Auditors and Auditing in the United States of America since the 1920s

The driving force behind this project was the perceived problems of the company audit following the collapse of Enron and WorldCom, together with their auditors, Arthur Andersen. The problems with the audit include the so called ‘expectations gap’ between what the public believe the audit is for – mainly to uncover fraud - and what the accountants claim to deliver, together with the commercial pressures on the independence of auditors. <br> <br> The project set out to generate data via questionnaires and interviews with American accountants which would throw light on these issues. The results identify and quantify changes in for example: the social and educational background and training of American CPAs; their audit techniques; their opinions as to the purpose of the audit; their relationships with their clients; their attitudes to and explanations for the recent scandals, and to the regulatory regime in the US. The data will also allow comparisons with British accountants based on similar previous research.<br>