Relying on an ethnographic study conducted in the French branch of a big audit firm and using a psychodynamic perspective to interpret the collected data, we show that auditors’ sense of comfort (Pentland, 1993) arises only at the end of the audit process, and that the rest of the time, public...

Field research is increasingly being employed by audit researchers around the world including in North America. However, given that many doctoral programs, especially in North America, devote little or no time to this method, understanding what constitutes good auditing field research is...

Based on a series of 27 semi-structured interviews conducted with audit partners and managers in Canada, our study examines how audit firms have responded and adapted to the implementation of CPAB inspections. We show that CPAB inspections have resulted in the emergence of a new and autonomous...

Drawing on qualitative field studies, this literature review synthesizes research on the formation of professional identities, from the pre-exposure phase of recruitment, up the hierarchy to staff-, manager- and partner-level work at auditing firms, to the level of those who leave professional...