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Explores recent developments in MIS, discusses the literature relating to evaluation of MIS, and produces a list of possible objectives and key questions to assist in the evaluation and audit of MIS. Focuses on audit objectives relevant to assessing an MIS. Aims to stimulate debate among internal audit professionals on the audit of MIS, in the hope that the involvement of internal auditors in this area will lead to the bridging of the gap between what users want from systems and what information systems designers think are user requirements.

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 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.

A question is posed; have audit and control of information in a high security environment, such as law enforcement, improved or not in the transition from manual to electronic processes? This paper attempts to elucidate this question by a thorough examination of information collection, control of processing and audit in manual processes used by the Queensland Police Service, Australia, during the period 1940‐1980. It assesses those processes against current electronic systems essentially introduced to policing in the decades of the 1980s and 1990s. The results of this assessment show that electronic systems provide for faster communications with centrally controlled and updated information readily available for use by large number of users connected across significant geographical locations. It is clearly evident that the price paid for this is a lack of ability and/or reluctance to provide improved audit and control processes. Thus, the claim can be made that audit and control processes may be considered to have been downgraded in the electronic world where standard commercial systems are used.

As technology integration in auditing continues to grow, it is important to understand how auditors perceive connections between use of generalized audit software (GAS) and audit benefits.

The DeLone and McLean information systems success model (2003) is adapted with audit-related uses of GAS as antecedents to information quality. Survey data on 188 current users of GAS, who are financial and IT auditors, is analyzed with partial least squares method.

For financial auditors, detecting material misstatements antecedent is the only significant indicator of information quality for GAS. For IT auditors, detecting control deficiencies and fraud significantly impacts information quality. Information quality influences use for both auditors; however, it only influences satisfaction with GAS for financial auditors. System quality impacts GAS satisfaction for only IT auditors and has no impact on GAS use for either type of auditor. Service quality influences use of GAS for financial, but not IT auditors. For both groups, service quality has no impact on satisfaction with GAS, and GAS use and satisfaction with GAS positively increases their perceptions of audit benefits.

Financial and IT auditors who use GAS are both focused on matching GAS use with their primary audit objectives. Results suggest that as GAS use increases, system quality may be important to satisfaction. Training should first focus on the usefulness of GAS to the audit to increase extent of use. Lastly, the more auditors use GAS and are satisfied with it, the greater their perception GAS contributing directly to benefit the audit.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the hurdles, compared with that in the United States, for the implementation of Continuous Auditing in China. As a timely, cost-saving and efficient auditing method, continuous auditing is being increasingly adopted throughout the world. However, while it is increasingly applied in the USA, continuous auditing is still in its infancy in China.

This paper compares and contrasts China and the USA in three important dimensions that determine the “economic architecture” of assurance: the business environment, the audit profession and technology.

The authors find that excessive government intervention in business, the lack of competition, independence of auditors, the support from management and the continuous auditing-specific regulations, as well as the technology gap between these two countries, are the main barriers for the implementation of continuous auditing in China.

The findings of this paper provide better understanding of the drivers of continuous auditing adoption in the USA and the barriers toward doing so in China.

The term “continuous auditing” has never been formally introduced until the release of the draft of the Internal Control Audit Guide in 2011.

The paper highlights how technology by itself is not deterministic, but given the extraordinary rise in the Chinese economy in both its size and its sophistication, it has be to assumed that its “leapfrog” into parity if not outright leadership in continuous assurance is still a matter of “when” and not of “if”.

The progressive computerization of business processes and widespread availability of computer networking make it possible to dramatically increase the frequency of periodic audits by redesigning the auditing architecture around Continuous Online Auditing (COA). Continuous auditing is viewed here as a type of auditing that produces audit results simultaneously with, or a short period of time after, the occurrence of relevant events. It is arguable that continuous auditing can be implemented only as an online system, i.e., a system that is permanently connected through computer networking to both auditees and auditors. This article proposes a research agenda for the emerging field of COA. First, the history, institutional background, feasibility of and some experiences in COA are briefly reviewed. Thereafter, a number of research issues relating to the architecture of COA, factors affecting the use of COA, and the major consequences of COA are presented. Finally, a selected number of research issues are highlighted as priorities for future research in COA.

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.