Book Review of Disruption in the Audit Market: The Future of the Big Four, Financial Failures & Scandals: From Enron to Carillion, and The Future of Auditing

Date01 November 2020
Published date01 November 2020
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/ijau.12200
AuthorLina Li
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Book Review of Disruption in the Audit Market: The Future of
the Big Four,Financial Failures & Scandals: From Enron to
Carillion, and The Future of Auditing
Lina Li
Department of Accounting and Finance,
University of Auckland Business School,
New Zealand
Correspondence
Dr. Lina Li, Department of Accounting and
Finance, University of Auckland Business
School, New Zealand.
Email: lina.li@auckland.ac.nz
This article provides a concise review of the three books, Disruption in the Audit Mar-
ket: The Future of the Big Four (ISBN: 9780367220-66-2), Financial Failures & Scan-
dals: From Enron to Carillion (ISBN 978036-7,220-73-0), by Prof. Krish Bhaskar and
Prof. John Flower, together with Mr. Rod Sellers, and The Future of Auditing (ISBN:
9780367220-66-2) by Prof. David Hay.
KEYWORDS
Audit Failure, Audit Market, Audit Quality
1|INTRODUCTION
In this review, I discuss the books, Disruption in the Audit Market: The
Future of the Big Four,Financial Failures & Scandals: From Enron to Car-
illion, by Prof. Krish Bhaskar and Prof. John Flower, together with
Mr. Rod Sellers, and The Future of Auditing, by Prof. David Hay. The
three books share a common theme, the future of auditing and finan-
cial reporting. The two books by Bhaskar, Flower, and Sellers, which
make up the series, Disruptions in Financial Reporting and Auditing, zero
in on specific issues faced by the audit industry and regulators with a
focus on the United Kingdom, and propose policy suggestions. The
Future of Auditing focuses on the economics behind the value of
auditing, the opportunities and challenges facing the profession, and
the future of auditing research.
All of the authors are notable in their respective fields. Prof.
Bhaskar, the principal author of the series, was founding Professor of
Accounting at the University of East Anglia, United Kingdom, and pre-
viously held positions at the London School of Economics and the
University of Bristol. He has published more than 50 books and many
peer-reviewed papers. He has also worked extensively in the IT, con-
sulting, investment banking, automotive, and forecasting sectors. Prof.
Flower was formerly Professor of Accounting at the University of
Bristol and Director of the Centre for Research in European Account-
ing, Brussels, prior to his retirement. He has extensive research expe-
rience in financial reporting and has published scholarly critiques and
many radical books. Mr. Sellers, OBE, FCA, who likes to be regarded
as a contributor to the series, has extensive experience in senior
financial and corporate roles in the industry. Prof. Hay is Professor in
Auditing at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Prof. Hay's con-
tribution and dedication to auditing research have been immense. In
2017, Prof. Hay and his coauthors won the Notable Contribution to
the Auditing Literature Awardpresented by the Auditing Section of
the American Accounting Association. He is the editor-in-chief of the
International Journal of Auditing and serves on the editorial board of
many research journals. Prof. Hay has also had extensive professional
auditing experience.
In the following sections, I discuss in more detail what each book
contains, and their contributions at the end.
2|DISRUPTION IN THE AUDIT MARKET: THE
FUTURE OF THE BIG FOUR
This book provides a critical examination of the state and future of
the Big Four in the United Kingdom. The authors believe that change
is necessary to address the expectation gap and the perception of
deterioration in audit quality due to a lack of auditor independence
and competition in the market.
The first chapter gives a brief introduction of the book and the
team behind the series. Chapter 2 provides an overview of the
accounting and auditing profession. Topics discussed include the
changes to auditing in the United Kingdom around audit partner rota-
tion, and the restrictions around nonaudit services. The chapter also
provides descriptive information about the top audit firms in the
Received: 10 June 2020 Revised: 16 June 2020 Accepted: 16 June 2020
DOI: 10.1111/ijau.12200
Int J Audit. 2020;24:431435. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ijau ©2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 431

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