Disciplinary practices in the French auditing profession: Serving the public interest or the private interests of the profession?
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
ISSN: 0951-3574
Article publication date: 18 January 2016
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to understand the role of the statutory auditing profession in France. The study is theoretically based on distinctions between a functionalist view of professions and a neo-weberian view. Prior research, conducted in Anglo-American countries has shown that the auditing profession has focussed primarily on protecting the private interests of the profession. Hence, there is a need to conduct research on this topic in a code law country where the state is expected to play a significant role in protecting the public interest.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology involves a content analysis of 148 disciplinary decisions issued against statutory auditors in France from 1989 to 2006. This analysis identified 21 types of violations grouped into public interest or private interest offences. Because visible offences are public and are more likely to threaten the reputation of the profession, these types of decisions are also studied with respect to their visibility.
Findings
The results reveal that in a code law country such as France the auditing profession tends to defend both the public interest as well as its private interests. The results also support the “visibility” effect.
Research limitations/implications
The written disciplinary decisions have been anonymized so that the names of the auditors and the clients cannot be identified.
Originality/value
This paper differs from previous studies conducted in the Anglo-American context which show an emphasis on protecting the private interests of the auditing profession. Moreover, this study reveals the existence of “mixed” offences and underlines that a profession primarily focusses on these cases. Thus, the work reconciles in part the functionalist and neo-weberian perspectives. Lastly, this paper confirms the importance of the visibility effect.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
JEL Classification — M240
The authors gratefully acknowledge and appreciate the helpful comments and suggestions from Professor Lee Parker (Editor) and the two anonymous reviewers. Cédric Lesage acknowledges the financial support of the HEC Foundation (Project F0802) and the INTACCT programme (European Union, Contract No. MRTN-CT-2006- 035850). He is member of the GREGHEC, CNRS Unit, UMR 2959. Géraldine Hottegindre acknowledges the financial support of the Association Francophone de Comptabilité. The authors are grateful to E. Campoy, S. Marmousez, M. Messner, C. Ramirez, K. Robson, H. Stolowy, M. Tenenhaus, and to discussants and participants at the European Accounting Association (April 2008), French Accounting Association (May 2008), American Accounting Association (August 2008), second workshop on audit quality, EIASM (September 2008), Accounting, Behavior & Organization AAA section (October 2008) conferences for helpful comments.
Citation
Lesage, C., Hottegindre, G. and Baker, C.R. (2016), "Disciplinary practices in the French auditing profession: Serving the public interest or the private interests of the profession?", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 29 No. 1, pp. 11-42. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-12-2012-1169
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
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