Accountability and Audit

Abstract:

Recent high profile corporate failures in the United Kingdom have raised the issue of the effectiveness of audit and weaknesses in the audit market to the fore. This project investigates the institutional drivers of apparent increased levels of audit failure. Explanation of increased levels of audit failure rests in the configuration of economic, cultural, regulatory arrangements that create unaccountable opportunity spaces where audit failures may take place. The causes of audit failure therefore must be understood in organizational, institutional and historical context. The emphasis in the project is on the relations and interactions which lead to audit failures.