“两型”社会建设背景下的环境审计法律制度建设

环境审计是相关主体对政府和企事业单位的环境管理系统及经济活动的环境影响进行监督、评价和鉴证的活动。目前,我国的环境审计实践呈现出多元化的态势,已发展成为一项综合性、系统性的工作。然而,我国的环境审计法律制度建设远远无法满足环境审计实践的需要。尚存在诸多不足。为此,构建和完善我国环境审计法律制度应采取以下措施：完善中国特色的环境审计法律规范体系;发展社会环境审计和内部环境审计,扩大环境审计主体;逐步扩展环境审计法律制度的适用范围和对象：明确法律责任以及完善和协调相关的优惠政策和措施。     

“两型”社会建设背景下的环境审计法律制度建设

环境审计是相关主体对政府和企事业单位的环境管理系统及经济活动的环境影响进行监督、评价和鉴证的活动。目前,我国的环境审计实践呈现出多元化的态势,已发展成为一项综合性、系统性的工作。然而,我国的环境审计法律制度建设远远无法满足环境审计实践的需要,尚存在诸多不足。为此,构建和完善我国环境审计法律制度应采取以下措施:完善中国特色的环境审计法律规范体系;发展社会环境审计和内部环境审计,扩大环境审计主体;逐步扩展环境审计法律制度的适用范围和对象;明确法律责任以及完善和协调相关的优惠政策和措施。     

注册会计师开展环境审计的思考

一、注册会计师是环境审计的重要力量目前我国有政府审计、注册会计师社会审计和企事业单位内部审计三种审计形式.从实际执行情况看,我国开展环境审计主要是以政府为主导.由政府开展环境审计,固然可以借助国家力量提高审计权威性,但由于政府审计机构代表国家,而多数被审计单位都具有国有性质,因此很难从产权主体的角度划清界线,容易导致审计结论有失公正和公允.目前,随着环境审计业务量的不断增加,以注册会计师为主体开展环境审计工作十分必要.     

政府、社会和内部环境审计联动机制研究

环境审计是对经济活动出现的环境问题和环境责任进行监督、评价和鉴证,是增强经济可持续发展能力的重要保证。但我国的环境审计一般是受托审计,主要是由政府完成,政府审计主要是绩效和常规性审计,而环境审计的范围、不确定性及专业背景凸显出政府审计资源不足。因此,建立一个政府、社会和内部环境审计联动机制是提高我国环境审计质量的有效途径。     

环境审计影响因素分析初探——基于利益相关者的分析

随着经济的发展,社会公众对环境保护意识逐渐增强,而在社会发展中扮演着重要角色的政府和企业对环境的影响最大,因此公众迫切要求公开政府和企业对环境的影响程度,因此作为一个有效的评价手段的环境审计活动变得非常必要。本文根据环境审计主体不同,分为国家审计,社会审计和内部审计三种方式,并且分别从这三个方面简要分析影响环境审计的因素。     

我国CPA开展环境审计的现状及改进

我国环境审计主体单一,主要是政府审计机构和一些大企业的内部审计机构,CPA参与度低,环境审计内容局限、效率不高.就此,笔者认为应正确认识CPA开展环境审计的现状,从层面进行改进和完善.     

生态文明情境下政府环境审计问题探究

生态环境与社会可持续发展戚戚相关,然而我国环境污染问题依然严峻,政府环境审计任重道远.以此为背景,本文基于我国政府环境审计实施现状的分析,进一步挖掘政府环境审计实施遇到的主要困难,最后为推进我国政府环境审计的发展提出相应的改进建议.     

环境审计影响因素分析初探——基于利益相关者的分析

随着经济的发展,社会公众对环境保护意识逐渐增强,而在社会发展中扮演着重要角色的政府和企业对环境的影响最大,因此公众迫切要求公开政府和企业对环境的影响程度,因此作为一个有效的评价手段的环境审计活动变得非常必要.本文根据环境审计主体不同,分为国家审计,社会审计和内部审计三种方式,并且分别从这三个方面简要分析影响环境审计的因素.     

论注册会计师环境审计的主导地位——基于独立性要求的视角

<正>一、引言审计主体研究对于审计实务和理论的发展具有重要意义,而对于环境审计这样一个审计的新兴分支学科,明确和规范环境审计主体的相关问题尤为必要。环境审计主体相关问题的研究主要涉及两个方面,一是环境审计主体的构成内容,二是哪一类环境审计主体占据主导地位。陈思维(1998)首次提出了环境审计主体的构成内容,从审计关系的角度将其划分为审计机关环境审计(或称政府环境审计)、社会环境审计(或称注册会计师环境审计)和内部环境审计,并为学术界广泛接受。但是,有关哪一类环境审计主体占据主导地位的争论却一直未曾止息。如果不能及早地在这一问题上达成共识,不仅会严重阻碍环境审计理论的深入发展和进一步完善,还会严重影响环境审计实务的顺利开展,造成不分主次、群龙治水的混乱局面。     

我国环境审计运行的模式

保护和治理环境、遏制环境恶化，实现社会和经济可持续发展战略，是一项庞大而又复杂的系统工程，环境审计在这个系统工作中占有重要地位，不同审计主体实施的环境审计构成不同层次环境管理系统的组成部分，因此，环境审计需要国家审计机关、内部审计机构和社会审计组织全方位、分层次地审查和评价被审查单位环境保护法规和政策的执行情况，环境保护和治理情况及取得的绩效等，从而增强审计组织体系在解决环境问题中的整体功能，各审计主体实施环境审计时，应根据审计的目的和内容以及自身的情况选择审计模式。     

The necessary characteristics of environmental auditors: a review of the contribution of the financial auditing profession

The business community faces many pressures from the green consumer, environmental groups, employees and investors to accept its environmental accountabilities and to provide information about its environmental performance. This information is becoming increasingly important to a broad range of corporate stakeholders because it is a key resource in managing a business’s response to the issue of environmental accountability. Businesses need to ascertain whether potential responsibilities for environmental implications on business are considered within their companies. A number of arguments have emerged concerning the relevance of the financial auditing profession in contributing to this area of environmental concerns. The paper is principally concerned with (1) reviewing the literature in an attempt to answer the questions: (i) can the financial audit profession make a contribution in the area of environmental audits? (ii) are financial auditors in a position to assess environmental implications for business and take part in environmental auditing? (2) The paper goes on to suggest a general framework of the necessary characteristics of environmental auditors.     

“免疫系统论”视角下的碳审计模式构建

经济的快速发展,使全球环境问题日益严重,尤其是全球气候变暖已经严重威胁到人类社会的可持续发展,并成为世界性的政治、经济、法律和技术问题。碳审计作为现代审计中有效应对全球变暖等环境问题的新举措,是一种全新的环境规制工具。论文将从“国家审计免疫系统论”的视角下,结合目前国内外碳审计的研究现状,探索分析适合我国国情的碳审计模式,以期发挥碳审计在经济社会环境的免疫作用。     

Audit committee characteristics and investment in internal auditing

Regulators and others recently highlighted the increasingly important role of internal auditing in supporting and interacting with the audit committee to ensure the integrity and quality of financial reporting. Likewise, one of the roles of the audit committee is to oversee the quality of monitoring mechanisms implemented by the firm, which includes the internal audit function. However, our understanding of the relationship between the audit committee and internal auditing is limited. We fill this void by providing the first empirical evidence of the association between audit committee characteristics and the investment in internal auditing. Our analyses, from a sample of 181 SEC registrants, suggest that the investment in internal auditing (internal audit budget) is negatively related to the presence of auditing experts on the committee and the average tenure of audit committee members, but positively related to the number of audit committee meetings (a proxy for audit committee diligence). These observations suggest potential complementary and substitution effects between the audit committee and internal auditing, and thus raise important implications for future research.     

Local sites of globalisation: A look at the development of a legislative framework for auditing in Russia

The central focus of the study is on the evolution of a legislative framework for auditing in Russia. Particularly, the study looks at three episodes of audit policy making pertinent to the development of the Russian audit law and auditing standards. Largely drawing on the concept of transnational communication, the study analyses the manner in which international policy templates penetrate the local audit environment focusing on relevant actors and motivations behind it. The study concludes that the representation of globalisation as an impersonalised power ruling the world fails to convey the increasingly transnational nature of the present-day world order where, apart from the nation states, cross-border activities of various private and public actors and organisations with transnational jurisdiction increasingly shape national practice localities.     

The Strategic Options of Supreme Audit Institutions: The Case of Four Nordic Countries

Based on the theory of professional competition, this paper identifies and investigates four strategic options of supreme audit institutions (SAIs) through a case study of four Nordic national audit offices: a performance auditing strategy; a financial auditing strategy; a portfolio strategy; and a hybrid strategy. The analysis of the Nordic SAIs shows that while one SAI appears to have adopted a hybrid strategy, the portfolio strategy has been chosen by the three other SAIs, although with some variations in the portfolio. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of these strategic options for public sector auditing.     

External Audit Fee Levels in NHS Trusts

This article discusses the external auditing regime of NHS trusts and analyses the fees charged by their auditors. It adapts approaches developed in the private sector to investigate audit fees paid by NHS trusts and finds that, while similar factors are associated with the audit fees of trusts, there is no evidence of a 'Big 6' premium and trust audit fees are significantly lower than those of similar private sector organizations. Explanations for this are sought in the different natures of public and private sector audits, which indicate that differences in fees might be anticipated in the public sector, especially with the presence of a quasi-regulator in the form of the Audit Commission.     

State audit budgets and market assessments of credit risk

While financial statement auditing dominates the market for corporate auditing, internal controls and operational auditing appear to be emphasized in governmental markets. The size of the governmental audit budget (beyond the minimum level prescribed by generally accepted auditing standards) is ultimately a cost/benefit decision, with lower borrowing costs being one of several potential benefits. In testing for empirical regularities between auditing quantity and investor decisions, we found the size of the audit budget to be indeed associated with borrowing costs, but the direction of the relationship was anomalous. The anomalous positive sign for the audit budget variable could be due to self-selection bias. Self-selection bias is a confounding effect that has come up repeatedly to muddy the interpretation of empirical findings in prior (corporate) market based research on discretionary accounting variables. The supply of (discretionary) internal and operational audits may be driven by operational considerations (e.g., internal control weaknesses), which cannot be directly observed by outsiders. The bond markets may be interpreting the size of the audit budget as a signal about underlying economic characteristics that make the state a more risky investment. Alternatively, larger state audit budgets may signal less use of private sector auditors and be interpreted as less useful to investors (though, possibly more useful to governmental concerns focusing on compliance issues). Despite the inclusion of CPAs' audit fees in state budgets, the signal “inferred” for the state's municipalities may have a carryover effect onto state issues.     

Explaining the (non-) adoption of advanced data analytics in auditing: A process theory

Audit firms are increasingly engaging with advanced data analytics to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of external audits through the automation of audit work and obtaining a better understanding of the client’s business risk and thus their own audit risk. This paper examines the process by which audit firms adopt advanced data analytics, which has been left unaddressed by previous research. We derive a process theory from expert interviews which describes the activities within the process and the organizational units involved. It further describes how the adoption process is affected by technological, organizational and environmental contextual factors. Our work contributes to the extent body of research on technology adoption in auditing by using a previously unused theoretical perspective, and contextualizing known factors of technology adoption. The findings presented in this paper emphasize the importance of technological capabilities of audit firms for the adoption of advanced data analytics; technological capabilities within audit teams can be leveraged to support both the ideation of possible use cases for advanced data analytics, as well as the diffusion of solutions into practice.     

An Analysis of Submissions on Proposed Regulations for Audit and Assurance in New Zealand

After numerous collapses of finance companies in New Zealand, and widespread losses by investors, self‐regulation of the auditing profession was no longer considered adequate or acceptable internationally. The New Zealand Government sought to restore public perceptions of audit quality and investor confidence in the financial markets with proposals to change existing accounting standards and audit and assurance requirements. The proposals included a review engagement for some entities, and imposing the force of law on auditing standards. We analyse the public submissions on the auditing and assurance aspects of these proposals. Many respondents object to the proposal, requiring small public sector and not‐for‐profit entities to obtain review engagements, and to give auditing standards the force of law.     

Internal Audit Outsourcing: A Literature Synthesis and Future Directions

The internal audit function (IAF), which has traditionally been an in‐house function, is increasingly being outsourced to outside consultants, in line with global trends for other services. This study synthesises research on the outsourcing and co‐sourcing of internal audit services over the last three decades, and suggests directions for future research. It draws from professional and academic literature to highlight the nature of organisations that outsource the IAF, and the main reasons behind the outsourcing decision. The study further examines the financial impact of outsourcing, as well as its impact on financial reporting, internal audit quality and auditors’ independence. The study shows widespread adoption of outsourcing of internal auditing services, largely due to the perceived cost benefits as well as perceived improved access to specialised internal auditing resources. There are mixed findings on the impact of outsourcing of internal auditing services on quality, cost, independence and availability of resources. This study contributes to internal and external audit, corporate governance and outsourcing literature in general, by synthesising the existing research and providing a roadmap with which to understand the origins, development, present state and impact of outsourcing of internal auditing.