Executive coercion and state audit: A processual analysis of the responses of the Australian audit office to the dilemmas of efficiency auditing1978‐84
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
ISSN: 0951-3574
Article publication date: 1 October 1998
Abstract
The introduction of efficiency auditing in Australian Commonwealth state audit created a level of stress and threat for the Auditor‐General never previously encountered. Using insights from processual analysis as developed by Turner to demonstrate the pressures on state audit, the paper focuses on the principal events constituting the short life of the new Efficiency Audit Division (1978‐84) which had been established within the Australian Audit Office to develop efficiency auditing methods and to carry out efficiency audits. It documents for the first time a level of executive intrusion in state audit which contradicts the image promoted in Westminster democracies of a robustly independent state auditor and highlights the political nature of state audit.
Keywords
Citation
Funnell, W. (1998), "Executive coercion and state audit: A processual analysis of the responses of the Australian audit office to the dilemmas of efficiency auditing1978‐84", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 11 No. 4, pp. 436-458. https://doi.org/10.1108/09513579810231448
Publisher
:MCB UP Ltd
Copyright © 1998, MCB UP Limited