Dr Abdullah Iqbal

About

Dr Abdullah Iqbal is a Senior Lecturer in Accounting and Finance and Chair of the Research Ethics Advisory Group at Kent Business School (KBS), University of Kent. He is an editorial advisory board member of the International Journal of Islamic and Middle Eastern Finance. Previously he served as the PhD Admissions and Scholarship Lead for Accounting and Finance (2017-2021) and as the Director of the BA (Hons) Accounting and Management Programme (2013-2016) at KBS. He has held visiting posts at Lahore University of Management Sciences and the National University of Sciences and Technology, Pakistan (2008-2010) and an honorary post at Imperial College, UK. He worked at Bank of America and Emirates Bank before joining the academia.

Abdullah’s research spans a broad spectrum of topics, with his primary focus centred on financial accounting, corporate finance, and Islamic banking. One of his recently published studies in earnings management proposes a model to determine the context of earnings management instead of measuring it. This is a unique study as most prior studies focus on measuring earnings management through accruals. He has worked on corporate governance and corporate social responsibility. Another of his recent studies proposes a novel ethical framework for Islamic banks, which promotes incorporating the Maqasid Al-Shariah into Islamic banking products and addresses both the financial fragility and the ethics issues of modern-day Islamic banking. Yet another of his recent papers proposes a trade-credit-based framework that could help revive Islamic banking in Muslim and non-Muslim majority countries as an alternative to conventional banking and being more efficient and potentially cost-effective. A recent strand of his work investigates suicide prevention, as a social issue, in Higher Education. Lately, he has broadened his research scope into issues, such as ESG performance, sustainability, and Green finance.