Newsletter January 2021

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Latest publication: 5th FAR International Conference booklet

Also in this newsletter

• Online FAR Masterclass by Prof. dr. Ann Vanstraelen on "The drivers and impact of audit committee involvement on audit quality", on 5 March 2021
• Recording of the online FAR Masterclass by Prof. dr. Mark Peecher (4 December 2020) available
• FARview podcast #12 with Prof. dr. Mark Peecher
• Presentation working paper of the 2016B05 project by Professor Hardies at AMY (2021 Auditing Section Virtual Midyear Meeting, organized by the American Accounting Association)
• SSRN Top 10 ranking
• Round Table discussion on Audit Quality Indicators
• Upcoming events – save the dates!

Latest publication: 5^th FAR International Conference booklet
FAR recently published the fifth FAR International Conference booklet.  

The theme of the 2020 conference, which was held online on 22 June 2020, due to the Corona circumstances, was intentionally broad: ‘academic and practitioner insights into audit quality’. This theme seamlessly fits with FAR’s main purpose, which is facilitating knowledge development and knowledge dissemination concerning audit quality. The presentations provided a representative cross section of current FAR projects, in which knowledge is created as well as shared. During five sessions, the following researchers presented their FAR research findings and their views on current issues:

• Prof. dr. Wim Gijselaers
• Prof. dr. Anna Gold
• Tammie Schaefer PhD
• Prof. dr. Marshall Geiger
• Prof. dr. Jean Bédard
• Prof. dr. Alain Schatt

In the booklet, we proudly present the summaries of these five conference presentations. At the end of each article, a selection is included of three Q&A’s from the Q&A sessions that took place after each presentation. Each Q&A session was led by a young prof from one the accounting firms BDO, Deloitte, EY, Mazars and PwC. The summaries also include links to the conference presentations and the follow-up podcasts.

You can read the full booklet here.

Online FAR Masterclass by Prof. dr. Ann Vanstraelen on "The drivers and impact of audit committee involvement on audit quality", on 5 March 2021

On Friday, 5 March 2021,from 3:30 - 5:00 pm CET, FAR will organize an online Masterclass on "The drivers and impact of audit committee involvement on audit quality" by Ann Vanstraelen, who is a Professor at Maastricht University.

Registration is now open via Eventbrite, via this link and closes on 4 March 2021, 11:00 pm CET.

What is this Masterclass about? 
The key objectives of the research project about this subject are to understand, in the Dutch context: (1) the determinants of audit committee involvement with a particular focus on audit committee leadership, social cohesion of the audit committee and its fit in the overall board; (2) the impact of audit committee involvement on audit input, audit process, and audit output factors; and (3) the impact of audit committee involvement on pre-audit financial reporting quality and the difference in financial reporting quality pre- and post-audit.

Registration is open until Thursday 4 March, 11.00 pm CET via this link.

Please note that this Masterclass will be in English.

Recording of the online FAR Masterclass by Prof. dr. Mark Peecher available

On Friday 4 December 2020, Mark Peecher (Professor of Accountancy at Illinois, Gies College of Business) presented an online Masterclass on "Assessing and addressing fraud risk based on earnings calls.
The Masterclass was based on the preliminary findings of Mark’s FAR-study with Jessen Hobson, Sebastian Stirnkorb and Devin Williams.

The edited version of the Masterclass is now available; you can watch it here.
The key take-aways of the Masterclass will follow shortly.

Click here if you would like to read more about his FAR project.

FARview podcast #12 with Prof. dr. Mark Peecher

The 12th episode of our FARview series is now online. In this podcast Mark Peecher answers the following questions: What is the societal impact of fraud? What percentage of auditors have actually encountered fraud in their career? And how has the fraud topic evolved in the area of auditing, over the past decades?

You can listen to the podcast here.

Presentation working paper of the 2016B05 project by Professor Hardies at AMY (2021 Auditing Section Virtual Midyear Meeting, organized by the American Accounting Association)

On Friday 15 January 2021, dr. Sanne Janssen presented the paper “Auditors’ Professional Skepticism: Traits, Behavioral Intentions, and Actions” at the Auditing Midyear conference.

Auditors’ professional skepticism is critical to applying auditing standards and achieving audit quality. Prior research provides measures of skepticism in general, and auditor-specific trait skepticism. Other research develops and tests a theoretical model of auditor professional skepticism, positing factors that contribute to skeptical intentions and skeptical actions. In this paper, the research team provides an empirical test of these measures and theories, examining individual differences and personality traits that affect trait-based professional skepticism, testing the associations between factors related to behavioral intentions toward skepticism, and revealing their collective association with skeptical actions.

We are proud that papers that are written with our support are recognized and presented to such a wide audience.

You can read the working paper here.

SSRN Top 10 ranking

We were informed that a working paper from the 2016B05 Hardies project was recently listed on SSRN's Top Ten download list for: Auditing e-Journal.

It is the working paper “Auditors’ Professional Skepticism: Traits, Behavioral Intentions, and Actions”, which was presented at the AMY (see previous item in this newsletter)

Good to see that so many of you find the research on this subject, and therefore the working paper, so interesting. You can download and read the paper on SSRN here.

Round Table discussion on Audit Quality Indicators

In 2020, the Finance Minister identified the need for measures that give an indication of the quality of the audit of financial statements. He has instructed the ‘Kwartiermakers’ (Quartermasters) to examine the formal introduction of such measures (Audit Quality Indicators, AQIs), and the working group of ‘Kwartiermakers’ is at work.

Next March, the Monthly Bulletin for Accountancy and Business Economics (MAB) will devote an issue to the Audit Quality Indicators (AQIs). How do we measure audit quality and who uses such measures? While the articles in the MAB will touch on these questions from various angles, the MAB would also like to know what the significance of AQIs is for the various stakeholders around the audited organization.

To this end, the Foundation for Auditing Research and MAB organized a roundtable meeting on Monday 25 January 2021.

The stakeholders were:

On behalf of the ‘Kwartiermakers’ Arnout Traas was present in the meeting as listener.

The report of this meeting will also appear in the March issue of the MAB (Dutch).


Upcoming events – save the dates!
Online FAR Masterclass – Prof. dr. Ann Vanstraelen
On Friday 5 March 2021 FAR will host an online Masterclass by Ann Vanstraelen on “The drivers and impact of audit committee involvement on audit quality”
Registration is now open. You can read more in the first item of this newsletter.

Online FAR Masterclass – Prof. Dr. Christian Hofmann
In an earlier stage, we informed you that this Masterclass is scheduled on Friday 28 May 2021. Unfortunately, we have to inform you that we decided to reschedule as on that date the EAA is organizing its annual congress. We have not yet set a new date, so please stay tuned.

FAR International Conference 2021
We hope to see you at the FAR Conference on 21 and 22 June 2021. Please save the dates in your calendar!”¯ 

Do you have suggestions on how to improve our newsletter or news you would like to share with us? Please let us know by sending an email to info@foundationforauditingresearch.org