During the 1960s and 1970s a remarkable series of books was produced by academic staff in the field of accounting at the University of Sydney. It was a period when academic research was largely analytical rather than empirically-based. For the most part, the interests of academics at Sydney were largely directed at questioning the status quo - either in the way accounting or auditing was practiced, or in the conventional wisdom expressed in textbooks of the time. The Sydney Accounting Classics series reflects the diversity of interests of the 'Sydney school' at that time. It also recognises the tremendous impact of the foundation professor of accounting, R.J. Chambers. This reprint series ensures that the ideas developed during this period remain available to new generations of scholars and researchers. The Sydney Accounting Classics series is an initiative of the Accounting Foundation, in association with Sydney University Press. Auditing as Independent Authentication: From the cover of the 1987 edition: 'This is a penetrating exposition of the role of auditing in controlling quality of the financial information on which any interested person may assess the performance and prospects of firms'.

The Third Edition of this successful text includes extensive changes, based on feedback from students and lecturers. There is a discussion of auditing and the law beyond the issue of third-party liability; and more coverage of recent developments in audit methodologies and techniques. New chapters include a survey of developments in audit automation, a discussion of the nature and development of the audit market, both in the United Kingdom and the European Union, and an assessment of the impact on auditing of the Cadbury Report on corporate governance, with particular attention to the role of audit committees. Each chapter includes questions for discussion.

The only comprehensive and up-to-date dictionary covering the concepts and language of auditing The Auditor's Companion combines succinct definitions of core auditing terminology with more than one hundred expansive discussions of concepts important to auditing, such as the audit society, authority, judgment, logic in auditing, the postulates of auditing, and skepticism. This collection of mini-essays includes theoretical explanations and insights, sketches of arguments, historical developments, and guidance for further reading. Transcending the framework of a dictionary, The Auditor’s Companion is a reference book in which succinct definitions and conceptual explorations combine into a coherent whole to satisfy the needs of both novice and experienced auditors. The terminology of auditing covers both the evolving, socially constructed aspects of auditing's purposes, as well as auditing's methodological basis in the abstract, enduring techniques of traditional logic. The book's coverage of terminology therefore embraces auditing’s constantly developing socioeconomic roles in addition to its perennial methodologies of reasoning. The Auditor’s Companion is the only reference tool that addresses the underlying characteristics shared by all categories of auditing.

In The Closing of the Auditor’s Mind?, author David J. O’Regan describes internal auditing as an important "binding agent" of social cohesion, for the accountability of individuals and organizations and also at aggregated levels of social trust. However, O’Regan also reveals that internal auditing faces two severe challenges – an external challenge of adaptation and an internal challenge of fundamental reform. The adaptation challenge arises from ongoing, paradigmatic shifts in accountability and social trust. The command- and- control, vertical hierarchies of traditional bureaucracies are being replaced in importance by networked, flattened patterns of accountability. The most challenging assurance demands of the modern era are increasingly located in three institutional domains – in the inner workings of organizations; in intermediary spaces at organizational boundaries; and in extra-mural locations. Internal auditing continues to cling, barnacle- like, to the inner workings of traditional, bureaucratic structures, and it has little to offer the emerging assurance demands on or beyond institutional boundaries. The reform challenge arises from internal auditing’s prevailing tendency toward a rigid, algorithmic, checklist mindset that suppresses practitioners’ creativity and critical thinking. This trend is increasingly narrowing internal auditing’s intellectual and moral horizons. Under the pressures of these challenges, internal auditing is struggling to fulfil its primary purpose of serving the public interest. O’Regan’s powerful book focuses on: The redistribution of social trust from traditional, hierarchical institutions to diffuse, horizontally distributed networks The perennial validity of the classical virtues as the humane foundation of professional activity The role of creative expertise in promoting professional wisdom The Closing of the Auditor’s Mind? is a philosophical audit of a profession on the threshold of crisis. The book presupposes no prior knowledge of philosophy, nor indeed of auditing. Philosophical technicalities are contained in an Appendix, leaving the main text jargon-free. O’Regan provides original and striking perspectives on the malaise of modern internal auditing, and he proposes radical remedies. This captivating and well-informed book is a must-read for all who are concerned with our collective socio-economic and political well-being.

The Institute of Internal Auditors' (IIA's) International Professional Practices Framework (IPPF) is the authoritative guidance on the internal audit profession. The IPPF presents current, relevant, internationally consistent information that is required by internal audit professionals worldwide. Uppdates for 2012 include three new practice advisories, six new practice guides, and Global Technology Audit Guides (GTAG).

The collected writings of Walter P. Scheutze here probe the most fundamental problems of corporate financial reporting, argue the case for accounting reform and propose well-informed solutions to these problems.

Since 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.