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Considerations for time, cost, and audit comfort in completing audit engagements have gradually led to extensive use of analytical review (AR) in external audits by large accounting firms in Hong Kong. AR is now being used by auditors as “attention‐directing” at the planning stage, “test‐reducing” at the fieldwork stage, and an overall reasonableness check in arriving at the true‐and‐fair decision at the final review stage. Greater reliance on AR has long been predicted in the auditing literature as an inevitable future trend. Empirical findings on auditors attesting to the extensive use of AR in Hong Kong are simply visible manifestations of the profession’s adjustment to the global movement.

The paper aims to review current practices of road safety audits worldwide, investigate the perceptions of experts on highway work zone safety in the USA and issues of adopting work zone safety audits in the country, and propose a framework for developing guidelines for implementing work zone safety audits for safety improvements.

The paper was conducted by reviewing the existing literature of road safety audits and administering four‐week questionnaire surveys of experts on highway work zone safety in the USA.

Road safety audits have been successfully adopted worldwide to maximize safety of the roadway environment for highway users. The questionnaire surveys have clarified leading causes of work zone safety problems and effective countermeasures, types of projects suitable for auditing and audit frequencies, audit team composition and funding sources, audit tasks and tools, and project staff safety training audits. A similar procedure for road safety audits could be adopted for work zone safety audits with emphasis on mitigating work zone safety impacts.

Additional survey participants from the highway user group may add valuable insights into the use of highway work zone safety audits for safety improvements.

The paper findings would assist in preparing strategies and methodologies for developing the national highway work zone safety audit guidelines in the USA.

The work zone safety audit guidelines to be developed could help transportation practitioners effectively conduct work zone safety audits for safety improvements in the country.

This study aims to investigate the impact of the audit committee chair’s trust on the quality of interactions between the external auditor and the audit committee chair in Hong Kong.

The research uses a questionnaire survey to gather data from the audit committee chairs of the listed companies in Hong Kong, with a response rate of 19.2%. Partial least squares structural equation modelling is used in this study.

The results reveal that the audit committee chair’s trust in the external auditor’s competence, integrity and goodwill is an important determinant of the interaction quality. The findings also show that interaction quality during the pre-engagement stage is important to mediate the relationships between the three dimensions of trust and interaction quality during the audit performance stage.

This is the first study, to the best of the author’s knowledge, that examines the impact of the audit committee chair’s trust in the external auditor on the quality of their interactions. The findings provide insights for board of directors, auditors and policymakers to implement policies that enhance trust between them to improve audit quality.

This study aims to examine the International Standards on Auditing (ISA) number 520 relating to analytical procedures (APs) and adapt relevant aspects of prior studies on APs to the Egyptian audit context. The study investigates the extent of use of APs in Egypt during the three main stages of an audit by size of firms and level of staff. It examines auditors' perceptions of the frequency and effectiveness of different types of APs in achieving a selected set of audit objectives. The study also identifies the types of assurance provided by APs and their influence on detailed testing as well as analyzing the role of auditing standards in the context of the use of APs.

The design and research method are empirical using a questionnaire survey to collect information on actual uses of APs from 14 audit firms in Egypt which audit the 100 actively traded companies on the Egyptian Stock Exchange (EGX) as measured by the EGX 100 index. The survey was carried out between 2008 and 2009.

The results of the study showed relatively low use of APs by Egyptian auditors with wide variations in its use by Big 4 and other auditing firms. Auditors from Big 4 firms are found to use APs to a greater extent than auditors from non‐Big 4 firms. Also, the reliance on APs tends to differ by auditors rank and position. The majority of auditors consider APs useful in achieving audit objectives. Audit firms of all size continue to emphasize judgment‐based compared to quantitatively based procedures. The results also indicated a lack of confidence in the use of APs as substantive procedures. Finally, the study confirmed prior research findings in that auditing standards are regarded as most effective in codifying existing large firms practice. It was found that ISA 520 has been least effective in stimulating change in the Egyptian audit practice.

The different economic, political, educational, and culture environment in Egypt may restrict the generalisability of this study results.

In order to increase the use of APs by Egyptian auditors in the various stages of the audit engagement, auditors need to understand the requirements of the Egyptian Auditing Standards regarding their use. Auditors also need to be aware of the application of various APs techniques, especially those associated with statistics and mathematical models. Educational institutions and the Egyptian Association of Accountants and Auditors must play significant role in educating auditors about APs techniques and their use in planning, testing and final review of the financial statements.

This paper contributes to an understanding of the nature and uses of APs within the Egyptian culture and economic context. The study will stimulate further research in understanding the importance of the use of APs in audit engagements in different perspectives.

The aims were to evaluate the impact of clinical audit on health professionals' clinical practice by measuring baseline participation levels for comparison with future studies of audit activity in Scottish health service trusts. A survey questionnaire on audit participation in the last year was distributed to a random sample of health professionals from an acute trust in central Scotland. The response rate was 73%. • Overall, 28.8% of respondents had some participation in uniprofessional audit and 23.1%. had some participation in multiprofessional audit. • A greater percentage of doctors participated compared with other professions. • The lowest levels of participation were among professions allied to medicine. • Participants are not normally involved in all the audit stages of a project. • The most usual type of involvement was in collecting data. • The most commonly mentioned benefits of audit were the educational ones. • Educational benefits were most highly valued by health professionals. • Participation in clinical audit projects in this 12‐month period was higher for uniprofessional than for multiprofessional audit. However 70‐80% of health professionals did not participate.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the current practices of large UK organisations with respect to post-audits of capital projects with the aim of improving management decision making in the future. The investment process has been clearly mapped out in the literature, with the initial project proposal, appraisal, selection (investment decision), implementation, completion, and finally the post-audit. It is this latter stage which is ignored by so many organisations and has received less attention in the academic literature, a gap the author hopes to fill.

The empirical data are collated from a postal questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, followed by a short e-mail questionnaire. A methodological triangulation of empirical data obtained from the questionnaires and interviews, were undertaken to overcome some of the deficiencies from just using one method of data collection. The research is empirical and uses exploratory descriptive analysis to interpret the findings. The author focuses on the aspect of organisational learning theory as a process of continuous improvement, learning from past experience, especially in the management decision-making paradigm.

The author discovered nine important reasons for undertaking post-audits and ten for not. An important observation is that while those organisations which do not undertake post-audits attach a greater level of importance to “the reasons for not carrying out post-audits” and “the problems faced in the implementation of post-audits”, these difficulties have been overcome by those organisations that undertake post-audits. Evidence suggests that the current change in business culture, as a result of the recent financial crisis, may be refocusing the aims of post-audits from a learning exercise to one of managerial responsibility.

The research may be limited (in forming general conclusions) as it is based on a relatively small sample size. The author does not, however, believe that this distracts from its importance.

The author argues that training the non-users to overcome the perceived difficulties would enhance the investment decision-making process by encouraging them to learn from the experience of those that undertake post-audits.

The research is original as it reports on a current survey and will fill, what the author perceives to be, a gap in the literature. The respondents to the research consists of some of the most senior executives from the largest UK organisations and their views on academic issues are, in many cases, difficult to obtain; this research therefore has value in this respect. The findings point the way to new lines of enquiry in this field.

This paper aims to investigate whether audit fees and financial report readability are bi-directionally related.

The authors test their hypotheses with empirical data. Specifically, they adopt a two-stage simultaneous equation regression model to assess the bi-directional relationship between audit fees and financial report readability.

While poor readability increases the fees charged by the auditor, higher audit fees improve the readability of the financial reports.

This study is based on US data. Future research may extend this study to other countries.

Poor financial report readability encumbers stakeholders of the firms. Understanding the interaction between financial report readability and audit fees will help both auditors and firm managers.

Audit committees aggressively negotiating for lower audit fees should be aware of the link of low audit fees, potentially indicative of poor quality, to less readable reports. Investors and regulators too should be concerned about this relationship, especially in instances when auditors low-ball audit fees or when firms aggressively negotiate for lower audit fees.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to document the bi-directional relationship between financial report readability and audit fees and assess the positive impact of audit fees on financial report readability.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an auditing framework which would assist the organizations that experience difficulties with the current ISO 9001 quality audits to achieve their planned objectives with regard to their auditing of conformance, performance, risk management (RM) and improvement collectively.

A literature review was conducted to develop a conceptual audit framework (CAF). Subsequently, a preliminary audit framework (PAF) was developed. It includes the questions that are based on the CAF and connected with the complaints of the concerned organization. This PAF was thoroughly tested and validated by performing 11 internal audits, 2 management reviews (MR) and 3 workshops.

Applying this PAF indicated that in order to help organizations to audit their performance, RM and improvement collectively, they need to: change their audit approach from ISO elements to ISO principles, integrate the tools that are related to ISO 9001 Principles within the audit’s phases, perform pre-audits in the form of self-auditing, induce auditors to learn all tools to determine the ideal tools for particular situation, audit each department in combination with its internal customer, involve their auditors in problem solving, perform MR prior to closing the audit and analyze the results of audits with their causes by using one of the appropriate qualitative methods, such as analysis by themes. Finally, an auditing framework was developed to meet these needs. It includes the PAF’s questions that led to the discovery of chronic and systematic audit findings. It enhances any ISO 9001 Quality Auditing Questionnaires Checklist.

This study enhances the role of auditors to include risk identification, problem solving and data analysis by development of an auditing framework that is based on ISO 9001 Principles rather than clauses.

The paper reports on a study that investigated the (potential) impact of client use of blockchain technology on financial statement audits of Australian accounting firms.

Data were primarily collected from semi-structured interviews with a range of stakeholders including audit partners from first- and second-tier accounting firms in Australia. The interviews focused on the perceived (potential) impact of blockchain on the stages of obtain (retain) engagement, engagement planning, risk assessment, audit evidence and reporting of financial statement audits of clients that use blockchain technology. Perceptions of changes to financial statement audits were interpreted using the logics of professionalism and commercialism.

Australian accounting firms have either obtained or considered engagements with clients with a cryptocurrency business or that use a blockchain platform although they are a small group. There is a view that blockchain technology is distinctive and therefore poses risks not encountered before in audit engagements. These risks would most likely shift how firms plan, design audit methodologies and execute financial statement audits. The study showed that the logics of professionalism and commercialism are not conflicting but instead complementary. They present both opportunities and challenges for firms to apply and develop audit expertise in an emerging area in audit.

Being an exploratory study, the findings are tentative. A case study of an audit engagement with a cryptocurrency business will add to a nuanced understanding of the challenges posed to financial statement audits by blockchain technology.

This study is novel because of its focus on the impact of an evolving technology on the stages of financial statement audits.

The aim of the present study is to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the first stage of external audit, namely, on the auditors’ client acceptance and continuance decisions (CACDs).

Survey data was collected on the basis of a structured questionnaire, which was answered by 21.02% of the Greek certified auditors/accountants. Parametric hypothesis testing and regression analysis were used in data analysis.

The results of the survey showed that the COVID-19 pandemic had a different impact on the client acceptance decision-making (CAD) process and the client continuance decision-making (CCD) process. The CAD process appears to have been affected in a mostly negative way, and to a greater extent than is the case with the CCD process. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the CACD process appears to be mainly related to the difficulty arising in auditor–client communication. Additionally, as far as the CAD process is concerned, the COVID-19 pandemic appears to have had a negative impact on the audit fees, while, when it comes to the CCD process, the pandemic has had a positive impact with regard to clientele expansion. Finally, survey findings showed that the COVID-19 pandemic affected in a different way Big6 and non-Big6 auditors.

The present study aspires to fill significant gaps identified in relevant literature with regard to auditors’ work in correlation with the COVID-19 pandemic. More specifically, to the best of the author’s knowledge, it is the first study exploring the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the first stage of external audit. Moreover, the study is based on primary data collected in real time, under the actual conditions of emergency related to the health crisis. Last but not least, the findings of the present study could be of value to professionals and regulative authorities in case of similar future emergencies or potential crisis situations.