We conducted a field study of the process by which a company and prospective auditors court each other and enter an engagement. The Request-for-Proposal (RFP) process we observed had been triggered by an audit partner rotation and governed by recent legislation empowering the audit committee to...

Certification of financial reports is tightly regulated with the intent to ensure the quality of this service. In order to place this market within a larger perspective, Part I of this paper presents archival data on certification activity in the economy. The finding of widespread availability...

Certification of financial reports is tightly regulated with the intent to ensure the quality of this service. In order to place this market within a larger perspective, Part I of this paper presents archival data on certification activity in the economy. The finding of widespread availability...

We examine determinants of audit engagement profitability using proprietary data from the national office of a Big 4 public accounting firm in Canada. We verify through interviews with senior audit partners that the audit realization rate is the primary measure used to assess engagement level...

We report results of a field investigation of the process by which clients and prospective auditors acquire information about each other and enter an engagement. Often we assume that knowledge required for contracting is readily known by contracting agents, while in fact it must be acquired...

We report results of a field investigation of the process by which clients and prospective auditors acquire information about each other and enter an engagement. Often we assume that knowledge required for contracting is readily known by contracting agents, while in fact it must be acquired...