastic risk assessment model was used to estimate this risk, defined as the annual likelihood of exporting at least one ejaculate of bull semen contaminated with viable FMD virus. A total of 45 scenarios were assessed to account for uncertainty and variability around specific parameter estimates and to evaluate the effect of various mitigation measures, such as performing a preexport test on semen ejaculates. Under the most plausible scenario, the annual likelihood of exporting bull semen contaminated with FMD virus had a median of 1.3 * 10(-7) for an export of 100 ejaculates per year. This corresponds to one infected ejaculate exported every 7 million years. Under the worst-case scenario, the median of the risk rose to 7.9 * 10(-5), which is equivalent to the export of one infected ejaculate every 12,000 years. Sensitivity analysis indicated that the most influential parameter is the probability of viral excretion in infected bulls