Auditing Teams: Dynamics and Efficiency(Routledge Focus on Business and Management)

The recent audit failures which have rocked financial markets worldwide have accentuated the need for a better understanding of the link between risk, control and audit quality; as well as emphasising the need to open the "black box" of the ways auditing firms actually function. Reflecting these imperatives, Auditing Teams unravels the organizational and management issues in audit firms that are key to achieving effectiveness in service provision. Specifically, this key research reflects upon the relevance and dynamics of auditing teams and their impact on auditing quality, and specifically responding to the recent claim from regulators which highlights auditing team characteristics as the source of wide variations in quality. By leveraging different perspectives – auditing, management accounting, organization and psychology – to investigate auditing teams and basing on evidence collected from the professional world, this book will provide a unique insight into the role of auditing teams on audit quality. It will be of great interest to scholars and advanced students in auditing, as well as to practitioners and regulators in the field.

Table of Contents:
Table of Contents Chapter 1 – Introduction Chapter 2 – The management of auditing firms Chapter 3 - Individual auditors Chapter 4 – Auditing teams Chapter 5 – Auditing teams control Chapter 6 - Evidence from the field Chapter 7 – Conclusions

About the Author :
Mara Cameran, PhD, is researcher of accounting at Università Bocconi and professor of SDA at the Bocconi School of Management in Milan, Italy. She is an Italian CPA (Dottore Commercialista) and chartered auditor (Revisore Contabile), a member of the European Auditing Research Network (EARNet) scientific committee, and the European Accounting Association representative in the Consultative Advisory Group (CAG) of the International Accounting Education Standards Board (IAESB). Angelo Ditillo, PhD, is associate professor of management accounting and control at Università Bocconi and professor of SDA Bocconi School of Management, Milan, Italy. He has been a visiting professor in many different institutions, including the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford, the Iese Business School and the ESADE Business School in Spain, the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, and the University of Paris, Dauphine. Angela Pettinicchio, PhD, is assistant professor and instructor of financial reporting and International Accounting at Università Bocconi in Milan, Italy. She is a faculty member of the Accounting, Control, Corporate and Real Estate Finance Department and coordinator of the Financial Frauds Area of the Osservatorio di Revisione (Audit Research Center) at the SDA Bocconi School of Management in Milan.  

Review :
Auditing Teams is a comprehensive summary of the academic research related to an important and unique feature of the audit environment. It provides an in-depth analysis of the role, characteristics and dynamics of auditing teams. While it draws mainly from the audit judgment and decision-making literature, it also provides valuable insights into some archival research that has examined some aspects of audit team performance, and into practice through the results of a field study conducted by the authors. It is a source of valuable knowledge to practitioners and regulators who wish to be informed on the extant of the research performed to date, as well as to researchers who wish to further explore some of the issues brought to light by this monograph. Michael Favere-Marchesi, Associate Professor of Accounting, Beedie School of Business, Simon Fraser University, Canada.