Millet-Reyes, 2007; Dahawy and Conover, 2007). Accounting standards as a form of
regulation, determine how and what corporate information is presented as well as
provide a higher quality and quantity of corporate information (Tower, 1993).
This paper focuses on the nature and development of corporate accounting
regulation in Libya. It also examines the differences of the subject groups’ perceptions
of accounting regulations. This paper aims to contribute to the literature by examining
the corporate accounting regulation in Libya. The main limitation of this paper is
the semi-structured interviews were conducted at the same time as the questionnaires
were distributed. The interviews included the same themes and questions as the
questionnaire. The interviews conducted after collecting data by the questionnaires
may identify other issues such as the difficulties of complying with International
Accounting Standards (IASs) by both public companies and banks. In addition,
cultural influence on the Libyan accounting development was not included in this
study. Therefore, this point would be suggested as future study.
This paper is structured as follows. Section 2 focuses on the accounting
background. Section 3 presents the Libyan economy, followed by the Libyan
accounting education in Section 4. Section 5 gives the Libyan legal system. Section 6
provides the Libyan accounting profession. Section 7 presents accounting regulation
and development. Section 8 gives research methods and data collecting. Section 9
shows results and discussion. Finally, conclusion is presented in Section 10.