Does corporate governance affect the performance and stability of Islamic banks?

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the impact of corporate governance practices on cost efficiency and financial stability for a sample of Islamic and conventional banks. In the analysis, the author uses a set of corporate governance variables that include, the board size, board independence, director gender, board meetings, board attendance, board committees, chair independence and CEO characteristics. Design/methodology/approachThe author uses corporate governance data of Islamic banks that is unique in this field. In the analysis, the author also uses stochastic frontier analysis and panel vector autoregression models to quantify long-run and short-run statistical relationships between the operational efficiency of Islamic Banks and corporate governance practices. FindingsAccording to the results, Islamic and conventional banks exhibit important differences in the effects of corporate governance practices on cost efficiency and financial stability. Results show that with a blind general adoption of corporate governance practices, Islamic banks may suffer a loss in their value since the adoption of the third layer of binding practices, over and above the already existing ones, imposed by the Sharia Board and the Board of Directors, may lead to cumbersome business operations. This conclusion is of importance to Islamic Banks since they struggle to survive in a very competitive international environment. Practical implicationsThe author believes that the results may be of a certain value to regulators, policymakers and managers of Islamic banks. Based on the results, the author postulate that Islamic banks should select carefully international corporate governance practices. Social implicationsIslamic banks should not adopt additional third layer of binding practices as that would result lower performance and instability that would be damaging for the economy Originality/valueThis study employs a unique sample of Islamic banks that includes corporate governance data hand collected. Our findings of the corporate governance impact on Islamic banks performance and stability are therefore unique in the literature.