Role of Islamic work ethics in shaping employees’ behaviour: evidence from the banking sector in Azad Jammu and Kashmir

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of Islamic work ethics (IWEs) on the job satisfaction, commitment and loyalty among the bank employees in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach - Data for this study was collected using the purposive sampling from 354 bank employees of Azad Jammu and Kashmir region. Findings - The findings of this study support all the three proposed hypotheses, with IWEs demonstrating significant positive relationships with job satisfaction, organisational commitment and employee loyalty. Practical implications - Because of the nature of operations, banks need energetic employees who can participate actively in work activities. The implementation of IWEs enables banks to improve their employees’ satisfaction, commitment and loyalty, which will benefit the organisation in the long term through improved performance. Originality/value - By encouraging the adoption of IWEs, organisations can increase job satisfaction, employee’s commitment and loyalty in the workplace, especially in an Islamic banking context. Therefore, managers should strengthen the mutual understanding among employees regarding IWE principles. They should be consistently applied and disseminated by Islamic banks’ management in the form of a formal code of ethics that applies to all actions within the organisation. Besides, this study contributes in terms of divine command theory which was yet to be tested with employee’s behaviour. Loyalty was another behavioural attribute which is providing novelty while testing with IWEs in banking context.