Is Brunei Ready to Adopt the International Accounting System (IAS)?

This paper investigates the possibility of adopting international accounting standards (IAS) in a small developing country, Brunei Darussalam (Brunei). The study employs several factors which have been tested by researchers in the literature to examine the adoption of IAS in Brunei context (Ding et al. 2005; Ramanna and Sletten 2009; Zeghal and Mhedhbi 2006). Few of the factors include the level of economic growth, education, culture, legal origin, the economic theory of network effects, quality of accounting information, opportunity and switching costs, and the existence of capital market. The study is based on a qualitative research, where information was obtained from local newspapers and statistical yearbook, journal articles and online discussion. The result of the study reveals some issues that the country must fully consider before adopting IAS. Further investigation on the effect of IAS adoption on small and medium-sized financial statements is one potential area for future research