Libya is an emerging market in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Early\ud
efforts to encourage financial market development in the 1990s were re-energised after the\ud
lifting of UN sanctions in 2003 following dramatic changes in the Libyan financial market.\ud
One of these critical decisions was the establishment of the Libyan stock market in 2006.\ud
This thesis attempts to explore the challenges that may face the Libyan stock market by\ud
examining the barriers which affect the development of the Libyan stock market. In this\ud
endeavour the researcher develops a best practice model to help the Libyan stock market\ud
achieve its ambitions. The aim of this thesis is to fill the gap in academic research on MENA\ud
financial market by investigating the role of ten selected factors on the development of the\ud
Libyan stock market. In this thesis, trust is introduced as a major moderator of the ten\ud
selected factors under study. Although, there are many examples in the literature of how to\ud
understand and interpret trust and, in particular, behavioural economics, transaction cost\ud
economy and more general social process theory leads to different understandings of the\ud
concept of trust. In this thesis it is argued that the concept of transaction cost economy allied\ud
with social process theory provide useful insights. In order to explore and understand the\ud
situation of the Libyan stock market as a human construct; and the factors which may affect\ud
Libya and its stock market development, the interpretive accounting research (IAR) appears\ud
to be the most suitable paradigm for this research. Thus this study uses qualitative methods\ud
and mainly semi-structured interviews