The Audit Society: Rituals of VerificationSince the early 1980s there has been an explosion of auditing activity in the United Kingdom and North America. In addition to financial audits there are now medical audits, technology audits, value for money audits, environmental audits, quality audits, teaching audits, and many others. Why has this happened? What does it mean when a society invests so heavily in an industry of checking and when more and more individuals find themselves subject to formal scrutiny? The Audit Society argues that the rise of auditing has its roots in political demands for accountability and control. At the heart of a new administrative style internal control systems have begun to play an important public role and individual and organizational performance has been increasingly formalized and made auditable. Michael Power argues that the new demands and expectations of audits live uneasily with their operational capabilities. Not only is the manner in which they produce assurance and accountability open to question but also, by imposing their own values, audits often have unintended and dysfunctional consequences for the audited organization. |
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Academic Audit accounting argued Audit Commission audit explosion audit knowledge audit practice audit process audit risk audit society auditable performance Auditing Practices Board auditors become benefits brand valuation certification Chapter checking compliance concept conflict context created critical Day and Klein decoupling defined definitions difficult economic effectiveness efficiency emerged environmental auditing evaluation example exist expectations gap expertise external audit fatal remedy field Financial financial auditing financial statements firms first formal fraud guidance HEFC Higher Education Supplement ICAEW idea of audit influence inspection inspectors institutional institutionalized issue judgement knowledge base management system managerial medical audit monitoring objectives official operational organizational organizations performance measures Pollitt practitioners problem procedures production professional programmes quality assurance reflects reform regulation relation requires risk role sampling scientific significant social specific standards statistical sampling structures suggests technical tion transactions trust value for money verification VFM auditing