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Given the growing interest in the topic, both in practice and academia, it is timely and important to examine the concept of continuous assurance (CA) and the possible paths along which such services will evolve. There has been a tendency to see CA purely from the point of view of its technological enablers. As such, it has virtually been taken for granted that CA will follow as a matter of course. What has been less thought through is the business architecture that must underlie CA. In particular, we show that the key driver of CA is the demand for it. While there may be many economic transactions between the company and its stakeholders that could benefit from the provision of CA, there is no guarantee that CA is either cost effective—the only way of enhancing efficiency—or actually has to be continuous. Other factors that will affect the development of CA are the need for a new infrastructure to pay for it, as well as concerns about the independence of the assurors. We also identify some important research issues.

The study aims at reviewing a synthesis of disclosure, transparency, and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) implementation in an attempt to provide directions for future research. Prior research overwhelmingly supports that the IFRS adoption or effective implementation of IFRS will enhance high-quality financial reporting, transparency, enhance the country’s investment environment, and foreign direct investment (FDI) (Dayanandan, Donker, Ivanof, & Karahan, 2016; Gláserová, 2013; Muniandy & Ali, 2012). However, some researchers provide conflicting evidence that developing countries implementing IFRS are probably not going to encounter higher FDI inflows (Gheorghe, 2009; Lasmin, 2012). It has also been argued that the IFRS adoption decreases the management earnings in countries with high levels of financial disclosure. In general, the study indicates that the adoption of IFRS has improved the financial reporting quality. The common law countries have strong rules to protect investors, strict legal enforcement, and high levels of transparency of financial information. From the extensive structured review of literature using the Scopus database tool, the study reviewed 105 articles, and in particular, the topic-related 94 articles were analysed. All 94 articles were retrieved from a range of 59 journals. Most of the articles (77 of 94) were published 2010–2018. The top five journals based on the citations are Journal of Accounting Research (187 citations), Abacus (125 citations), European Accounting Review (107 citations), Journal of Accounting and Economics (78 citations), and Accounting and Business Research (66 citations). The most-cited authors are Daske, Hail, Leuz, and Verdi (2013); Daske and Gebhardt (2006); and Brüggemann, Hitz, and Sellhorn (2013). Surprisingly, 65 of 94 articles did not utilise the theory. In particular, four theories have been used frequently: agency theory (15), economic theory (5), signalling theory (2), and accounting theory (2). The study calls for future research on the theoretical implications and policy-related research on disclosure and transparency which may inform the local and international standard setters.

National differences in the demand for voluntary external audits have been linked to multiple factors, such as differences in a country's rate of growth, access to external credit, and institutional quality. Audits, however, also have a psychological cost, whose intensity is genetically and culturally hereditary. Using a sample of 3,072 private firms across 34 industries in seven countries, including five countries or regions from the former Soviet Comecon, we find that a country's share of firms choosing to undergo external audits is negatively related to the prevalence of carriers of the G allele in the mu-opioid receptor gene's A118G polymorphism, also known as the “social sensitivity” gene. Furthermore, the relationship between the prevalence of the social sensitivity gene and audits is fully mediated by a national culture's degree of collectivism. The results are statistically and economically highly significant and remain robust to the introduction of a set of confounding factors at the firm and country levels. Our results have practical relevance in recognizing psychological diversity when conducting audits and, more generally, preventing burnout in the workplace.

We stress the public demand for accountability of global brands and the rise in normative public brand evaluations in online networks. To gain an empirical and theoretical understanding of these phenomena, we introduce the notion of public brand auditing, which refers to public agents collectively contrasting brands against a multiplicity of shared understandings of what is worthy and good.

Convention theory serves as a theoretical lens to conceptualize public brand auditing, since it provides a normative framework of orders of worth based on which the appropriateness of actions are judged. Empirically, we conduct a netnographic study and illustrate public auditing strategies with online discussions about Google on the Slashdot platform.

We find that public brand auditing comprises two major auditing strategies: drawing leeways of acceptable brand conduct and allocating responsibilities.

Approaching public forms of normative brand judgments from a convention theory perspective allows researchers to better understand how the public holds brands accountable and evaluates brand conduct against higher-order principles.

The concept of public brand auditing helps managers to understand and approach the normative basis of both positive and negative brand judgments.

We urge brands to monitor public demand for accountability and emphasize the importance of the civic, market, and industrial orders of worth in guiding brand conduct.

This paper offers a conceptualization of and a framework for investigating public brand auditing phenomena.

The advances and continuous development of technology have been identified as significant influences on the accounting profession (AICPA, 1998). In the last twenty years, both academia and the accounting profession have been giving much attention to the demand and opportunity for audits to be performed automatically, continuously and in nearly real time. This paper presents a comprehensive review of continuous auditing research by providing an overview of the emergence and growth of the continuous auditing literature and classifying the extant continuous auditing research on the basis of four research characteristics indicated by a newly developed research taxonomy.

In the almost twenty years since Vasarhelyi and Halper (1991) reported on their pioneering implementation of what has come to be known as Continuous Auditing (CA), the concept has increasingly moved from theory into practice. A 2006 survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers shows that half of all responding firms use some sort of CA techniques, and the majority of the rest plan to do so in the near future. CA not only has an increasing impact on auditing practice, but is also one of the rare instances in which such a significant change was led by the researchers. In this paper we survey the state of CA after two decades of research into continuous auditing theory and practice, and draw out the lessons learned by us in recent pilot CA projects at two major firms, to examine where this unique partnership between academics and auditors will take CA in the future.

A meta-evaluation is an assessment of evaluation practices. Meta-evaluations include assessments of validity and usefulness of two or more studies that focus on the same issues. Every performance audit is grounded explicitly or implicitly in one or more theories of program evaluation. A deep understanding of alternative theories of program evaluation is helpful to gain clarity about sound auditing practices. We present a review of several theories of program evaluation.

This study includes a meta-evaluation of seven government audits on the efficiency and effectiveness of tourism departments and programs. The seven tourism-marketing performance audits are program evaluations for: Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee, Minnesota, Australia, and two for Hawaii. The majority of these audits are negative performance assessments. Similarly, although these audits are more useful than none at all, the central conclusion of the meta-evaluation is that most of these audit reports are inadequate assessments. These audits are too limited in the issues examined; not sufficiently grounded in relevant evaluation theory and practice; and fail to include recommendations, that if implemented, would result in substantial increases in performance.

The chapter shows how globalization and the IFRSs have affected the development of financial accounting and reporting in Estonia. This is interpreted through institutional theory.

The theoretical framework takes into account the prior papers published using institutional theory for defining pressures affecting the development of financial reporting model. The discussion part is presented in three sub-sections. Coercive institutional pressure is analyzed using Estonian accounting legislation from 1990–2012 and normative pressure by focusing on the impact of Big 4 audit companies in the Estonian context. The authors also give an overview of mimetic institutional pressures. As a methodological technique literature review and document analysis are used.

In the context of coercive institutional pressure the development of accounting legislation in Estonia has been mostly influenced by the IFRSs and European Union. In the light of recent events it seems that Estonia has the opportunity to follow its own way deciding which accounting principles should be applied to SMEs. Mimetic institutional pressure affecting Estonian accounting system is International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), which practices Estonian Accounting Standards Board (EASB) copies. Normative institutional pressures influencing the development of the Estonian accounting system are the Big 4 audit firms.

Although using institutional theory to interpret the development of financial reporting framework is not new its application is underexplored in the context of post-Soviet countries such as Estonia. The chapter potentially contributes to the accounting reforms evidence in emerging economies.

This chapter examines organisational change processes that occur when accountability demands from powerful external stakeholders change. It investigates, firstly, whether these external accountability demands impact on the performance management systems of two different types of organisations. Secondly, it considers whether the goals for improved performance contained within the external accountability demands are realised. The chapter derives its primary insights from analysing in-depth interviews with managers working in a private sector company and in public sector organisations. The analyses reveal complex organisational responses. In the public sector case study, the organisations tended to reorient their performance management systems towards the external accountability demands; whilst in the private sector organisation, pressures from falling share prices forced managers to focus their decision making on the preferred performance measures contained in shareholders’ accountability demands. However, whilst there is some evidence of performance management system changes, the desires for improved performance subsumed by the external accountability demands are not necessarily realised through the performance management system changes.

This chapter combines quantitative studies of the connections between stressors and performance in accounting settings and identifies the mediators and moderators of stressors–performance relationships. Using meta-analyses and path analyses, this research compiles 72 studies to investigate the relationships of stressors with accountant and auditor performance. As hypothesized, bivariate meta-analyses results indicate that work-related stressors negatively affect performance, and burnout and stress are negatively related to performance, whereas motivation is positively related to performance. Moreover, a meta-analytical structural equation modeling indicates that role stressors have significant direct and indirect effects (through burnout and stress) on job performance. Accumulation of multiple samples through meta-analysis bolsters statistical power compared to single-sample studies and thus reveals the sign of residual direct effects of role stressors on job performance in accounting settings.