An Analysis of Islamic Economic Model

The aim of this paper is to discuss some economic Islamic models given by some prestigious Islamic economists. The Islamic model is one of the examples for international economies in the starting of new millennium. It has its evaluation in the 1970s as an alternate to conventional banking system. The model is based on profit loss sharing and would not be based on interest. The study will focus on the proposed model and will discuss the issues that the model will be supposed to address. It was also address whether the model is applicable to Pakistan economy or not it will also be discussed. As we know that there is dual banking system in Pakistan. In order to make banking system to be truly Islam, there should be legal prohibition of riba. In other words, riba should be made unlawful and whoever deals with it can be prosecuted by law. By prohibiting riba, it will force the bank to be more creative in offering financing products rather than just loaning money. The study will attempt to show the comparison between conventional system and Islamic financial and discusses whether the Islamic system works smoothly on the economy of Pakistan. It also shows that Pakistan should change its dual banking system in Islamic banking system to change structure change. In addition, Islamic financing contract require real activities to be created. There will not be loans to finance extravagance lifestyle which is the source of bankruptcies among the younger generation. It is strongly recommended that Pakistan should enforce truly Islamic financial system to sustain its economy and avoid another economic crisis in the future.

Practice, Barriers, and Motivations of Corporate Social Responsibility Csr in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

This study investigated the issue of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in context of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). The study focused on exploring CSR related activities of SMEs in the province and their underlying motivations. Moreover, major barriers faced by SMEs in addressing social, economic, and environmental concerns are identified. Mixed-method research methodology is used in two phases of research. The first phase of the research was based on qualitative study which helped in exploring practices of CSR in SMEs along with motivations and barriers. In-depth interviews were conducted from managers and owners of SMEs. Moreover, through adopting ground theory approach, the rich information from interviews was analyzed to extract emerging themes. Qualitative study helped in exploring six major themes related to CSR practice, three major themes on motivations of the CSR, and two themes on barriers of CSR in SMEs. Furthermore, a questionnaire was constructed based on themes emerged during first phase of the study and a conceptual model was formed with relational hypothesis. In the second phase, quantitative methodology is used to test the validity of developed instrument and hypotheses testing. A randomly selected sample of 469 respondents from SMEs was subjected to analysis. Unifactoriality of the constructs was tested with Principal Component Analysis. The results of tests indicated that items related to each construct correlate with each other and hence provide a sufficient evidence of constructs validity. In order to test the relational hypothesis, structural equation modeling (SEM) technique is deployed.