ESTABLISHING POTENTIAL WHISTLEBLOWING POLICIES DISCLOSURES INDEX FOR MALAYSIAN SHARIAH-COMPLIANT COMPANIES

According to Islamic beliefs, commercial operations must be directed by fairness, equality, and morality, as dictated by Shariah requirements. As a result, Shariah-compliant companies must include a religious dimension in their disclosures for the benefit of Muslim stakeholders. Recent research on these Shariah-compliant corporations has focused on their corporate social responsibility disclosures (Said et al., 2018) or the quality of these companies' voluntary disclosure policies in Malaysia (Ousama & Fatima, 2010). However, there is no specific legislation requiring Malaysian companies to implement a standardised whistleblowing disclosure as there are no studies that analyse the extent of whistleblowing policy disclosures provided by these Shariah-compliant companies. As a result, whistleblowing disclosure levels among local businesses are inconsistent (Ahmad et al., 2018). This study suggests the development of the Whistleblowing Policy Disclosure Index (WPDI), which might serve as a "best practise" model for establishing sound and comprehensive whistleblowing policy disclosure among Malaysian Shariah-compliant companies. The whistleblower disclosure index would be created following the MCCG (2017), OECD (2011), and Standards Australia principles (2003). These three principles could lead the way for the development of effective and comprehensive disclosure of corporate whistleblowing policy, primarily for the local scene. This, in turn, should help regulators develop efficient methods to encourage whistleblowing, as well as enforce the mandatory implementation of a standardised internal whistleblowing procedure in Malaysian corporations to provide more responsibility and transparency to investors. Full disclosure and moral ethics are encouraged in Islam, with stakeholders having the right to know about the consequences of their organisations' activities and operations. By doing so, Malaysian Shariah-compliant businesses would be able to establish an environment where their stakeholders will have the chance and willingness to act ethically and responsibly, as dictated by Shariah requirements.

1. SYAHRUL AHMAR BIN AHMAD
2. RAHIMAH BINTI MOHAMED YUNOS
3. SITI MASNAH BINTI SARINGAT
4. ZARINA BINTI ABU BAKAR
5. FATIMAH BINTI HASHIM