This book identifies drivers of transformation of auditing, including regulation, digitalisation, sustainability, and individual auditor characteristics, and discusses how the drivers affect auditing.
It provides a holistic perspective, discussing these current and highly relevant themes in depth and ‘one by one’ and also stresses the importance of the temporal dimension, i.e., offering a historical and a present-day perspective. The book covers several different theoretical perspectives when analysing and discussing how the various drivers affect auditors, the audit process, accounting firms, stakeholders and so on. Sweden is used as a setting to study the effects of these drivers of transition. The Swedish experience is generalisable to other European countries, with a Germanic origin currently influenced by Anglo-American ideas of auditing. In addition, Sweden provides a research setting with unique access to empirical data. The monograph is unique in its broad coverage of drivers of transformation, combined with its clear focus on financial auditing. It is informed by a wide range of research approaches, from qualitative interview studies to recently developed machine learning methods. Readers, therefore, benefit from a comprehensive understanding of current changes in the audit industry.
This will be a useful reference work for students of accounting and auditing, as well as for audit practitioners, including both auditors and regulators, and for researchers.
Table of Contents:
List of figures and tables. List of contributors. Foreword. Preface. List of acronyms and abbreviations. Auditing in transformation: An introduction PART I: REGULATION 2. In pursuit of a more socially relevant audit in the context of international standardisation. The construction of status in the auditor–audit committee relationship. Audit reporting transformation: Increasing the relevance of the audit through key audit matters?. The adoption of professional audit standards in the public sector: The role of the audit profession and other actors. PART II : DIGITALISATION. On the structures of judgement in auditing 7. Digitalisation and professional scepticism of Swedish auditors. Being an audit professional in the digital age 9. Advanced digital technologies and sustainability assurance: Evidence from Sweden. PART III: SUSTAINABILITY 10. Assessment of double materiality: The development of predictively valid materiality assessments with artificial intelligence. Organising for quality in sustainability assurance: A literature review. Challenges of sustainability-assurance practices: Insights from the Big 4. accounting firms. PART IV: AUDITOR CHARACTERISTICS 13. The average professional: On the selection and socialisation of auditors. The importance of the engagement partner 15. Transformation in audit teams: Implications for team competence. Expertise in financial auditing 17. Auditing transformation: Practitioners’ views 18. Concluding remarks Index.
About the Author :
Jan Marton is Associate Professor in Business Administration at the School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
Fredrik Nilsson is a Professor of Business Studies at Uppsala University, Sweden.
Peter Öhman is a Professor of Business Administration and Chair in the Department of Economics, Geography, Law and Tourism, Mid Sweden University, Sundsvall, Sweden.
