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To describe the process of conducting an information audit at the Hobart City Council and to demonstrate how the audit contributed to knowledge management at the Council.

This paper is a personalised account of a pilot information audit conducted in the area of risk management activities across the organisation. It gives an overview of some relevant knowledge management texts, the methodology of the pilot audit and a summary of the findings and outcomes of the project.

The Council units have yet to implement all the findings and recommendations of the pilot, but there have already been significant outcomes. Units have used the audit to coordinate risk management initiatives and processes with other areas. This has contributed to breaking down the information silos and to the development of a culture of knowledge sharing.

This paper describes the process used for the Pilot Information Audit – Risk Management project, and what happened as a result.

This paper may provide some useful insights to other librarians in a small special library environment with limited resources who are planning to conduct an information audit.

This is an example of an information audit undertaken in a local government setting.

The exponential growth in corporate reporting on the internet has created numerous opportunities and challenges for the accounting and auditing profession, and regulators. This study aims to examine internet reporting practices of companies in Malaysia for the purpose of exploring their auditing implications.

An examination of the 100 Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange Composite Indexed (KLSE CI) companies in Malaysia in 2003 and 2004.

Although there has been an increase in both the number of companies and the types of information provided on the internet, the quality of internet reporting information to users has little improved. This problem is compounded because auditors have little control over web contents and the changes that can be made to audited information. Further guidance to standardise the types of internet reporting information may help protect the interest of users, provide more certainty to what information needs to be audited and reduce audit risks.

The hosting of audited information on an auditor's web site may provide auditors with better control, reduce audit risks and further improve the credibility and reliability of information to users.

Provides information on the financial reporting and auditing challenges posed by internet reporting.

The purpose of this study is to map the conceptual structure of the body of knowledge linking digital technologies and auditing, with the aim of contributing to a better understanding of this research stream.

This research develops a bibliometric analysis of 256 articles following two steps. The analysis of descriptive performance indicators identifies the main traits of the community of scholars debating audit and technology in terms of publications, productive countries and authors, as well as the publication’s impact of the target journals concerning specific fields, number of citations per country and most cited articles in the data set. To analyse the conceptual structure of the data set, the study performs a co-word analysis adopting social network analysis tools.

The results highlight a growing academic interest in the research topic, especially in the past few years. The bibliometric analysis reveals three main topics concerning the use and application of technology in the audit profession: the adoption of continuous auditing and continuous monitoring in the auditing profession; the use of software tools in the audit profession; the connections between information systems and audit.

This paper contributes to the field by providing an examination of the current state of the art of research on the use and application of technology in the audit profession as well as identifying the current gaps in the literature and, most importantly, propose a research agenda for the field.

This study contributes to the cognitive processes and expertise research in judgment and decision-making in auditing. It uses the levels-of-processing theory (Craik & Lockhart, 1972) to investigate the amount of auditor attention given to information during internal control documentation procedures, and the effect of this attention on internal control information acquisition and risk assessment. Based on levels-of-processing, the attention required to complete an internal control questionnaire (ICQ) is predicted to result in the acquisition of more internal control information than when a completed ICQ is reviewed. In addition, auditors who complete an ICQ should assess control risk more like experts’ than auditors, who review an ICQ completed by another individual. Results suggest that the audit seniors who completed an ICQ retained significantly more internal control information than audit seniors who reviewed an ICQ completed by another individual. This result held when separately examining the internal control strengths and weaknesses. In addition, audit seniors who completed an ICQ-assessed control risk at a level comparable to the control risk assessments of audit managers in the same firm.

This research aims to explore the perceived usefulness of audited social information in making economic decisions, in the eyes of both Tunisian financial analysts and bankers.

The authors conduct an exploratory qualitative study using twelve semi-structured interviews: seven are carried out with financial analysts, and five are performed among bankers.

This study’s results reveal that financial analysts and bankers paid little attention to the audited social information in making investment/credit granting decisions. The authors also show that the low perceived usefulness of social audit is due to many reasons related to political, economic, regulatory, educational, cultural and cognitive factors.

This study contributes to the current literature in several ways. First, it enriches the knowledge about the perceived usefulness of social audit. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore the perception of financial analysts and bankers to audited social information and its usefulness for decision-making. Second, the focus on the Tunisian context is interesting as it was marked, since the outbreak of the Jasmine Revolution, by the uncertainty and the instability of political, economic and social conditions. Third, this research goes further by exploring the most important factors affecting the perceiveness of social auditing.

The paper seeks to offer a generalized methodology for knowledge auditing. The context of information and knowledge perspectives is established and knowledge auditing is located in an evolving context of information research and practice.

A 15‐element inventory is developed which takes its design from business strategy and process and links it to the generalized cycle of information and communication activity.

The elements are systematically reviewed in terms of a general aspect, a typical interpretation and a threshold to indicate the type of practical application and data representation associated with each element.

The model is widely adaptable to different settings as a tool for business enterprises, organizations in different sectors and for use in communities of practice and learning/knowledge settings.

This is an area of application where a more standard framework approach to information and knowledge auditing would be beneficial. The structure provides a working basis for further development.

Modern information systems (MIS) have increased the variety of information systems which have been and can be designed to such an extent that auditors must finally recognise the Law of Requisite Variety. The auditability of MIS is a double‐edged proposition since the variety of the MIS must be matched by auditors if they want to be recognised as control agents. Thus, either MIS variety must be reduced to match the audit variety achievable or the audit variety must be increased to match the existing MIS variety. In other words, an intelligent interface is needed between auditors and MIS. Auditors require a language and a communication channel to evaluate the internal controls of the MIS as well as the information generated by the MIS.

The use of the Internet for financial reporting creates unique opportunities and challenges for the auditing profession. This exploratory study identifies the key audit implications of Internet financial reporting through a comprehensive review of the academic and professional literature. Further, the study analyses the contents of all listed company Websites in New Zealand to assess the nature and extent of current audit‐related Web practices. The relatively high degree of similarity between New Zealand's auditing standards and those of other jurisdictions (e.g. International Standards of Auditing and auditing standards in countries such as the UK, Australia and the USA) contributes towards the international generalisability of the content analysis. The literature review highlighted issues relating to the auditor's role and responsibilities, the audit report, and audit procedures. The results of the content analysis of auditor Web‐related practices reveal several significant concerns for the auditing profession in relation to the presentation, context, and content of the audit report in a Web‐based environment.

This paper examines international pronouncements on the audit function and Internet financial reporting and assesses whether the practices and policies reflected in these pronouncements are followed by the auditors of top South African companies. As a secondary objective, this study also attempted to determine how South African auditors perceive the influence that Internet reporting may have on the auditing profession in future. The analysis shows that many of the procedures required of auditors and Internet reporting have already been defined by international standardsetting bodies, but that the audit firms which responded to the questionnaire in this study do not yet have well‐established policies and practices regarding Internet reporting. There is still some uncertainty regarding Internet financial reporting in the responding audit firms, as was reflected in their perceptions of the future of Internet financial reporting and its impact on the audit function. The responding audit firms were reluctant to expand their responsibilities with regard to Internet financial reporting.

The digital economy has significantly altered the way business is conducted and financial information is communicated. A rapidly growing number of organizations are conducting business and publishing business and financial reports online and in real-time. Real-time financial reporting is likely to necessitate continuous auditing to provide continuous assurance about the quality and credibility of the information presented. The audit process has, by necessity, evolved from a conventional manual audit to computer-based auditing and is now confronted with creating continuous electronic audits. Rapidly emerging information technology and demands for more timely communication of information to business stakeholders requires auditors to invent new ways to continuously monitor, gather, and analyze audit evidence. Continuous auditing is defined here as “a comprehensive electronic audit process that enables auditors to provide some degree of assurance on continuous information simultaneously with, or shortly after, the disclosure of the information.” This paper is based on a review of related literature, innovative continuous auditing applications, and the experiences of the authors. An approach for building continuous audit capacity is presented and audit data warehouses and data marts are described. Ever improving technology suggests that the real-time exchange of sensitive financial data will place constant pressure on auditors to update audit techniques. Most of the new techniques that will be required will involve creation of new software and audit models. Future research should focus on how continuous auditing could be constantly improved in various auditing domains including assurance, attestation, and audit services.