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The paper analyses the current process of government accounting development in Albania using an integrated diffusion‐contingency analytical framework. This framework synthesises elements of contingency theory with theories of diffusion of innovations to provide greater insight into the organisational processes of innovation. The paper observes that the level of innovativeness of the government organisation in Albania appears to be marginally positive and that, at present, developments in government accounting are being clarified as part of the implementation phase of the innovation process.

The increasing attention toward the so-called globalization is underlining the need to build and enforce the contact point among the multiple domains of culture, knowledge, and experiences over the world. Within the specific business domain, global trends are underlying the need for linking multiple local and national accounting standards to support global activities and international collaborations. In such a domain, this chapter investigates the topic of Albanian national accounting standards for depicting opinions and perceptions of interested actors through a direct interview with 35 experts including, economists, accounting experts, tax inspectors, and businessmen. The research shows the existence of a divergent approach to the process for accounting harmonization in Albania and it opens the possibility for tracing a possible path for supporting the inclusion of Albania under the international accounting standards framework.

Using bank-level data on MENA countries during 2000-2016, this study aims to examine the role and relevance of macroprudential policies in affecting depositor discipline.

The author uses the dynamic panel data methodology as compared to alternate techniques, owing to the ability of this technique to effectively address the endogeneity problem of some of the independent variables.

The findings suggest that market discipline for MENA banks occurs primarily through deposit rates. During the crisis, depositors typically focus on a catch-all measure of bank performance. Second, macroprudential policies play a role in influencing market discipline. Third, the behavior of depositors in exercising market discipline is more pronounced in countries with high Islamic banking share and works mainly through the price channel.

To the best of author’s knowledge, this is one of the early studies for MENA countries to examine this issue in a systematic manner. By focusing on an extended sample of MENA country banks covering an extensive period that subsumes the global financial crisis, author’s analysis is able to shed light on the relevance of macroprudential policies in affecting depositor discipline.

The purpose of this paper is to ascertain whether Islamic bank profitability is driven by same forces as those driving conventional banking in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Distinguished by its principles in conformity with sharia, Islamic banking is different from conventional banking, which is likely to affect profitability.

The paper builds on a dynamic panel data model to identify the banks’ specific determinants and the macroeconomic factors influencing the profitability of a large sample of 51 Islamic banks operating in the MENA region from 1994 to 2012. The system-generalized method of moment estimators are applied.

The findings reveal that profitability is positively affected by banks’ cost-effectiveness, asset quality and level of capitalization. The results also indicate that non-financing activities allow Islamic banks to earn higher profits. Islamic banks perform better in environments where the gross domestic product and investment are high. There is evidence of several elements of similarities between determinants of the profitability for Islamic and conventional banks. The inflation rate, however, is negatively associated with Islamic bank profitability.

The authors conclude that profitability determinants did not differ significantly between Islamic and conventional banks. Many factors are deemed the same in explaining the profitability of conventional as well as Islamic banks. The findings reported in the current paper might be of interest for policy makers. It is recommended to better implement non-financing activities to improve Islamic bank profitability.

Unlike the previous empirical research, this empirical investigation assesses the issue whether Islamic banks profitability is influenced by same factors as conventional model. It enriches the literature in this regard by considering the specificities of Islamic banking to identify the determinants of profitability. Moreover, this study considers a large sample (51 Islamic banks) through a different selection of countries/banks than previous studies. In addition, the period of study considers the subprime crisis insofar it ranges from 1994 to 2012. Hence, this broader study allows the authors to draw more consistent conclusions.