Friday, November 30, 2012

i-CSR Workshop with Islamic Finance Practitioners

The Accounting Research Institute (ARI), Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) is currently funding a research project to develop an Islamic Corporate Social Responsibility (i-CSR) General Practice Framework. This is in line with ARI’s niche area of research in Islamic Financial Criminology which comprises of Islamic Finance and Muamalat and Financial Criminology.  The i-CSR research project which is under the Islamic Finance and Muamalat domain is currently undertaken by a group of ARI’s researchers headed by Associate Prof Dr Faizah Darus, Head of the UiTM – ACCA Asia-Pacific Centre for Sustainability (APCeS) together with a group of researchers from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Sebelas Maret University, Indonesia and Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta, Indonesia. Besides the academics, the Islamic Banking and Finance Institute Malaysia (IBFIM) has also agreed to pe part of the research team. APCeS is one of ARI’s research centres which was set-up in 2008 in collaboration with ACCA with the objective to bring about qualitative improvements in the Corporate Sustainability Practices within the Asia-Pacific region. The aim of the i-CSR research project is to establish an i-CSR General Practice Framework for Islamic institutions based on Syariah principles in which, it will provide a holistic guidance on CSR for Islamic Institutions. In order to gather feedbacks from CSR practitioners, on the proposed i-CSR General Practice Framework, a two-day workshop with CSR managers and Syariah officers of Islamic banks/institutions to present the proposed i-CSR General Practice Framework and to develop an i-CSR index to be used as guidelines by CSR practitioners and implementers in Islamic institutions has been held recently on 29 - 30th November 2012. Participation to the 2-day workshop was by invitation only. Participants were from among Islamic economic scholars, members of Syariah Supervisory Board and Islamic jurist (ulama), CSR managers and Syariah officers of Islamic banks/institutions. A total of 40 participants were at the workshop which was held in Putrajaya. ARI thanks all participants who took part in the event. Once the instrument is further improved, it will be discussed at a CEO forum which will be held in early 2013.  Congratulations and thank you all....