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There has been very little qualitative “fieldwork” of audit practice. This is especially the case in relation to investigations into how audit engagements proceed. The purpose of this paper is to engage with audit practice in order to explore and explain the internal dynamics and paradoxical conditions within audit engagement teams.

The research adopts a qualitative methodology, framed around an intensive case study that involves several methods of data collection and analysis including interviews, observation and document analysis. The authors observe audit team practices, work programmes and organisation including observations of individual and teams involved in audit engagements.

Using the lens of paradox theory, the authors explore the backstage of audit work, where audit teams are challenged with recurring contradictory requirements and opposing demands. The authors provide insight on the complexity associated with inadequate resourcing and planning that tend to stimulate the emergence of paradoxes in audit engagement work in a government audit context. As a result, the authors identify the occurrence of cascading reduced audit quality practices (RAQP) as the teams respond to the paradoxes they face.

The authors reveal the interlinked and cumulative coping strategies, namely, downplaying responsibility and downscaling audit processes. These strategies are performed concurrently by team leaders and audit members to manage paradoxical tensions. The authors also identified superficial audit supervision as another type of RAQP performed by team leaders.

The purpose of this paper is to explore parents as “stakeholders” in higher education in England and how they perceive teaching excellence.

The study adopted a qualitative research design using an interpretative approach through which the authors aimed to develop understandings of parents’ perspectives as higher education “stakeholders”. The empirical data were gathered via focus group interviews and an online survey with 24 participants in the UK.

This study found that the majority of parents wished to be treated as an important stakeholder group in higher education. Parent participants perceived that teaching excellence could be evidenced through indicators and measures, for example, the design and delivery of the courses, progress measures, contact hours, speed of return of marked work, graduate employability and so on. They also saw value and significance in the students’ exposure to ideas and perspectives not previously experienced, in zeal and passion in the teaching, and in an academically nurturing, understanding and supportive pedagogical relationship between academic and student.

This study uncovered some apparent tensions, contradictions and challenges for parents as stakeholders in higher education, for example, in reconciling the co-existence of their desire to be involved and engaged with scope for students to be formed as independent young adults. Parents’ desire to measure teaching excellence is also compounded by their concern that excellent teaching is thereby reduced to a box-ticking exercise. This study has implications for higher education institutions wishing to engage parents as a stakeholder group in a meaningful way.

Investigates male attitudes towards healthy eating and makes comparisons with a group of women of similar age and socio‐economic status. Claims the results indicate that men are less likely to use books and magazines as a source of nutrition information and are less likely to buy or eat products advertised as “low calorie”, “diet” or “lite”. However, products which are labelled “low fat” are more likely to be eaten by men, suggesting that reducing dietary fat is the part of the healthy eating message which has been absorbed most effectively by men. Finds less interest in healthy eating among older men, although it was not clear whether the men interviewed who were aged over 56 years played a major role in food choice decision making within their individual families.

Reports a recipe modification exercise which was undertaken to determine whether an acceptable sponge cake could be produced using low‐fat spreads in place of full‐fat margarine or butter. The textural and sensory qualities of the cakes were studied and a price analysis carried out to identify price differences between low‐fat and full‐fat spreads. Presents results which indicate that, as the fat content of cakes decreases, the sensory quality also decreases, although an acceptable product can be produced using a spread containing 65 per cent fat. Finds that low‐fat spreads are in many cases more expensive than their full‐fat equivalents. Highlights the need for further work to identify a fat replacer which can be used successfully in baking.

This paper aims to provide a critical comment on complex funding systems.

This is a critical comment written in the form of a poem. The poem is in the style of the English light opera composers Gilbert and Sullivan, and is a variation on their song “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General”, from The Pirates of Penzance.

The poem spotlights financial failure.

The poem spotlights the crazy names and poor transparency of special purpose vehicles.

The purpose of this paper is to consider hierarchical control as a mode of governance, and analyses the extent of control exhibited by central government over local government through the best value (BV) and comprehensive performance assessment (CPA) performance regimes.

This paper utilises Ouchi's framework and, specifically, his articulation of bureaucratic or hierarchical control in the move towards achievement of organisational objectives. Hierarchical control may be inferred from the extent of “command and control” by Central Government, use of rewards and sanctions, and alignment to government priorities and discrimination of performance.

CPA represents a more sophisticated performance regime than BV in the governance of local authorities by central government. In comparison to BV, CPA involved less scope for dialogue with local government prior to introduction, closer inspection of and direction of support toward poorer performing authorities, and more alignment to government priorities in the weightings attached to service blocks.

The paper focuses upon the hierarchic/bureaucratic mode of governance as articulated by Ouchi and expands on this mode in order to analyse shifts in performance regimes in the public sector.

The purpose of this paper is to argue that, in order to achieve teaching excellence, student engagement in dialogue on this important matter is needed. Students’ conceptualisations of good teaching are fundamental when building an understanding of what this is and how it can be developed.

This paper reports on findings of a qualitative study of undergraduate students’ perceptions of a good university lecturer. The paper draws on the secondary dataset collected by four subject centres of the Higher Education Academy (HEA).

The interpretive analysis of the data shows that, from students’ perspectives, a combination of the lecturer's subject knowledge, willingness to help and inspirational teaching methods makes a good university lecturer. Being humorous and able to provide speedy feedback were also perceived as important factors. These findings have some important implications for academic practice.

The key thesis advanced is that definitions of teaching excellence cannot be adequately obtained from typologies and descriptions of techniques and skills. The authors’ contention is that deeper understandings are built through engaging students in meaningful dialogue about pedagogy. This may uncover more profound layers of understanding of what makes good teaching at university and so probe the more elusive aspects which defy measurement via scales or performance indicators.

The purpose of this paper is to review the way in which auditing issues have been raised and addressed during the credit crunch and developing global financial crisis.

Analysis is based on a review of the academic auditing literature, regulatory and audit reports, together with papers from the financial press.

After highlighting the relative lack of media attention devoted to the external auditing function in the light of major corporate collapses, the paper considers what, contrastingly, is an active and ongoing series of responses to the current crisis on the part of auditing firms and the profession more generally. Through such analysis the paper explores a number of implications of the credit crunch for both auditing practice and research.

The paper is constrained in part by the rapidly unfolding nature of events, with important policy developments arising almost on a daily basis. The paper draws primarily on events up to the beginning of October 2008.

The paper has important messages for audit practice and research, including the technical capacities of external audits in the banking sector, the contributions of standard setting bodies and regulatory oversight, and the scope for enhanced dialogue between such parties and audit researchers.

The paper serves both to focus and stimulate analysis of the credit crunch on the audit profession. It demonstrates the complexity of contemporary practice and highlights the importance, especially from an educational perspective, of developing understanding of banking audit practice and associated regulatory interactions – including the presented possibilities both for research and enhanced academic‐practitioner dialogue.