PurposeThe aim of this paper has twofold: (1) to explain and compare the financial evolution of Islamic and conventional banking sector in the Gulf Cooperative Council (GCC) countries before and during the COVID-19 pandemic and (2) to explore the key success factors that might affect Islamic and conventional banks performance before and mainly during COVID-19 pandemic period.Design/methodology/approachOrbis Bank Focus database and annual financial reports are used to collect financial information of Islamic and conventional banks in GCC countries over four years: 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020. Descriptive statistics, T-test, multiple regression, and 2SLS and GMM models are employed to analyze the financial structure and performance of Islamic and conventional banks before and during the COVID-19 pandemic period.FindingsResults of this study reveal that (1) there is a significant difference between Islamic banks and conventional banks during the crisis of COVID-19, where the conventional banks have presented a higher level of financial performance and financial liquidity than their Islamic counterparts, (2) conventional banks have revealed higher capacity to manage their financial risk during the crisis period, and (3) a high level of non-performing loan, high inflation rate and high percentage of non-important cost have a negative impact on the financial performance of Islamic banks mainly during the pandemic period of COVID-19. However, the result indicates that a high level of liquidity risk increased the performance of Islamic banks but this impact falls sharply during the pandemic period.Originality/valueThis study provides information that supports investors, regulators and executive managers in GCC countries. A well-structured balance sheet would improve the financial performance and risk management of the banking sector in GCC countries, especially in times of crisis and pandemics.

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The purpose of this article is to establish a framework with its related measures for the development of a balanced scorecard (BSC) for auditing firms. A BSC was developed providing the detailed measures for performance evaluation comprising five key elements: learning and growth, clients, internal business processes, financials, and audit-related perspectives of corporate ethics. A survey was undertaken along with descriptive statistics and confirmatory factor analysis in four auditing firms, to assess the external auditors’ opinions for the proposed BSC measures. The results suggest that the development and use of the proposed BSC measures will enhance audit firms’ performance. Audit firms would have a better understanding of the various drivers of performance and strategies thereby creating a competitive advantage. The results are valuable to not only audit firms but also auditing oversight boards who could direct the design of their monitoring process by understanding performance systems in different size audit firms.

Over the past decade, financial inclusion has been a trending topic and key priority in developing countries seeking to build a resilient financial sector and pursuing economic growth. Most of the recently launched financial inclusion initiatives in Egypt, especially those aligned with the 2030 sustainability strategy, have targeted marginalized and excluded individuals. Only a few have addressed the financial inclusion of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Accordingly, this paper aims to identify the main pillars of financial inclusion for SMEs. In keeping up with the mainstream literature, it introduces a number of financial inclusion determinants designed to attract SMEs. They include supply-side determinants such as access to financial services and marketing awareness campaigns, which act as tools to segment financial services and market their benefits to SMEs, and demand-side determinants, which involve the use of financial services. Finally, there is an assessment of the macroeconomic risks to investors and SMEs. The researchers’ methodology was based on first deriving a novel dataset from responses to a questionnaire addressing bankers who manage SME portfolios, second analyzing the dataset through descriptive and inferential statistics and third undertaking a twofold econometric estimation. The econometric estimations started with principal component analysis (PCA) and proceeded to a logistic regression to determine the significant variables pertinent to increasing the financial inclusion of SMEs. The PCA suggested three main pillars determining financial inclusion. They are integrated marketing tools, which increase SMEs’ awareness of and access to the most sophisticated banking services, usage of banking services, and assessment of the macroeconomic risks that would prevent SMEs from gaining access to financial services. As well, the interaction term between the variables derived from the three pillars accounts for a variability of 86.6% in the level of financial inclusion of Egypt’s SMEs.

This paper aims to (i) investigate the impact of political connections (PC) and related party transactions (RPTs) on the firm value (FV), and (ii) test the moderating effect of RPTs on such relationship, while controlling for the firms’ corporate governance mechanisms. Based on 315 observations from publicly listed firms in Egypt, our results reveal that (i) there is a positive relationship between PC and the FV, (ii) there is a negative relationship between RPTs and the FV, and (iii) the existing of RPTs as a moderating variable enhances the impact of the politically connected companies on the FV. The findings suggest that the Egyptian firms are much affected by the politically connected board of directors or owners, and this significantly exists when associated with related party transactions, despite that, the corporate governance practices could mitigate such effects.