Business Commons^™

Audit Firm Executives Under Pressure: A Discursive Analysis Of Legitimisation And Resistance To Reform, Michael Harber, Warren Maroun, Alan Duboisee De Ricquebourg

Business Papers and Journal Articles

The UK audit profession is facing a crisis of public trust and legitimacy following a series of high-profile audit failures. This resulted in the executive leadership of UK audit firms being summoned before a House of Commons Select Committee as part of its inquiry into ‘the future of audit’. During this inquiry the audit executives walked a tightrope, to both defend the social contract from an existential threat and attempt to influence policy reforms in their favour. This paper draws on ‘neutralisation techniques’ from deviance theory and the ‘grammar of legitimation’ from legitimacy theory to inform a discursive analysis of …

Audit Quality Implications Of Regulatory Change In South Africa, Harina Ndaba, Michael Harber, Warren Maroun

Business Papers and Journal Articles

Purpose: This paper explores how technical constructions of audit practice are influenced by mandatory audit firm rotation (MAFR) regulations. The paper responds to calls for additional research on how external regulation influences audit quality and supplements the predominately quantitative research dealing specifically with firm rotation and its relevance for audit quality.

Design/methodology/approach: Data are collected from South Africa which is the latest jurisdiction to adopt MAFR (from 2017). Detailed interviews with 49 participants comprising 24 audit partners and 25 non-auditors are conducted to explore how MAFR can impact audit quality. For this purpose, audit quality is defined according …