“Auditor Independence: Does the Gate-Keeper Function Retain Its Value?”

Advancing the dialog, one symposium at a time – I am on my way to a three-day conference of academic researchers and corporate ethics and compliance officers – the International Vincentian Business Ethics Conference – sponsored in Chicago this year by DePaul University’s Institute for Business and Professional Ethics.

The theme is Business and the Common Good – a topic under which I will present and discuss a paper, titled as above, extending from my recently-published book, “Count Down: The Past, Present and Uncertain Future of the Big Four Accounting Firms.” (Please see the book’s Amazon page – free access to the contents and introduction is available by following the “LookInside” link.)

An element of the message, as regular readers here are already familiar, is my serious concern – non-conventional but a key factor in assessing the viability and the value of the Big Audit function – that the entire complex structure of auditor independence is obsolete, has out-lived whatever value it once had, and is now detrimental to the evolution of a sustainable assurance model that is useful to the financial information community and fit for purpose in the 21^st century.

If in the neighborhood, stop by. Further up-dating will come.

 

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