The contents of social disclosure: A survey of the UAE Islamic Banks ‘ reports

Abstract

Little is known about the social reporting in Islamic banks. This study aims to examine the nature and extent of social disclosure of UAE Islamic banks to contribute to the theory and practice. Most of the social disclosure studies have only quantified disclosures in annual reports. Whereas, our study adopts the literature survey and practice through more comprehensive methods such as questionnaire, interviews and focuses on the annual reports of UAE Islamic banks. Five premises have been examined and ranked according to their reporting priority.

The main findings were: a comprehensive benchmark to measure social disclosure have developed and applied, social reporting contents have a significant influence on the banks’ reporting system, the Islamic banks in UAE are required to pay the Zakah to provide more social disclosures than banks not subject to Zakah, and the reporting of Islamic banks in UAE is significantly different among Islamic banks as they are more close to the requirements of the IFRS. It is also found that the size of the bank, age, experience of managers, and regulatory requirements affect the quantity and nature of social disclosure.