Business risk auditing: A regressive evolution?-A research note

Abstract

Business risk auditing (BRA) has been much publicised as revolutionary. The essence of the phenomenon, and the actual impact on practice, however, are unclear. This note revisits some pre-BRA interview evidence investigating auditor engagement with business risk. The evidence suggests that, pre-BRA, big-six auditors were already familiar with concepts of business risk although they were uncertain as to how precisely business risk informed the audit process. This suggests that BRA was evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, change and that the engagement of recent international standards with business risk is not significantly different from that of big-six auditors pre-BRA. The BRA era in audit methodology might be conceptualized as one of regressive evolution. Copyright 2008 ElsevierCopyright of Accounting Forum (Elsevier) is the property of Elsevier Science and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)