In this article, we extend the research on the public interest to non-audit engagements performed by accounting firms and public accountants. Our thesis is that non-audit engagements, as private goods, require a distinct approach to the public interest than auditing. We suggest that a public...

This paper explores auditors’ responses to unexpected, systematic changes in circumstances. We use the COVID-19 outbreak, a “critical incident” that disrupted all year-end audits in China, to understand this underexplored research area. Based on 24 semi-structured interviews, we first...