1st Edition
Auditing Transformation Regulation, Digitalisation and Sustainability
This book identifies drivers of transformation of auditing, including regulation, digitalisation, sustainability, and individual auditor characteristics, and discusses how the drivers affect auditing.
It provides a holistic perspective, discussing these current and highly relevant themes in depth and ‘one by one’ and also stresses the importance of the temporal dimension, i.e., offering a historical and a present-day perspective. The book covers several different theoretical perspectives when analysing and discussing how the various drivers affect auditors, the audit process, accounting firms, stakeholders and so on. Sweden is used as a setting to study the effects of these drivers of transition. The Swedish experience is generalisable to other European countries, with a Germanic origin currently influenced by Anglo-American ideas of auditing. In addition, Sweden provides a research setting with unique access to empirical data. The monograph is unique in its broad coverage of drivers of transformation, combined with its clear focus on financial auditing. It is informed by a wide range of research approaches, from qualitative interview studies to recently developed machine learning methods. Readers, therefore, benefit from a comprehensive understanding of current changes in the audit industry.
This will be a useful reference work for students of accounting and auditing, as well as for audit practitioners, including both auditors and regulators, and for researchers.
List of figures and tables
List of contributors
Foreword
Preface
List of acronyms and abbreviations
1. Auditing in transformation: An introduction
Jan Marton, Fredrik Nilsson, and Peter Öhman
PART I: REGULATION
2. In pursuit of a more socially relevant audit in the context of international standardisation
Amanda Sonnerfeldt and Gunilla Eklöv Alander
3. The construction of status in the auditor–audit committee relationship
Gunilla Eklöv Alander, Karin Jonnergård, and Ulf Larsson Olaison
4. Audit reporting transformation: Increasing the relevance of the audit through key audit matters?
Katharina Rahnert
5. The adoption of professional audit standards in the public sector: The role of the audit profession and other actors
Pernilla Broberg and Torbjörn Tagesson
PART II : DIGITALISATION
6. On the structures of judgement in auditing
Thomas Carrington and Bino Catasús
7. Digitalisation and professional scepticism of Swedish auditors
Andreas Jansson, Timur Uman, Emilia Florin-Samuelsson, Alexandra Kantonenko, and Therése Karlström
8. Being an audit professional in the digital age
Amanda Sonnerfeldt and Karin Jonnergård
9. Advanced digital technologies and sustainability assurance: Evidence from Sweden
Jason Crawford, Tim Kastrup, and Aynaz Monazzam
PART III: SUSTAINABILITY
10. Assessment of double materiality: The development of predictively valid materiality assessments with artificial intelligence
Peter Öhman, Jan Svanberg, and Isak Samsten
11. Organising for quality in sustainability assurance: A literature review
Katarzyna Cieslak, Cecilia Gullberg, Shruti Kashyap, and Joachim Landström
12. Challenges of sustainability-assurance practices: Insights from the Big 4. accounting firms
Daniela Argento, Mashal Iqbal, and Fatou Sonko
PART IV: AUDITOR CHARACTERISTICS
13. The average professional: On the selection and socialisation of auditors
Thomas Carrington, Tobias Johansson-Berg, Gustav Johed, and Peter Öhman
14. The importance of the engagement partner
Jan Marton and Savvas Papadopoulos
15. Transformation in audit teams: Implications for team competence
Alice Annelin and Tobias Svanström
16. Expertise in financial auditing
Jenny Backman, Michael Grant, and Fredrik Nilsson
17. Auditing transformation: Practitioners’ views
Rakel Lennartsson
18. Concluding remarks
Jan Marton, Fredrik Nilsson, and Peter Öhman
Index
Biography
Jan Marton is Associate Professor in Business Administration at the School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
Fredrik Nilsson is a Professor of Business Studies at Uppsala University, Sweden.
Peter Öhman is a Professor of Business Administration and Chair in the Department of Economics, Geography, Law and Tourism, Mid Sweden University, Sundsvall, Sweden.