The awareness of murabahah financing facilities and the perception towards accounting practices of murabahah among accounting students in Malaysia

Abstract

Accounting practitioners of Islamic banks in Malaysia are found to be unaware of the accounting issues related to Murabahah and Bai’ Bithaman Ajil. Besides, it is also found their acceptability of the current accounting standards and guidelines adopted in Islamic banks is moderate due to their lack of knowledge and exposure on the issues of recognition, measurement and disclosure of Murabahah. Since accounting students are future potential bank customers and are more likely to move onto careers as professional employees in the accounting labour market, the unchanging curriculum is one of the reasons for the gap between the market’s needs and graduate’s knowledge. On the other hand, the expectations are changing from time to time and education holds the key to address these human capital issues. Therefore, the study focuses on Malaysia and has three main aims: to investigate (1) the level of awareness of Murabahah financing facilities among accounting students; (2) the level of knowledge of Murabahah financing facilities among accounting students; and (3) the perception of accounting students towards the existing accounting practices of Murabahah financing according to MFRS 118 and the guidelines of MASB TRi-4. This research is constructed using quantitative methodology which undertakes quantitative data collection and data analysis. The primary data is gathered from questionnaire surveys and distributed among 550 accounting students. The observational data is tested by the propositions developed and is used to develop conclusions to achieve the aim of this study. The study utilizes the reliability statistic Cronbach’s Alpha, two inferential statistical analysis techniques, namely, the Mann-Whitney test and Kruskal-Wallis test, Pearson correlation analysis and Stepwise multiple regression analysis to assess the data. The results of the Pearson correlation tests indicated that there is a significant relationship between the respondents’ awareness of Murabahah financing and their education level as the higher the level education, the more the respondents are aware of Murabahah financing. The study also found that the majority of accounting students in Malaysia are aware of Murabahah financing and they have a moderate level of knowledge of the underlying concept of this type of financing as well as the accounting practices of Murabahah in accordance with MFRS 118 and MASB TRi-4. It also found that there is moderate acceptance of the existing accounting practices of Murabahah financing according to MFRS 118 and the guidelines of MASB TRi-4 among accounting students in Malaysia in terms of recognition, measurement and disclosure and presentation. While the study has some limitations, this study has the potential to make a contribution towards the accounting education particularly with respect to identify the need to incorporate an improved syllabus of Islamic banking products and services as well as their accounting practices in tertiary-level accounting courses in Malaysia, specifically Murabahah financing, in terms of the accounting treatments for recognition, measurement and disclosure and presentation.