Success in failure? Reflections on the changing Spanish audit environment

The 1990s in Spain have witnessed a significant shift in attitudes towards the role of auditing, with promises of more transparent reporting being replaced by talk of audit expectations gaps. This paper explores the changing atmosphere, both through an analysis of one of the most notorious scandals of recent times - involving the Banco Español de Credito (‘Banesto’) - and a more general review of the way the Spanish profession has responded to such downturns in public expectations of auditing. While at first sight, the profession appears to have become more defensive and the audit environment more competitive, the multinational accounting firms do appear to have strengthened their position in the Spanish audit market. Intriguingly, despite public expressions of concern with the quality and capabilities of auditing and the imposition of large fines on audit firms for inadequate audit work, proposed ‘solutions’ for improving audit quality include the establishment of a self-regulated audit regime and reductions in auditor liability. The Spanish experience allows for some timely reflections on the significance of an audit expectations gap and highlights the importance of viewing the audit function from an international perspective.     

The corporate image of auditors in a developing audit market within the EU: the case of Spain

This paper examines the images of audit firms in Spain. Spain offers a valuable research context in that it is a relatively new audit market and one where the top company audits are not totally dominated by the large multinational audit firms, allowing for a comparison of the images of such firms against those associated with smaller, national audit firms. The findings of this survey are pertinent given the current level of debate internationally over the role, regulation and quality of auditing services and concerns over the potential impact of recent corporate scandals on auditor reputation.

Our study shows that the images of audit firms in Spain have differed on a number of dimensions, mostly concerned with the pricing of audit services and the spread of audit clients. Significantly, no differences were obtained in relation to the perceived competence or ethical standing of the large multinational and Spanish, national audit firms. The study also shows the areas of the audit firm's corporate image where the actual image of the firm differs significantly from that desired by the management of their clients.     

Reactions of the Spanish capital market to qualified audit reports

Since mandatory auditing of financial statements was first established in Spain, very few studies have been conducted to test the information content of audit reports in the Spanish capital market. The aim of this study is, then, to test empirically whether there is a relationship between audit qualifications and stock prices in the context of the Spanish market. We have used the event study methodology for this purpose. Our findings show that qualified audit reports do not have information value for investors.     

The development of the role of the audit in the Czech Republic

As the economies in Central Europe have commenced their transformation from centrally planned to market-led economies, each country has implemented a new legal framework for accounting and auditing. This provides a unique opportunity to research the implementation of aspects of accounting and auditing well known to Western market economies into different economic contexts. In particular, it provides an opportunity to revisit the role of the independent audit. This paper contributes to the research on the developing of auditing in Central Europe by analysing the role of the audit in the Czech Republic. It covers aspects of both regulation and practice and, in order to gain more understanding of how the audit role is developing in the Czech Republic, focuses on three areas: influences on the Czech audit legislation; the position of the audit report and perceptions of the objectives of the audit in the Czech Republic. After a brief review of the published literature on accounting and audit in the Czech Republic, the paper studies some of the country's recent economic and legislative developments in relation to auditing. These developments are put into the context of auditing before and after the ‘Velvet revolution’ of 1989. The paper then concentrates on the influences on the development of Czech audit legislation by comparing aspects of the Czech audit legislation with the German and UK equivalents. This comparison highlights some anomalies in the Czech legislation. The Czech audit legislation is then put into the local context based on a review of the contents of the audit report and its publication with interviews among a selection of users and preparers about how the audit is perceived.     

Prüfungsforschung im deutschen Sprachraum – Bestandsaufnahme, Entwicklungstendenzen und Herausforderungen

National and European regulatory initiatives like the Bologna process frame the conditions for research activities at universities. The changed conditions increase the pressure to publish articles in highly-ranked, mostly international academic journals. It seems likely that expectations of the international research community will affect the applied research methods, the regional focus of the research object and the tendency towards co-authorship. Against this background, the present article conducts a literature review in order to examine the publication activities of German-speaking auditing researchers and discusses further explanations for the observed developments. We examine 308 journal articles by German-speaking auditing researchers between 2000 and 2011. Our analysis documents an increase in the number of articles over time as well as an increase in articles in highly ranked journals. In recent years a higher share of the research applies empirical methods, in particular statistical interference. A dominant topic of the articles is the audit market and environment. Thematic focuses vary over time, partly due to day to day events. The research object remains focused on a European and especially national context in many cases. We present selected key research results and finally discuss challenges for research activities coming along with the described developments.     

Accountant's Truth: Knowledge and Ethics in the Financial World

Performance auditing, or value for money (VFM) auditing, has been a long-standing component of accountability in public administration. During the 1980s and 1990s performance auditing has allegedly been increasingly adopted in the new public management. While there has been much research on public management and performance auditing in central government, local government has been relatively neglected in the literature. Municipalities and counties in local government have an important role in public sector service production in most European countries, and especially in the Nordic countries. It is therefore surprising that performance auditing in this context has received so little scholarly attention. This study is aimed at filling some of this gap. The purpose of this comparative study is, therefore, to explore how performance auditing practices, including performance measurement, are used to assess and verify value for money in local government and to enhance the accountability of municipalities and counties. This study analyses how informants from both auditors and auditees in Finland and Norway perceived the efficiency of conducting performance audits in local government. Despite some problems related to the quality of the performance audit reports, the informants perceived performance audit to function as a useful, rational public management tool.     

一种基于AHP的联网审计绩效评价方法

IT绩效审计是目前审计领域研究的热点问题,联网审计是IT审计的一个重要研究方向,研究联网审计的绩效评价问题具有重要意义。针对目前我国开展联网审计的现状、特点以及需要提出的一种基于AHP的联网审计绩效评价方法可分为四个步骤进行:基于对联网审计的实施成本、效益、审计风险控制等因素的分析建立联网审计绩效评价的AHP层次结构模型;构造判断矩阵,确定各评价指标的权重;在此基础上建立联网审计的绩效评价模型;通过算例分析该方法的有效性,为评价联网审计的绩效提供一种有效的方法。     

Contracts,compacts and the common law Some problems with New Right theories of human resource management Contracts,compacts and the common law

The study of HRM in Spain is flourishing. We have seen the major international journals begin to reflect the work of Spanish academics in this area. The standard is high and the international network of Spanish scholars is increasingly developed. This paper attempts to review the work that is published in English and to see how Spanish HRM systems are represented externally. It tries to locate the discussion of the HRM research in Spain within its academic and social context. The authors argue that there are some characteristics marking this debate and development, which suggest that the study of HRM in Spain is hugely Americanized in terms of methods and content. The lack of synergies with sociology and political economy are evident. Moreover, the shortage of rigorous qualitative research, apart from that on employment relations and the sociology of work, raise some serious issues. The manner in which a discourse of HRM in Spain has evolved leaves many questions and issues unaddressed. While evaluating what we believe to be a relevant selection from HRM publications on Spain in English by Spanish authors in the last 15 years we do not attempt to present them all here. Instead, we try to isolate some representative articles. In sum, the paper aims to fill a gap in the Spanish HRM literature by studying the main debates, the research issues that are given priority and the methodological options. As a conclusion, we can say that it is necessary to encourage academic discussions regarding the features of the management of HR in Spain. In this sense it should be noted that the mainstream HRM approaches formulated in American Business Schools do not necessarily fit within the Spanish context.     

Swedish auditors' view of auditing: Doing things right versus doing the right things

Abstract

This paper aims to describe and analyse the thought patterns of Swedish auditors with regard to the way in which they audit information provided by listed companies, and possible changes in their duties. Eighty-two auditors were interviewed using the repertory grid technique and open-ended interview questions. To check the stability in the thought patterns of the respondents, six retests were made and, to validate the findings, an expert panel and two reference groups consisting of auditors and other representatives of the accounting and auditing professions were consulted. Distinct patterns emerged in the mean grid of the thought patterns of all the respondents. One dimension was related to the time perspective, past versus future, and another to auditing practice. Auditors devote a relatively long time and considerable effort to objects that can be satisfactorily verified, but not to objects that they perceive as being of primary importance to investors and other stakeholders. This inconsistency in the thought patterns of the auditors is similar to the gap between auditing in practice and stakeholders' expectations of auditing, which is a phenomenon frequently found in previous research. Moreover, the auditors were very reluctant to make statements about any information except that elicited according to current practice. In addition to this traditional view, the auditors appear to be more concerned about their own situation than that of the parties they are meant to be protecting. Doing things right seems to be more important than doing the right things. That the auditors spend much time on objects that they themselves do not consider to be of primary importance for the investors and other stakeholders, and their unwillingness to change current practice is of great concern in Sweden, where there is a strong belief in self-regulation of the auditing profession.     

审计学学科属性、学科体系及学科建设的若干问题探讨

审计现象是审计学科的独特研究对象，审计学科形成了相对独立的理论体系、知识基础和研究方法，因此，它是独立学科；审计学科还未发展到成为学科门类的规模，而现有一级学科都无法容纳它，因此它是独立的一级学科。审计学科具有交叉性质，它与经济学门类、法学门类都有一定的相似性，但是与管理学门类相似性更多，因此应该属于管理学门类。根据审计现象的细分，审计学科的二级学科包括基本审计学、审计技术方法学、政府审计学、内部审计学、民间审计学、军队审计学。相关的政府部门可以通过各种措施来推动审计学科建设，包括学科定位及方向确定，学位点、学科队伍、科学研究、人才培养、学科基地等的建设。     

论信息系统审计准则在我国的需求与发展

信息系统审计是计算机审计的两个发展方向之一.我国信息系统审计准则的研究与规范尚处于起步阶段.在关涉内容、详略程度、审计实质和完善程度方面,我国的信息系统审计准则与国外存在较大差距,需要大幅完善,以满足社会需求.我国信息系统审计准则的发展策略主要有:合理借鉴国外成熟的准则体系,全面设计准则完善方案,科学建立准则内容框架.     

Structural change and female participation in recent economic growth: a multisectoral analysis for the Spanish economy

ABSTRACT

Economic growth has different impacts on gender gaps. In recent decades the growing participation of women in the labour market has reduced the gender employment gap, however a notable gender pay gap still persists standing at around 15% on average in the European Union. In this context, this paper evaluates the impact of economic growth patterns on the evolution of gender employment and pay gaps. First, sectorial feminization, direct discrimination, and structural change factors are identified and evaluated as ways to explain changes observed in the gender pay gap. Second, we explore the influence of demand, technology, and intensity factors on the evolution of employment combining gender, skill, sectorial, and temporal perspectives. As a case study, we examine Spanish economic growth from 1980 to 2007 and the influences on the size, composition (by skill), and distribution (by sector) of female and male employment, as well as the consequences for gender gaps. Our results show that structural change contributed to reduce the gender employment gap in Spain; while the evolution of the gender pay gap is less conclusive, following a sort of inverted U-shape. This paper shows the suitability and potential of the multisectorial input–output framework to analyse structural and technological changes and their impacts on the gender employment and pay gaps.     

国有企业审计监督体系构建研究

在我国现行国有资产管理体制下,国有企业不仅要接受国有资产监管体系内部多种形式的监督,而且还要同时接受政府审计、社会审计和内部审计的监督。由于各种审计主体职责重复、各自为政,在导致审计资源严重浪费的同时,还造成许多国有企业长期缺乏有效的审计监督。本文从我国国有资产监管体系的现行架构出发,对政府审计、社会审计、内部审计及其他多种审计主体的分工与配合问题进行了研究,为国有企业建立合理有效的审计监督体系提供参考。     

审计实践教学平台构建与应用探讨

现有的审计实践教学在课堂讲授、案例教学、审计模拟实验、审计实习等方面存在诸多亟待解决的问题,这造成审计课程实践环节的教学效果较差,因而审计实践教学方式的改革创新势在必行.为此,应该在系统研究开设审计实践课程的可行性、认真规划审计实践课程教学计划的前提下,将案例教学、审计模拟实验、审计实习三者有机结合,构建“三位一体”立体式的审计实践教学模式.     

Does audit report information improve financial distress prediction over Altman's traditional Z‐Score model?

We analyze empirically the usefulness of combining accounting and auditing data in order to predict corporate financial distress. Concretely, we examine whether audit report information incrementally predicts distress over a traditional accounting model: the Altman's Z‐Score model. Although the audit report seems to play a critical part in financial distress prediction because auditors should warn investors about any default risks, this is the first study that uses audit report disclosures for predicting purposes. From a dataset of 1,821 Spanish distressed private firms, we analyze a sample of distressed and non‐distressed firms and develop logit prediction models. Our results show that while the only accounting model registers a classification accuracy of 77%, combined models of accounting and auditing data exhibit considerably higher accuracy (about 87%). Specifically, our findings indicate that the number of disclosures included in the audit report, as well as disclosures related to a firm's going concern status, firms’ assets, and firms’ recognition of revenues and expenses contribute the most to the prediction. Our empirical evidence has implications for financial distress practice. For managers, our study highlights the importance of audit report disclosures for anticipating a financial distress situation. For regulators and auditors, our study underscores the importance of recent changes in regulation worldwide intended to increase auditor's transparency through a more informative audit report.     

从公共受托责任演进看国家审计本质变迁——兼论审计“免疫系统”论

审计本质是审计理论中的一个重要要素,它回答了"什么是审计"和"为什么审计"的问题.只有准确认识审计的本质,才能准确把握审计的内在规律,正确指导审计实践.结合公共受托责任变化来考察国家审计本质的变迁,可以得出国家审计的本质是国家经济社会运行的"免疫系统"的结论,也可以发现审计作为"免疫系统"需要面对的新挑战.     

浅析注册会计师的执业判断

近年来,随着社会公众对审计质量要求的提高,审计风险的加大以及注册会计师承担法律责任的案件不断上升,执业判断正在引起我国审计理论界和职业界的关注。注册会计师执业判断研究是审计的研究领域之一,本论文首先对执业判断的基本理论进行探讨,而后进一步研究执业判断的过程与方法,通过研究可以深入理解注册会计师执业判断问题,提升我国注册会计师的执业判断水平。     

Review of empirical research on rotation and non-audit services: auditor independence in fact vs. appearance

Confidence in the processes of corporate reporting and auditing has rapidly decreased recently due to front-page accounting scandals in both the United States and Europe. The goal of audit regulations, such as the Sarbanes Oxley Act in the United States (US) and the 8th Directive in the European Union (EU), is to restore public trust in the auditing process. Along with other regulatory aspects, requirements related to audit partner rotation and bans on providing concurrent non-audit services were implemented to maintain auditor independence, both in fact and in appearance. However, the implementation of audit regulation implies that increased requirements are able to enhance the failed audit function. Empirical research should help to understand the impact of these two regulatory aspects and indicate their effectiveness in maintaining auditor independence. Thus, we outline the newest empirical research related to audit partner rotation and non-audit services and independence in fact or in appearance. Overall, we conclude that prior research does not point to one particular requirement that would most effectively restore trust in the audit function. Rather the existence of multiple threats to auditor independence might demand a combination of several requirements to maintain auditor independence. Thus, more research is needed to investigate the joint effects of different threats to auditor independence, e.?g., non-audit fees and audit partner tenure.     

研究型审计：内涵、类型及运用条件

从促进有效开展研究型审计的目的出发,对研究型审计的内涵、类型划分和运用条件进行理论阐释。从内涵来说,研究型审计是以研究的方式开展审计工作,不但是从审计准则的具体运用、悖论问题的处理和新型审计业务的规律总结这些角度研究审计工作,更是从业务营运、审计发现问题的原因及改进对策这些角度研究审计客体;从类型来说,研究型审计可以区分为保障审计质量的研究型审计和拓展审计价值的研究型审计,不同类型的研究型审计,其研究目的、研究内容和强调的审计职能均存在差异;从运用条件来说,关于审计客体方面的足够专业胜任能力和恰当的激励机制是运用研究型审计的基本条件。