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Independent audit oversight is a prerequisite for restoring public confidence in financial reporting and auditing after the past accounting scandals and the financial crisis. By analysing and comparing the independence of the audit oversight boards of 27 European Member States and the USA, this study aims to provide insights into the question of how independent “independent” audit oversight boards are.

Independence is measured in terms of the organisational compositions and regulatory competences of the audit oversight authorities. The data were collected through an e-mail questionnaire that was sent to all European oversight authorities, and by analysing legal provisions of various regulators. The results are analysed and visualised by a Partial Order Scalogram Analysis with Coordinates, which allows conclusions about the similarities of various systems and their relative levels of independence. Both measurements are then equally combined into one value of material independence, which is used to rank the oversight authorities.

Although all countries encounter similar pressures to establish profession-independent oversight systems, this study identifies how differently “independence” has been translated in regulatory outcomes. While all countries claim to possess formal independent oversight bodies, there is a visible gap between countries with comparatively strong independent oversight authorities and systems in which accounting bodies still maintain far-reaching regulatory influence. At the same time, the results question the role of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) as the globally perceived benchmark of an entirely independent regulator.

This study focuses on formal independence rather than de-facto independence. Future research has, therefore, to address how these formal arrangements have evolved in regulatory practice.

Policy makers around the world perceive independent oversight as one of the essential elements of regulatory reforms aiming at restoring public confidence in the aftermath of past accounting scandals. This study enables the comparison and benchmarking of national specific regulatory designs with other forms of independent oversight.

Although the role of independent regulation is a recurring theme in accounting research, a systematic and encompassing comparison of the intertwining of audit oversight authorities and the accounting profession has not yet been provided. This study takes a first step towards providing a quantifiable measure of the formal independence of audit oversight authorities by mobilizing concepts, methods and prior findings from the field of public policy research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the transparency reports published by the Big-4 public accounting firms in the UK, Germany and Denmark to understand the determinants of their content within the networks of big accounting firms.

The study draws on a qualitative research approach, in which the content of transparency reports is analyzed and semi-structured interviews are conducted with key people from the Big-4 firms who are responsible for developing the transparency reports.

The findings show that the content of transparency reports is inconsistent and the transparency reporting practice is not uniform within the Big-4 networks. Differences were found in the way in which the transparency reporting practices are coordinated globally by the respective central governing bodies of the Big-4. The content of the transparency reports is particularly influenced by the national institutional environment in which the Big-4 member firms operate, thus leading them to introduce practice variation and resulting in cross-national differences.

The study results have important implications for standard setters, regulators and practitioners, as the research provides insights into the variation taking place within the common regulatory frame.

This is the first study to analyze how transparency reporting practices are developed within the networks of Big-4 firms, thereby influencing the content of transparency reports.

A framework is offered that predicts when public organizations are susceptible to change. Many researchers interested in change focus on leadership. Such an approach overlooks structural factors that inhibit change and what leaders seeking to realize change can realistically hope to accomplish. The framework identifies organizational capacity, responsiveness, and constituencies as key structural factors that govern change feasibility. Capacity, responsiveness, and constituencies are knitted together in the framework to identify types of public organizations that are ready for change and those apt to resist change. Types of change are considered that range from strategic repositioning to transformation. Also discussed are guidelines for leaders seeking to strategically reposition or to transform a public organization. To realize a transformation requires a new kind of leader, called a Mutualist. The skills required by Mutualist leadership and Mutualist leaders are identified and compared to those identified in the transformational leadership literature. Research questions are formulated and a research program proposed to deal with research issues identified by the framework.

This study's aim was to systematically review available literature related to the establishment, purpose, operation, and effectiveness of civilian police oversight entities in the United States and to gain a deeper understanding of support, opposition, academic, public, and police expectations concerning their utility.

A Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) was used to analyze police civilian oversight literature published between 1992 and 2022.

The authors find racially biased policing, political investment, police resistance, oversight structure, scope, and authority are key components that determine how oversight is perceived.

Based on the methodology, the results may not be generalizable. Future researchers should consider expanding public oversight research beyond the parameters, which constrained this paper.

This article contains implications that should be considered by jurisdictions seeking to develop, restructure, or eliminate public oversight entities and for recognizing the concerns of advocates and opponents of public oversight.

Civilian oversight has long been considered a potential method for public inclusion if not a means for greater public control of police. Over the past few decades, a resurgence of interest in civilian oversight has emerged.

This article synthesizes literature that spans 30 years of research on public oversight.

The purpose of this paper is first, to engage in a critical examination of the broad legislative framework of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, 2008, in the United States; second, to provide an in‐depth understanding the legal basis, scope and nature of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) under the Act; third, to provide a legal analysis of the oversight provisions in the new Act; fourth, to examine the powers, responsibilities, functions and roles of the various new oversight offices set up under the new Act; fifth, to assess the economic and financial impact of implementation of the programme till early 2009; and to engage in a critical discussion of the limitations and shortcomings of TARP. The central focus of the paper is largely on TARP and the issues arising from using TARP as a legislative framework to facilitate the removal of toxic assets held by the various banks and financial institutions.

The larger approach used in this paper is a financial law approach. It is to facilitate an in‐depth analysis of the broader framework of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, 2008, i.e. the legislative mechanism that establishes the TARP. The central issue of the paper is to examine the provisions in TARP in the broader context of its ability to take toxic assets off the balance sheets of banks and financial institutions. The approach, therefore, aims to aid a critical examination of the related legal, financial and economic issues arising out of the implementation of TARP. It relies extensively on official publications, testimonials and reports by various oversight bodies in the public domain, academic writings and newspaper reports to assess the impact of the programme and explore the related legal, regulatory and financial implications.

The findings in the paper relate to the impact and extent of the TARP till the present. It explores the basis, nature and scope of the implementation of the programme and outlines the various shortcomings and limitations. The paper concludes that there are various issues that need to be redressed for TARP or a similar programme to be more effective and transparent.

Various oversight reports and recommendations by official bodies are still expected as regards various spending, accountability and transparency issues related to TARP in the coming months. A new stimulus package of $787 billion was just approved by the US Congress and signed into law (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, 2009) at the time this article was submitted for publication consideration. The article incorporates some issues relating to the new stimulus package as well as the Geithner plan, Public Private Investment Programme (PPIP), in the concluding section. However, substantial details are yet to emerge as to how the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, 2009, establishing the stimulus package under the Obama government and the PPIP are both going to impact the future implementation of TARP and induce economic recovery at a broader level.

This paper is of immense significance to academics, jurists, consultants, legislators, policy‐makers, bankers, lawyers, auditors, consultants, researchers and anyone interested in financial and banking issues.

As an emerging discipline, information governance (IG) presents a number of challenges to organisations and countries. For example, IG has not yet been clearly defined and current proponents present the concepts as records management, information management, enterprise content management, privacy (data protection), freedom of information, corporate governance, information risk, information security and e-discovery, to mention just a few areas. At an organisational level, initiatives focus on one of these aspects, often conflicting with the other elements, and are initiated because of some immediate business challenge, such as the introduction of the Protection of Personal Information Act (data protection or privacy legislation) in South Africa. This is compounded by the fact that the country creates many fragmented policies and pieces of legislation on the same IG aspects which are conducted in a disjointed manner. This study aims to present an integrated IG framework at the country level, comprising key success factors, required instruments (policy and legislation), principles and a proposed list of elements or disciplines, which should be managed in a cohesive manner.

This study adopted the Information Governance Initiative’s pinwheel facets of IG to design an integrated framework of elevating IG to country level. The pinwheel helped to identify different facets of information disciplines and the responsible oversight mechanism for implementation in South Africa. The study relied on data obtained through content analysis of policy documents, legislative frameworks, and literature review regarding the identified facets of IG in South Africa.

The study established that only some aspects/domains/facets of IG are legislated and driven by policy in South Africa. These domains are at different levels of maturity and different stakeholder groups are responsible for each domain; for instance, the National Archives of South Africa is responsible for records management and the State Information Technology Agency is responsible for information technology, while the newly established Information Regulator is responsible for freedom of information and data privacy. There is generally no over-arching structure responsible for overall IG in South Africa as the elements are fragmented in various oversight mechanisms and institutions. As a result, domains compete for limited resources and often lead to “knee-jerk” responses to legislative, legal or risk drivers.

It is concluded that if IG is not regulated and modelled at a country level, it is highly unlikely to filter down to organisations. Implementing IG at country level will go a long way in helping to filter it down to an organisation level.

The study is useful by presenting a framework to ensure that IG is implemented at the country level with a single coordinating body established for oversight mechanisms such as the Information Regulator (which currently has a narrow scope of privacy and freedom of information, although with limited resources).

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.

Following the surge of documents laying out organizations' ethical principles for their use of artificial intelligence (AI), there is a growing demand for translating ethical principles to practice through AI governance (AIG). AIG has emerged as a rapidly growing, yet fragmented, research area. This paper synthesizes the organizational AIG literature by outlining research themes and knowledge gaps as well as putting forward future agendas.

The authors undertake a systematic literature review on AIG, addressing the current state of its conceptualization and suggesting future directions for AIG scholarship and practice. The review protocol was developed following recommended guidelines for systematic reviews and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA).

The results of the authors’ review confirmed the assumption that AIG is an emerging research topic with few explicit definitions. Moreover, the authors’ review identified four themes in the AIG literature: technology, stakeholders and context, regulation and processes. The central knowledge gaps revealed were the limited understanding of AIG implementation, lack of attention to the AIG context, uncertain effectiveness of ethical principles and regulation, and insufficient operationalization of AIG processes. To address these gaps, the authors present four future AIG agendas: technical, stakeholder and contextual, regulatory, and process. Going forward, the authors propose focused empirical research on organizational AIG processes, the establishment of an AI oversight unit and collaborative governance as a research approach.

To address the identified knowledge gaps, the authors present the following working definition of AIG: AI governance is a system of rules, practices and processes employed to ensure an organization's use of AI technologies aligns with its strategies, objectives, and values, complete with legal requirements, ethical principles and the requirements set by stakeholders. Going forward, the authors propose focused empirical research on organizational AIG processes, the establishment of an AI oversight unit and collaborative governance as a research approach.

For practitioners, the authors highlight training and awareness, stakeholder management and the crucial role of organizational culture, including senior management commitment.

For society, the authors review elucidates the multitude of stakeholders involved in AI governance activities and complexities related to balancing the needs of different stakeholders.

By delineating the AIG concept and the associated research themes, knowledge gaps and future agendas, the authors review builds a foundation for organizational AIG research, calling for broad contextual investigations and a deep understanding of AIG mechanisms. For practitioners, the authors highlight training and awareness, stakeholder management and the crucial role of organizational culture, including senior management commitment.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the issues raised by and the possible long-term significance of the judicial review obtained by the pressure group UK Uncut into HM Revenue and Customs’ decision to forgive £10 m of interest payable by the investment bank, Goldman Sachs.

Using Lukes’ (2005) three dimensions of power as a conceptual framework, the paper compares this case with a similar case from the 1980s in order to discuss the importance of democratic oversight of the way in which public bodies discharge their duties, the extent to which this should override the principle of taxpayer confidentiality and the extent to which legal rules and procedures permit such oversight.

The comparison shows that, by permitting the review to proceed, greater weight was given to the importance of democratic oversight in the UK Uncut's case, but the rejection of both cases demonstrates that the tax authority is permitted very wide administrative discretion. However, whilst UK Uncut's challenge ultimately failed, it exposed aspects of the tax authority's relationship with large taxpayers to public gaze. This has contributed to demands for changes in the taxation system, which legislators might eventually feel forced to heed.

This paper reminds that any significant shift in public attitudes must always have a beginning, and that, even if the challenge fails, it might be the first tangible evidence of a demand for greater transparency in the administration of the tax system which might lead to future changes.