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At first hearing the word ‘standardization’ has a certain uncomfortable, authoritarian ring about it. The phrase ‘international standardization’ may suggest a sort of levelling of all national and regional distinctions and the removal of most of the colourful things of life. And ‘international bibliographical standardization’ represents to many an unwarranted attempt to control the presentation of the fruits of their personal intellectual toil, and even, by implication, the contents also. Yet without standardization, in its various forms, we should lack safety at sea and such safety on land or in the air as the internal combustion engine allows us, we should never know the time or the temperature, we should not know in which direction we were going, nor could we measure how far we had gone. At home we could neither use our electrical appliances in a different area from that in which they were bought, nor replace an electric light bulb without first tinkering with it. Every individual part of every machine would have to be specially made by hand (though we have admittedly lost here in the disappearance of craftsmanship much of what we have gained in convenience). Sizes of shoes and other articles of clothing would be even more variable than they arc. In the intellectual sphere we have but to cite the outstandingly successful standardization of mathematical and musical notation.

All items listed may be borrowed from the Aslib Library, except those marked *, which may be consulted in the Library.

The National Central Library and later the National Lending Library for Science and Technology had always, as part of their services, provided libraries with locations or passed requests to possible sources when the items required were not in the stocks of these two institutions. These practices continued when the two libraries were amalgamated to form the Lending Division of the British Library in 1973; but it was known that several major libraries were not represented in the union catalogues and played little or no part in interlending, yet had resources which could supply many items that could not be obtained from other sources identified through union catalogues or by speculation. It was also known that several small, privately funded libraries with unique stocks, which had for many years co‐operated in the interlending system, were finding it increasingly difficult to justify a virtually free service to libraries at large whilst charging their own members for loans.

An attempt is made to give a general picture of standardization and standards in documentation and related fields during the post‐war years: what standards are and how they are prepared nationally and internationally; what has been done and is being done by the national standardizing bodies and Technical Committee 46 (Documentation) of the International Organization for Standardization [ISO]; and finally a brief note on the extent of their adoption, and future work to be done.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

The purpose of this study is to examine if partner cross-contagion in audit offices is associated with client reporting quality. To this end, the authors test if the presence in an audit office of a partner with a highly aggressive style is associated with the reporting quality of other partners’ clients. Partners with a highly aggressive style are identified by their tendency to approve favorable client reporting. The authors add to the existing literature that provides limited and equivocal evidence on audit office cross-contagion.

Partner style is determined in an estimation period from 2010 to 2014. Aggressive style is identified when partners tend to approve favorable client reporting, which is shown by a positive value for their clients’ median discretionary accruals. Partners are considered to exhibit a highly aggressive style if they have positive median client discretionary accruals within the 90th percentile. Cross-contagion analysis is then conducted in a test period from 2015 to 2019 by determining if the presence in an office of a partner with a highly aggressive style is associated with the reporting quality of other partners’ clients. Two measures of client reporting quality used. These are the accuracy of current-period accruals in predicting period-ahead cash flows and earnings management related to benchmark beating.

This study finds partner cross-contagion of highly aggressive style in Big 4 offices that is associated with lower client reporting quality for non-Metals and Mining industry clients. This cross-contagion only occurs when the contagious partner has a very high level of aggressive style. This study finds Big 4 partners are susceptible to aggressive style cross-contagion regardless of their own idiosyncratic style. The results of this study show more cross-contagion in small Big 4 offices and mitigation of cross-contagion for economically important clients. Cross-contagion in non-Big 4 offices is observed for Metals and Mining industry clients.

By determining style from partners’ past clients’ discretionary accruals, this study extends prior cross-contagion research that relies on restatements to identify style. This study examines several other cross-contagion issues not addressed in prior studies. These include differences in cross-contagion for Big 4 and non-Big 4 offices and for large and small Big 4 offices, partners’ susceptibility to cross-contagion and the influence of client importance.

This paper responds to concerns raised by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) and scholars over the rapid growth of Big 4 consulting practices. This paper aims to explores the question: Does the regrowth of sizable consulting practices by the Big 4 influence audit reporting lag and restatement rates?

A population of the SEC-registered US audit clients of the Big 4 was used in this study. Longitudinal data on Big 4 audit clients from 2000 through 2009 were analyzed to determine the impact of consulting practice size on the clients’ audit reporting lag and restatement rate.

This paper finds that consulting practice size has a positive and statistically significant influence on audit reporting lag and restatement rate. The results are robust to alternative specifications of the sample and controlling for the level of non-audit services provided to audit clients.

The findings contribute to the discussion of the scope-of-services issue. They provide empirical support for Zeff’s (2003) and Wyatt’s (2004) intuition that the loss of Big 4 professional focus – not simply conflicts of interests – is a major factor affecting the audit quality.

The uniqueness of this paper is in how it counts restatements. Each year this paper counts that annual financial statements are restated as opposed to each disclosure of a restatement. This paper’s contribution is to examine the association between the regrowth of Big 4 accounting firm consulting practices with audit reporting lag and restatements.

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