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The accelerated pace of change in the global economy and capital markets along with the complexity of transactions and financial reporting that involve applying fair value measurements (FVM) is a major third-party user concern. The 2008 financial crisis highlighted risks that investors are exposed to when making FVM-related capital allocations. Accounting estimates often involve subjective assumptions and measurement uncertainty, increasing potential management bias (Choudhary, 2011; Ramanna & Watts, 2012). FVMs are of critical importance to the reliability of the financial statements. Therefore, the purpose of this chapter is to inform educators of the possible need to evaluate their curriculum as to coverage of FVM topics. The support for this evaluation is based on our attempt to: (1) evaluate the extent of reported FVM-related deficiencies with reference to regulatory bodies’ findings of significant deficiencies in FVM; (2) examine the use of FVM specialists; (3) determine if colleges and universities are keeping pace with FVM demands; (4) list the Uniform CPA Examination Blueprint FVM testing areas; and (5) provide curricular FVM topic recommendations.

Purpose – The audit expectation gap has been the subject of research in many countries and in different forms. However, such research of the nature and dimensions of the gap has been limited, if done at all, in the developing countries of West Africa. This study assesses its existence and investigates the factors that have been influencing it.

Design/methodology/approach – Survey responses from questionnaires administered to preparers and users of audited financial statements were analysed.

Findings – Financial statements users have significantly different perceptions about assurances provided by auditors’ reports, whereas the views of company accountants are quite close to those of auditors.

Originality/value – Although the validity of the results of this for international comparison may be limited by the number of financial statements users covered and the socio-cultural characteristics of the Ghanaian business environment, it should be recognised as one of the few to investigate the existence and nature of the expectation gap in the context of a developing country in the West African subregion. It thus adds the literature and points to the need for the adoption of multidisciplinary measures by the accounting profession and financial statements users with the view to eliminating or at the least minimising its persistence and escalation among the various relevant players.

The time period from the mid-1980s through 2002 is described in this series of research as a “pre-SOX” era of rapid deprofessionalization in U.S. pubic accountancy resulting in the loss of professional status. This was a period, however, when all professions were suffering some deprofessionalization. During the pre-SOX period it appears that leadership in public accountancy responded to a nearly perfect storm of changes confronting the profession with a corporate mentality of management by objectives, commercialization, and profit maximization resulting in constant and substantial net deprofessionalization greater than that of other professions. Starting in the late-1970s and continuing through 2001, some critics of public accountancy have asserted that leaders in the profession either lost or forgot what was required for public accountancy to be recognized as a profession. The conclusion stated in this paper is that public accountancy has lost its professional status in or before 2002. The reasons and events leading to this conclusion are presented and discussed. In the United States it appears as though once professional status is lost, regaining the elite status is more difficult. The question is if public accountancy can learn from history going into the substantial changes to be confronted in the post-SOX era of public accountancy and regain or at least make progress toward regaining professional status.

The protection of public assets, fighting corruption and providing accountability for government agencies is necessary for public welfare, and it is possible to achieve this by quality auditing of the public sector. Since audit quality depends on the competencies of the auditor, this chapter focusses on the competencies of the public auditor and how these competencies are expected to evolve in the future with the development of technology. The chapter concentrates on the most sought-after skills for today’s public auditors by analysing the employment criteria in the Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) of the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and Turkey. Even though the SAIs of these countries/regions are quite different, it is possible to find common ground. The SAIs of these countries, in general, require public auditors to have an undergraduate degree and require the candidates to pass extensive tests on reasoning abilities.

Moreover, the author investigates the requirements for public auditor competency in the public auditing standards followed by these countries. In addition to this, the author discusses the future expectations from public auditors and the new skills these will need. Past skills include technical knowledge, prior experience, hierarchical order in audit teams, professional scepticism, reasoning abilities and reporting skills. Advancements in technology such as Artificial Intelligence and Industry 4.0 will require auditors to have technological knowledge, emotional intelligence, interpersonal skills, project management skills, critical thinking and strong communication skills. Furthermore, understanding the business and related risks will overshadow prior experience.

This case examines critical ethical accounting practice issues surrounding a request for proposal for audit services at Aviary Corporation based on a real Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement action. Audit and tax partners at Western Accounting Firm, a large international public accounting firm, used confidential information obtained from the company’s Chief Audit Officer to modify their proposal for audit services. In response to their actions, the Securities and Exchange Commission fined the auditing firm, the partners, and the Chief Audit Executive. The authors used publicly available information and adopted fictitious names to develop a teaching case that instructors can implement in a variety of accounting and ethics classes to increase students’ understanding of professional codes of conduct and independence guidance.

We suggest that a notion of auditor independence, constructed in Anglo-American epistemology and practice, is a social construct that has different meanings in different historical, socio-cultural and economic milieus. We have researched how this idea of auditor independence, incorporated locally from the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) Code, is perceived and has been implemented in three countries of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region: Poland, the Czech Republic and Russia. With a view to seeking a comprehensive understanding of what is happening in transition economies, all aspects of auditor independence – from basic educational provision for an auditor, to complex aspects such as the provision of non-audit services – were considered. From all these aspects of independence, a framework of the requirements for independence was developed. As a result of this research, we question whether the usual international definitions of auditor independence, as laid out in the IFAC Code, with their separation into mind and appearance, are at all realisable.

Based on his experience during the past two decades of research, teaching, and administration in a department composed of Accounting and Information Systems, the author makes several observations as well as some predictions for the next two decades based on trends that suggest accounting students need strong technology and analytics skills, as well as understand how new forms of trust mechanisms can impact their work. Predictions, in the absence of having a crystal ball, is a difficult task and can merely rely on technological trends and developments. Some trends can have a high likelihood of finding traction and have transformational power to fundamentally change the nature of work for accounting and auditors responsible for information assurance even beyond financial information, to other types of real-time streaming information. The potential transformation of the accounting profession has implications for teaching and curriculum development that can prepare students for new work paradigms.

This chapter begins with a traditional, cultural story of indigenous leadership from a young woman of the Ngāti Awa tribe in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand. Some would say her acts of leadership went against the traditional gender roles in order to ensure the safety of her people. Others would say she demonstrated the cultural duality between male and female leadership roles. We consider this story within the context of the ongoing marginalization and educational disparities faced by disproportionate numbers of indigenous Māori students in New Zealand’s secondary schools. If these students are to take their rightful place as successful and valuable contributors to society then education, as it is currently constituted, must be reimagined, reled, and reformed. We explore the pathway of critical, transformative leadership being undertaken by both Māori and non-Māori; by female and male; that is currently seeking to address the aspirations of Māori students in these schools. Such a model seeks to create “critical” spaces where the “creative potential” and diverse funds of cultural knowledge that Māori students bring with them to schooling can contribute to leading to more transformative educational reform.

It is in the context of the huge (but largely unaccountable) impact of accounting and accountants that the demise of Arthur Andersen and the financial scandals of the past few years need to be seen. These scandals raise questions of independence and the role of the audit industry in alerting investors, employees, suppliers, customers and the general public to the realities of corporate wrongdoing and weakness. This paper introduces a Special Issue that offers a counter-hegemonic story, pointing out that things can be different and better in substantive ways, that auditor independence and integrity require more substantive thinking and analysis than simple re-arrangements of regulatory institutions or calls for superheroes who can transcend pressures to abet crime. After reviewing the contents of the various contributions to this Special Issue, the paper makes some brief comments about possible solutions to the problem of independence of audits and suggests a focus on audit, not auditor, independence.