Op 9 juli 2020 heeft de ESB (Economisch Statistische Berichten) een dossier gepubliceerd met als titel “Accountants doorgelicht”. Dit ESB-dossier heeft tot doel bij te dragen aan de kennisdeling op het gebied van accountancyonderzoek. Er is veel onderzoek gedaan naar de kwaliteit van accountantscontroles en de veranderende rol van de accountant als gevolg van technologische ontwikkelingen en een sterkere focus op duurzaamheid in het bedrijfsleven. Toch is deze wetenschappelijke kennis tamelijk onbekend in het maatschappelijke debat. Met bijdragen van o.a. Arnoud Boot, Bart Stellinga, Mijntje Lückerath-Rovers, Robin Litjens en Leo van der Tas, Barbara Baarsma, Willem Buijink en Sanne Janssen wordt een verdere nadruk gelegd op het belang van de accountant en de rol in het bedrijfsleven.

There is a lot of variability in audit committee characteristics and their effectiveness. The overall impression is that audit committees are doing a good job and that they are improving over time. An important remaining question is what really drives audit committee involvement in determining audit quality. Therefore, with his project team members, in this FAR-study, Ganesh Krishnamoorthy is looking at the determinants of audit committee involvement in the external audit quality and importantly at the impact of the involvement on final audit quality. What is the state of affairs?

In this newsletter: • Online FAR Conference on 22 June 2020 – summary: “Issuing Going Concern Opinions Resembles COVID-19 approach” • Online FAR Masterclass by Prof. dr. Eddy Cardinaels and Prof. dr. Kristof Stouthuysen on “The impact of auditor interactions on audit quality” on 5 June 2020 • FARview: new podcast #5 with Professor Bart Dierynck (Dutch) • Article FAR researcher Prof. dr. Anna Gold in EY's magazine "Zicht op toezicht" (Dutch) • Save the date: Next year’s FAR International Conference on 21 and 22 June 2021 • Other

The yearly International FAR Conference was held on Monday June 22. Given the unprecedented circumstances, the event took place in an online, Corona-proof setting. Still nearly 200 participants from all over the world registered for this virtual meeting. About 50 percent were academics and the other 50 percent consisted of, for example, practitioners, regulators and government officials. The theme of the conference was purposefully broad: ‘academic and practitioner insights on audit quality’. This theme seamlessly fits with FAR’s main purpose: facilitating knowledge development and knowledge dissemination concerning audit quality.

An audit firm can be considered a high reliability organization, just like a hospital, an airline or a nuclear power plant. If an auditor makes a wrong judgment then it can have very serious negative consequences, even if it is about money rather than directly about human lives.

In this newsletter: Reminder: Online FAR Conference on 22 June 2020 - Academic and practitioner insights on audit quality Reminder: Online Masterclass by Prof. dr. Eddy Cardinaels and Prof. dr. Kristoff Stouthuysen on “The impact of auditor interactions on audit quality” on 5 June 2020 FAR Literature Review & Practice Note: “Audit Committee Involvement and Audit Quality” by Ann Vanstraelen, Rogier Deumes, Sanne Janssen, Ganesh Krishnamoorthy, Mathijs van Peteghem, Caren Schelleman and Ulrike Thuerheimer FARview podcasts Other