Auditing practice and education in the information age: Challenges & opportunities

This book sets out to critically explore and examine the potential consequences of e-business for auditing practice and education aiming to: investigate the impact of e-business on the technical aspects of financial auditing; explore the potential consequences of e-business for the auditing profession; and examine the consequent response to e-business changes.The investigation into the above objectives is approached through the employment of a number of different research methods: semi-structured interviews; postal questionnaires; and content analysis. The findings from this study make three main contributions to the fields of auditing practice, auditing professionalisation and accounting education. First, the research demonstrates the potential electronic transformation of financial audit practice. Secondly, the study predicts the possible jurisdictional dispute between financial auditors and IT auditors over e-business audit services. Finally, the study shows that universities are somewhat ‘under-achieving’ with respect to the e-business education provided to accounting undergraduates.