Arab countries are confronted, like other countries, to the pressure of standardization, but each one of them is responding from the back ground of its particular history. In such a framework, accounting professions have developed, are regulated, have built professional organizations and training institutions, and are now pressed to adopt international standards. International audit firms tend to impose their methods and model with the expansion of transnational corporation, the multiplication of joint ventures and franchised colmpanies. Beyond cultural gaps, historical evolution and political-economic features, reforms are being designed universally, under the pressure of the World Bank. A better understanding of the accounting profession, of practitioners aims and stakes, can point a way forward. The aim of this project is to discuss these issues in the Arab countries, and to contribute by so doing to a new vision of what is at stake in the recent upheavals they have witnessed.