Discourse and audit change: Transformations in methodology in the professional audit field
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
ISSN: 0951-3574
Article publication date: 30 October 2007
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to develop understanding of how the pursuit of practice change in auditing, especially in relation to audit methodologies, is conveyed, presented, reflected in and enabled (or hindered) through discursive, textual constructions by audit firms.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses an extensive series of interviews with audit practitioners, educators and regulators and a textual study of the content, concordances and narratives contained in two key audit methodological texts published by KPMG, one of the Big Four accounting firms.
Findings
Major discursive shifts in audit methodologies are identified over the last decade, with the dominant audit discourse switching from one of “business value” to one of “audit quality”. Such shifts are analysed in terms of developments in the wider, organisational field and discursive (re)constructions of audit at the level of the audit firm.
Originality/value
The identified shifts in auditing discourse are important in a number of respects. They demonstrate the significance of discursive elements of audit practice, contradicting influential prior claims that methodological discussions and developments in audit over the last decade had focused consistently on notions of “audit quality”. Methodologically, they demonstrate the importance and opportunities for knowledge development available by combining institutional, field‐wide analysis with a detailed discursive study of individual interviews and texts.
Keywords
Citation
Khalifa, R., Sharma, N., Humphrey, C. and Robson, K. (2007), "Discourse and audit change: Transformations in methodology in the professional audit field", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 20 No. 6, pp. 825-854. https://doi.org/10.1108/09513570710830263
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2007, Emerald Group Publishing Limited