Sustainability Disclosure among Malaysian Shari‟ah-Compliant listed Companies: Web Reporting

Abstract

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 at the 
listed companies in general, this study attempts to consider the practice of disclosing sustain
ability 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. This study used Islamicity Disclosure Index consists of Shari‟ah Compliance Indicator, 
Corporate Governance Index and Social/Environmental Index, and the data is analysed using a 
content analysis. 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.