terms of corporate identity, the consistent visual symbols of the corporation fit the first linguistic definition, while the distinct attributes of the corporation (Balmer 1998, Bernstein 1984) or the reality and uniqueness of the organization (Gray and Balmer 2001 p. 1) fit the second definition.
Hence, corporate identity can be the same and yet different (Bernstein 2003). Reviews of the literature on corporate identity indicate a plethora of definitions for the term, ranging from the tangible to intangible, and from the tactical to strategic (see Allessandri 2001, Melewar and Jenkins 2002 for a compilation of the various definitions). However, there is some agreement among researchers that the term is related to answering the questions ‘‘what are we? And ‘‘who are we? (Balmer and Greyser 2003) or ‘‘what the firm is (Hawn, 1998, Portugal and Halloran 1986), hence referring to the distinct attributes of the organisation. Birkigt and Stadler (1986, as cited in Balmer 2001) suggest four elements of corporate identity: personality, behaviour, communication and symbolism, while van Rekom (1997) identifies three elements: essence features of the firm, features that set it apart from others and continuity of the features over time. According to Balmer and Soenen (1999) corporate identity encompasses three elements: the mind’ (the expressed organisational ethos, vision, strategy and product performance), the soul (distinctive corporate values of the firm) and the voice (the various ways of communicating to key stakeholder groups).
In short, corporate identity is the bonding of strategy, structure, communication and culture, embracing both tangible (e.g. name, logo and colour) and intangible (e.g. firm’s behaviour and reputation) elements that make it distinctive (Balmer 2001, p. 280).
Balmer and Soenen (1999) further operationalised four distinctive features of corporate identity using the mnemonic ACID, each letter representing a distinct identity type: actual, communicated, ideal and desired. Actual identity encompasses the business strategy, values and philosophy, corporate culture and structure (Gray and Balmer 1998) while communicated identity is closely linked to image and reputation, which in turn leads to the realisation of desired (what corporate management wants it to be) and ideal identities (what stakeholders see as optimal). Since their exists an explicit covenant or a promise (Johansson and Hirano 1999, Mitchell 1999) between an organisation and its key stakeholders, corporate identity must be managed so as to ensure alignment between the various identities suggested by Balmer and Soenen (1999). This entails communicating and behaving in a manner that leaves a pleasant impression with key stakeholders (Cornellisson and Elving 2003). One of the avenues through which information about corporate identity (e.g. its ideology, management philosophy, products, commitments to society, etc.) is communicated is the corporate annual report. Hence, managing information disclosure in corporate annual reports in a consistent and pleasing manner will produce a positive corporate image an over time will produce a positive corporate reputation (Allesandri 2001). In other words, through proper communication management, companies can build their reputation, which may lead to competitive advantage (see the operational model for managing corporate identity by Gray and Balmer 1998) and will pay off in both operational and financial ways (Dowling 2001), as well as ensure business survival (Balmer and Stotvig 1997, van Riel and Balmer 1997). Islamic banks are representative of a new wave of corporations whose social goals are at least (if not more) as important as making profit. Based on the definition by Gray and Balmer (2001), such corporations fit what they described as having ethical identity’. They studied two such corporations. Migros and Patagonia to find commonalities that exist between them. Berrone et al. (2005) assessed the impact of corporate ethical identity on the firm’s financial performance and their results indicate that revealed ethics (aspects of communication of the ethical identity) have informational worth and enhance shareholder value, while applied ethics (all actions and policies considered as ethical and beyond communication of ethical values) have a positive impact through the improvement of stakeholder satisfaction. Since commonalities already exist between Islamic banks, as they are based on the Islamic ethical business framework drawn from the Shari’ah (Islamic law, often referred to as ethics in action), it would be interesting to assess whether an ethical identity gap exists and its implications on corporate branding and corporate image and reputation. Hence, in this article, we attempt to assess the degree of variation of communicated ethical identity (as disclosed in the corporate annual report) against a benchmark of ideal ethical identity (checklist constructed based on Islamic precepts) for the Islamic banking sector where trust is vital.1 Specifically, we measure the degree of ethical identity of seven Islamic banks in the Arabian Gulf region based on their corporate annual reports for the years 2002–2004 inclusive, using what we term an Ethical Identity Index (EII). The reason for confining our scope to Islamic banks in the Arabian Gulf region is because these countries share a similar socio-economic structure, which as such enables us to control for macro and cultural effects and make comparison and interpretations more meaningful. We chose corporate annual reports rather than other media of communication in assessing communicated ethical identity because they offer a snapshot of management’s mindset in a particular period (Neimark 1992), have greater potential to influence due to widespread distribution (Adams and Harte 1998), are more accessible for research purposes and are used by a number of stakeholders as the sole source of certain corporate information (Deegan and Rankin 1997). The results of our survey, analysis and discussion constitute a further contribution to corporate identity, corporate communication, corporate social responsibility and Islamic banking literature. The article proceeds as follows. The next section presents a literature review on various aspects of Islamic banking and discusses what constitutes the ideal ethical identity based on the Islamic precepts. The third section describes the research method. The fourth section presents our results and discussion, followed by the conclusions, implications and avenues for further research in the final section.
Literature Review
Despite growing acceptance of Islamic banking, there is still scepticism on the purity of the products offered and also the sincerity of those managing the institutions. Others mention that one of the basic problems with Islamic banking is that ‘‘Homo Islamicus [Islamic man] keeps acting a lot like Homo economicus [economic man] (Useem 2005). On the one hand, Islamic banks are perceived as being too complacent, believing they have a captive market in the Muslim asses who will come to them on religious grounds alone, and in the process lose non-Muslim potential customers interested in investing in organisations whose activities are regarded as ethical. On the other hand, they have been criticised as being so anxious to tap funds from the Muslim masses that they opt for pragmatism over purity in the products offered, and in the process destroy the confidence of their Muslim customers. In short, Islamic banks as value-oriented organisations need to assess their corporate ethical identity and corporate branding process, as their current state seems to be controversial. Since we are not aware of any studies that specifically attempt to assess the strength of Islamic banks’ communicated ethical identity against a benchmark of ideal ethical identity, a discussion of what constitutes the ideal ethical identity based on the Islamic precepts follows. The ideal ethical identity benchmark Islamic banking refers to a system of banking which is consistent with the principles of Islamic law (Shari’ah Islami’iah). The Shari’ah governs every aspect of a Muslim’s life, viz. spiritual, economic, political and social, and faithful execution of duties and obligations based on the Shari’ah is recognised as a form of worship. The Shari’ah is concerned with promoting justice and welfare in society (al-adl and al-ihsan) and seeking God’s blessings (barakah), with the ultimate aim of achieving success in this world and hereafter (al-falah). There are five distinctive features that differentiate Islamic Banks (IBs) from their competitors (conventional banks):
(a) Underlying philosophy and values.
(b) Provision of interest-free products and services.
(c) Restriction to Islamically acceptable deals.
(d) Focus on developmental and social goals.
(e) Subjection to additional reviews by the Shari’ah Supervisory Board (SSB).
Hence, Islamic banks, as economic and social institutions, must portray aspects of those five traits, drawn from both Shari’ah and business ethics, in their activities. These features form the ideal ethical identity benchmark used in this report, which is further described in the following paragraphs. The underlying philosophy and values as mobilises of savings on a large scale and caterers to fund-seekers in all sectors of the economy, IBs play an important role in economic regeneration and social justice (Siddiqi 1995). They have been entrusted with the safekeeping of depositor’s savings and shareholders’ capital and putting these funds to good use. Hence, they are not only financially accountable but also morally accountable for their business behaviour. As such, we expect IBs to communicate clearly the following in their annual reports:
(i) Commitments to operate within Shari’ah principles/ ideals.
(ii) Commitments to provide returns within Shari’ah principles/ideals.
(iii) Commitments to engage in investment activities that comply with Shari’ah principles.
(iv) Commitments to engage in financing activities that comply with Shari’ah principles.
(v) Commitments to fulfil contractual relationships with various stakeholders via contract (uqud) statements.
(vi) Current and future directions in serving the needs of Muslim communities.
(vii) Statements of appreciation to stakeholders.
Current and prospective shareholders and fund depositors would ideally like to assess and judge the credentials of those who have been entrusted with their funds and who have full authority in making economic decisions on their behalf in enforcing the rules of God. In other words, those who manage and govern IBs are expected to be believers imbued with piety and righteousness, and to have knowledge and competence in relevant fields associated with banking as well as knowledge of Shari’ah, especially those areas related to business transactions (Fiqh al-mu’amalat). Hence, we expect IBs to communicate the following aspects of management to their stakeholders:
(i) Names, positions and pictures of board members and top management.
(ii) Profile of board members and top management as indicators of their knowledge of and competence in banking and Shari’ah.
(iii) Aspects of good corporate governance: balanced board, no role duality, having an audit committee, limited multiple directorships and shareholdings.
Provision of interest-free products and services
Unlike the foundation of conventional banking, which is interest based (riba), IBs must avoid any form of such dealings, as Islam strongly prohibits interest, as found in four different revelations in the Qur’an. Consequently, the various financial instruments developed by IBs have been based on two principles: the profit-and-loss sharing principle and the mark-up principle (Aggarwal and Yousef 2000). Financing instruments based on the former principle include mudharabah (venture capital) and musharakah (partnership arrangement), while instruments based on the latter include murabahah (resale with stated profit), bay’al-salam (forward sale contract), ijarah and ijarah waiqtina (operating and financial lease). To remain competitive, IBs have been innovative in their offering of products that do not violate Shari’ah but to a certain extent; they are still perceived as Islamising products and instruments of the capitalistic system rather than applying their own minds in developing products based on Islamic concepts. With fierce competition, more sophisticated markets and demand for more transparency by stakeholders, one of the ways in which IBs can deal with those matters is to communicate effectively regarding the following:
(i) Details of investment activities.
(ii) If new products have been introduced, whether they have been approved by the SSB (ex-ante) as well as an explanation of the basis of the Shari’ah concept legitimising the new product.
Shari’ah acceptable deals
Islamic banking is much more than offering interest free products. IBs should only finance projects or support practices and products that are permissible (halal) and avoid financing or investing in activities considered abhorrent in Islam, such as gambling, alcohol, drugs, etc., or in short, those that bring harm to society and the environment. IBs must also avoid speculative transactions or excessive risks (gharar), such as investments in futures markets, since the consequence is not known. In Islam, parties to the contract should have perfect knowledge of the counter values intended to be exchanged and cannot predetermine a guaranteed profit. The rationale behind the prohibition is the wish to protect the weak from exploitation and as such goes beyond financial accountability to include accountability to society. Hence, IBs should communicate in their annual reports the following:
(i) Any involvement in non-permissible activities.
(ii) If involved in non-permissible activities, the reason for involvement, the percentage of profit from such activities and how gains from such activities have been handled.
Focus on developmental and social goals
IBs are expected to be more socially responsible than their conventional counterparts, as Islam emphasises social justice. An example can be placed in terms of Zakat, Sadaqat and Qarz-e-Hasana for being the welfare of the society. Zakah is one of the five pillars of the Islamic faith and the spending of the proceeds and the beneficiaries6 are specified in the Qur’an. They are God’s laws and non-fulfilment is a sin and will result in punishment in the hereafter. However, there have been mixed opinions as to which party is liable for zakah: banks or individuals (i.e. shareholders and depositors). Regardless of who is liable, what is more important is for the IB to communicate the following details:
(i) Which party is liable for zakah?
(ii) If the bank is liable, whether zakah has been paid, the sources of zakah funds, the uses of the zakah funds, any balance of zakah not distributed and the reason for it, and attestation from the SSB that they have been properly computed and that the sources and uses of the funds are legitimate based on God’s rules. Unlike zakah, which is obligatory, saddaqa (charity) is voluntary in nature and can be used for purposes allowed by Shari’ah for the benefit of society. Hence, IBs should communicate:
(i) The amount and the sources and uses of charity funds, separate from the zakah funds. Providing qard-hassan (benevolent or interest-free loans) for socially beneficial causes is an important social contribution that IBs may make, especially to the local community in which they operate. As such, IBs should ideally communicate the following in their annual reports:
(i) The amount and the sources and uses of such funds.
(ii) The banks’ policies in providing such funds and how non-repayment of such funds will be dealt with. Other revealing indicators of an organisation’s ethical stand from an Islamic perspective are the ways it treats its employees and debtors as well as its commitments to society. Employees are the greatest asset of the business and their welfare should be given due attention. It is the responsibility of employers to ensure that employees are paid fair wages, not overworked and have the opportunity to fulfil their spiritual obligations. Equal opportunity is also stressed in Islam. For IBs to be successful in a highly competitive services sector there must be consistency between the brand values and staff behaviour. In other words, an adequate supply of capable, trained personnel with knowledge and understanding of the principles underlying Islamic banking and a strong belief in it is one of the ingredients for success, echoing de Chernatony and Segal-Horn (2001), who mentioned that a successful services brand is dependent on genuine staff conviction and commitment. Hence, the following should be communicated in the annual report:
(i) Employees’ welfare.
(ii) Training and development (especially on Shari’ah awareness), amount spent on training, provision of special training or recruitment schemes.
(iii) Equal opportunity.
(iv) Reward to employees.
Debtors receive special attention in Islam. Lenders are asked to be lenient with their debtors and in certain circumstances, debtors are entitled to receive zakah and debts should be written off as charity. As such, IBs are expected to demonstrate and communicate such commitments in their annual reports:
(i) Debt policy and type of debt.
(ii) Amount of debts written off public duties in Islam is seen as a part of the general meritorious and ethical tendency of the faith (Dien 1992). The circumstantial needs of the community within which the IBs operate should first be catered to. Hence, IBs should ideally communicate the following to indicate their commitments to society:
(i) Having a female branch (since our focus is on those IBs in the Arabian Gulf region).
(ii) Creating job opportunities.
(iii)Supporting organisations that benefit society and participating in government social activities.
(iv) Sponsoring Islamic educational and social events.
Reviews by the Shari’ah Supervisory Board (SSB)
All Islamic banks have a Shari’ah Supervisory Board (SSB) whose role is to ensure that any new formulations and modalities are in line with Shari’ah principles and within the ambit of Islamic norms. In other words, the SSB acts as an internal control mechanism and its primary objective is _... to give credibility to the operations of Islamic banks by authenticating their legitimacy from the Shari’ah point-of view’ (Mudawi 1984 p. 4). Membership of SSBs is often drawn from the professional specialist of Islamic jurisprudence (u’lama) (Gambling et al. 1993) and they perform all or part of the following duties: setting the Shari’ah rules for the conduct of banking business; examining all or part of the bank’s transactions to ascertain whether there have been breaches of the Shari’ah rules; and issuing a statement in the annual report of the bank as to whether or not the bank has conducted its business in compliance with the Shari’ah (Karim 1990).
Confidence in the Shari’ah scholars is the bedrock of Islamic banking and any doubts concerning their integrity and ability to handle complex financial systems and keep the operation Islam compliant may lead to a loss of confidence in the system. Thus, the SSB report should ideally communicate:
(i) Names, pictures and remuneration of SSB members.
(ii) Number of meetings held.
(iii) Whether there are defects in the products offered and if there are, what are their recommendations to rectify the defects and the actions taken by management.
(iv) Basis of examination of the documents.
(v) Attestation that profits are gained lawfully.
(vi) Signatures of all members.
In short, communication of the detailed aspects of the five traits described above would help annual report users gauge the ethical identity of IBs. However, as mentioned by Fukukawa and Moon (2004), one common problem in communication management is deciding the extent and format of disclosure, because communication does not necessarily denote activity and its absence does not necessarily indicate non-activity. The communication decision gets more complicated when ethics is the basis for deciding the rights and responsibilities of users and providers of corporate information, respectively, due to the absence of a certain communis opinio (common opinion) on human ethical or moral reasoning, which thus increases conflicts of interest between different groups in society (Haniffa and Hudaib 2002). In addition, as argued by Gray et al. (1996), rights and responsibilities based on ethics could be absolute (unvarying with time and place) or relative (changing with time and place), depending on one’s interpretation. But for Muslims, the Shari’ah is considered as both stable (based on the Qur’an and Hadith, i.e. sayings, approvals and actions of the Prophet Muhammad) and dynamic (based on Ijma, i.e. consensus of Muslim scholars, and Qiyas, i.e. represented in the analogical deductions from the other three sources for contemporary issues that are not directly mentioned in those sources but have similar characteristics to those that existed in the past) and it addresses the oeconomicus, ethicus and religiosus needs of their stakeholders.
In other words, IBs are perceived as institutions enabling their stakeholders to fulfil their economic needs with assurance that they are within the dictates of their religious faith and business ethics. In short, Islam encourages economic endeavours and the maximisation of profit, but this must be within the bounds of the religion and business ethics. Having identified the dimensions of the ideal ethical identity for IBs, the next stage is to assess whether disparities exist amongst the ethical identities. The following section describes our research method. Summary and concluding remarks Overview of findings and implications Islamic Banks (IBs) exist to fulfil the financial (economic) needs of Muslims within the dictates of their religious faith. We extended the work of Gray and Balmer (2001) by attempting to measure the ethical identity of corporations that succeeded to form a niche market for themselves based on their ethical business philosophy. Since the foundation of the IBs’ business philosophy is the Shari’ah, we are more interested in exploring their communicated ethical identity as opposed to ideal ethical identity. Specifically, we attempt to assess the strength or degree of ethical identity based on the variation amongst the ethical identities of such corporations. We developed a research instrument based on our understanding of the Shari’ah as well as the extant Islamic and corporate social responsibility literature to reflect the ideal ethical identity. Using content analysis, corporate annual reports for the period 2002–2004 of seven IBs in the Arabian Gulf region were scored based on the research instrument developed for the purpose. The results are expressed in the form of an index, which we termed the Ethical Identity Index (EII): a high index indicates less variation and more inclination towards the ideal ethical identity while a low index suggests otherwise. The IBs surveyed were ranked based on the index under each dimension for each year. Our survey results indicate the highest and lowest 3-year mean EII to be 0.65 (BIB) and 0.16 (ARB), respectively. This means that 65% of the constructs in our ideal ethical checklist have been communicated in the case of BIB and only 16% for ARB. The 3-year mean EII for the remaining five IBs ranged from 0.28 to 0.48, suggesting a large difference amongst the ethical identities. The index of each bank to vary across the 3-year period, suggesting that communication is not static and often minimal.
This may be attributed to a lack of pressure from and an indifferent attitude of stakeholders and also the prevailing secretive culture in the region.
Conclusion
The findings are surprising because IBs, as social and economic institutions, are expected to communicate more on those dimensions to reflect accountability and justice not only to society, but also ultimately to God. Hence, managers of IBs may need to reflect on their communication management strategy as well as their image and reputation, not only from an ethical point of view but more importantly, from the perspective of religion. Good corporate communication and literature are vital for IBs to promote their corporate ethical identity. Unfortunately, some IBs put little effort into communicating their values in a consistent manner and ensuring congruence between their rhetoric in the annual report and the ethical benchmark based on Shari’ah. Our findings have important implications not only for managers of IBs in the region but also in other countries, such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Pakistan, where there is a large demand for Islamic banking products and services. Managers of IBs need to communicate more effectively and avoid ambiguous styles of communication, as these have important religious implications as well as implications for corporate image and reputation. Our findings also have important implications for academics and researchers in the area, as they pave the way for further investigation.
References and Bibliography
Adams, C. A. and G. Harte.(1998)’The Changing Portrayal of the Employment of Women in British ‘Banks and Retail Companies’ Corporate Annual Reports.’ Journal of Accounting, Organizations and Society 23, (80) 781–812
Aggarwal, R. K. and T. Yousef.(2000)’Islamic Banks and Investment Financing.’ Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking 32, (1) 93–120
Allessandri, S. W.(2001)’Modelling Corporate Identity: A Concept Explication and Theoretical Explanation.’ An International Journal Corporate Communications 6,(4) 173–182
Balmer, J. M. T. and S. Stotvig.(1997)’Corporate Identity and Private Banking: A Review and Case Study.’ International Journal of Banking, special edition on Corporate identity in financial services 15,(5) 169–184
Balmer, J. M. T. and G. B. Soenen.(1999)’The ACID Test of Corporate Identity Management.’ Journal of Marketing Management 15,(1–3) 69–92
Balmer, J. M. T. and S. A. Greyser.(2003) Revealing the Corporation: Perspectives on Identity Image Reputation Corporate Branding and Corporate-Level Marketing. London: Routledge
Balmer, J. M. T.(1998)’Corporate Identity and the Advent of Corporate Marketing.’ Journal of Marketing Management 14, 963–996
Balmer, J. M. T.(2001)’Corporate Identity, Corporate Branding and Corporate Marketing: Seeing Through the Fog.’ European Journal of Marketing 35, (3/4) 248–291
Bernstein, D.(2003)’Executive Perspective: Corporate Branding-Back to Basics.’ European Journal of Marketing 37,(7/8) 1133–1141
Bernstein, D.(1984) Company Image and Reality: A Critique of Corporate Communications. East Sussex: Holt Rinehart & Winston Ltd.
Berrone, P., J. Surroca and J. A. Tribo.(2005)’Corporate Ethical Identity as Determinant of Form Performance.’ A Test of the Mediating Role of Stakeholder Satisfaction [Online] Available from < WB/wb053108.pdf> [15 May 2008]
Birkigt, K. and M. Stadler.(1986) Corporate Identity, Grundiagen, Funktionen und Beispoelen. Landsberg am Lech: Moderne Industrie Verlag
Bukhari (2005) Sahih Al-Bukhari [Online] available from< > [18 May 2008]
Cornellisson, J. P. and W. J. L. Elving.(2003)’Managing Corporate Identity: An Integrative Framework of Dimensions and Determinants.’ An International Journal of Corporate Communications 8,(2) 114–120
De Chernatony, L. and S. Segal-Horn.(2001)’The Criteria for Successful Services Brands.’ European Journal of Marketing 37,(7/8) 1095–1118
Deegan, C. and M. Rankin.(1997)’The Materiality of Environmental Information to Users of Annual Reports.’ Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal 10,(4) 562–583
Dien, M. Y. I.(1992) Islamic Ethics and the Environment F. Khalid and J. O’Brien (eds.) Islam and Ecology. U.K: Cassell 25–35
Dowling, G.(2001) Creating Corporate Reputations: Identity, Image, and Performance. New York: Oxford University Press Inc.
Fukukawa, K. and J. Moon.(2004)’A Japanese Model of Corporate Social Responsibility. A Study of Website Reporting.’ Journal of Corporate Citizenship 16, 45–69
Gambling, T., R. Jones and R. A. Karim.(1993)’Creditable Organizations: Self Regulation v. External Standard Setting in Islamic Banks and British Charities.’ Journal of Financial Accountability and Management 9,(3) 195–207
Gray, E. and J. M. T. Balmer.(1998)’Managing Image and Corporate Reputation.’ Journal of Long Range Planning 31,(5) 685–692
Gray, S. J., D. Owen and C. Adams.(1996) Accounting and Accountability: Changes and Challenges in Corporate Social and Environmental Reporting. U.K: Prentice-Hall
Haniffa, R. M. and M. A. Hudaib.(2002)’A Theoretical Framework for the Development of the Islamic Perspective of Accounting, Commerce and Finance.’ The Islamic Perspective Journal 6,(1/2) 1–71
Hawn, R.: 1998, _Image vs. Identity’, Trends 14, April/ May, 22–27.
Institute of Islamic Bank & Insurance (2008) ISLAMIC BANKING - Status of Islamic banking [online] available from < May 2008]
International Herald Tribune (2008) Book Report: An Introduction to Islamic Finance [Online] < > [15 May 2008]
Johansson, J. K. and M. Hirano.(1999)’Brand Reality: The Japanese Perspective.’ Journal of Marketing Management 15,(1–3) 93–105
Karim, R. A.(1990)’Standard Setting For the Financial Reporting of Religious Business Organisations: The Case of Islamic Banks.’ Accounting and Business Research 20,(80), 299–305
Melewar, T. C. and E. Jenkins.(2002)’Defining the Corporate Identity Construct.’ Corporate Reputation Review 5,(1) 76–90
Mitchell, A.(1999)’Out of the Shadows.’ Journal of Marketing Management 15,(1–3) 25–42
Mudawi, A. Y.(1984) Islamic Banks’ Problems and Prospect. Islamabad: Paper Presented at the International Seminar on Islamic Banking
Neimark, M. D.(1992) The Hidden Dimensions of Annual Reports. London: Paul Chapman
Portugal, J. and K. Halloran.(1986)’Avoiding a Corporate Identity Crisis.’ Management Review 75,(4) 43–45
Siddiqi, M. N.(1995) Islamic Economics and Finance in M. Ali (eds.) Encyclopaedia of Islamic Banking and Insurance. London: Institute of Islamic Banking and Finance. 1–9
The Holy Qur’an (1989) The Holy Qur’an: Text, Translation and Commentary, Y. Ali (TR), New Revised Edition. U.S.A: Amana Corporation, Brentwood, Maryland
J. Coulson et al. (1984) The Oxford Illustrated Dictionary 2nd ed. London: Oxford, University Press
Useem, J.(2005) Banking On Allah: Devout Muslims Don’t Pay or Receive Interest. So How Can Their Financial System Work? [Online] <.Com/muslimfinance.htm> [19 May 2008]
Van Rekom, J.(1997)’Deriving an Operational Measure of Corporate Identity.’ European Journal of Marketing, special edition on Corporate identity 31,(5/6) 410– 422
Van Riel, C. B. M. and J. M. T. Balmer.(1997)’Corporate Identity: The Concept, Its Measurement and Management.’ European Journal of Marketing, special edition on Corporate identity 31,(5/6) 340–355