Western Financial Agents and Islamic Ethics

Fang, Eddy S.; Foucart, Renaud

Abstract

This paper investigates Western professional bankers' perceptions of Islamic finance. Exploiting data from an original survey, we carry out a principal component analysis (PCA) to characterize the main dimensions on which financial agents diverge. The PCA extracts five dimensions—accounting for 61 % of the variance in the agents' answers—that we interpret with the help of a pilot field survey. In addition to confirm the increased association of Islamic financial values with ethical practices in the West, our results allow us to understand how the observed growth of the industry has been conceptualized by conventional agents. The five dimensions identified shed light on the multitude of constructs that have informed the diffusion of Islamic financial ideas to international markets. This supports the fact that Islamic finance cannot be seen as a single movement but is characterized by opposing and concurrent logics in global markets.

Citation

Fang, E. S., & Foucart, R. (2014). Western Financial Agents and Islamic Ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 123(3), 475-491. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-1850-8

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 9, 2013
• Online Publication Date: Aug 9, 2013
• Publication Date: 2014-09
• Deposit Date: Mar 11, 2019
• Journal: Journal of Business Ethics
• Print ISSN: 0167-4544
• Electronic ISSN: 1573-0697
• Publisher: Springer Verlag
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 123
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 475-491
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-1850-8
• Keywords: Islamic finance; Business ethics; Global finance; Social psychology; Principal component analysis
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1625010
• Publisher URL: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-013-1850-8