Perceptions of accounting academicians in Universiti Teknologi MARA on the usefulness of accounting information from an Islamic perspective / Norliza Omar

The current conventional reporting is claimed not to satisfy the needs of Muslim users of financial statements in making economic decisions. Therefore the existence of Islamic accounting, which complies with Shari'ah law, is expected to fill this gap. This study examines the perceptions of Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) accounting academicians on the usefulness of Islamic accounting information. The difference in perceptions between Muslim and non-Muslim academicians on the usefulness of Islamic accounting is also identified. Questionnaires were distributed to 327 accounting academicians from 11 UiTM branches in Malaysia and 119 responded to the questionnaires. In testing the usefulness of Islamic accounting, respondents were asked to evaluate on the usefulness of Islamic Corporate Reports (ICRs) developed by Baydoun and Willett (2000) and also indicate their perceptions on the relevancy and reliability of current cost and historical cost data. Twelve hypotheses are tested and the results show that Islamic accounting information is perceived as useful by both Muslim and non-Muslim accounting academicians in helping investors to make economic decisions. In addition, non-Muslim accounting academicians perceived Islamic accounting information to be able to provide adequate disclosures than Muslim accounting academicians. Overall, UiTM accounting academicians perceived current cost accounting to be relevant and reliable. However, some of the results are contradicting. For future research, the current study can be expanded to accounting academicians from other local universities in Malaysia.n Malaysia.