Thesis (Ph.D.)--Management, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008. / Committee Chair: Church, Bryan; Committee Member: Comiskey, Eugene; Committee Member: Haizheng, Li; Committee Member: Kuang, Xi; Committee Member: Schneider, Arnold

Thesis (M.Phil.)--City University of Hong Kong, 2005. / "Submitted to Department of Accountancy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy" Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-100)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 1993. / Title from title page screen, viewed March 10, 2006. Dissertation Committee: John R. McCarthy (chair), Anthony L. Ostrosky, David L. Tucker, Jeffrey Hecht, Rodney P. Riegle. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 102-112) and abstract. Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of New South Wales, 2003. / Also available online.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 86-90).

Auditors need to feel comfortable when signing the audit in order to produce comfort to society. Today, most companies use complex IT-systems that require that an IT-audit is performed. Rarely auditors possess the sufficient knowledge to perform the IT-audit and therefore an external part of the audit team is involved, namely IT-auditors. It can therefore be problematic for the auditors to ensure the quality of this part of the audit. In this thesis we aim to widen the understanding of how IT-auditors affect how auditors experience that they become comfortable. To investigate the addressed problem the following research question is asked: How do financial auditors experience that they become comfortable with IT-auditors? Ten auditors were interviewed on how they experience the different senses of the Comfort theory to become comfortable. With these senses as background, the study’s aim is to gain a perception of how auditors in Sweden perceive that they become comfortable with IT-auditors, which makes the auditor comfortable to sign the audit. The conclusions are that certain characteristics, such as technical and social skills together with good communication and understanding of the IT- auditors work is perceived as important factors for auditors to become comfortable

Little research has been done on the personality of internal auditors. However, there does exist a negative stereotype. They are seen as hostile and unsympathetic. The purpose of this research was to see if the negative stereotype was indeed true and to see if undesirable behavior could be changed through training.

Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Through the audit of annual reports, auditors contribute to the credibility of financial information. To ensure trustworthiness, the auditor has to be independent from the audited company. Auditors’ independence has been a very broadly discussed topic for many years. The most discussed threat to auditors’ independence is the provision of non-audit services by audit firms. But there are other threats to auditors’ independence besides the provision of non-audit services, which are not that frequently discussed so far. There is a tendency that companies hire employees of their current audit firm, which can imply a threat to auditors’ independence. This threat is addressed in the present research paper. The purpose of this paper is to examine if banks, as important capital providers, are aware of the threat to auditors’ independence through the client employment of previous auditors. This study uses qualitative data, collected by a web-based self-completion questionnaire with open questions. This questionnaire was sent out to corporate account officers in German banks via email. The analysis of these results shows that banks perceive the client employment of previous auditors as a threat to auditors’ independence. But even though banks perceive this as a threat, most of the respondents do not see any possibility to counteract the dangers posed by such a move. The main reason is the missing capability to gather knowledge about the employment behavior of a company. Hence, the client employment of previous auditors often stays undetected. Such a move may affect the mind-set of the bankers in a theoretical way, but has no influence regarding their daily business with the customer firms. Different measures exist to counteract the threat to auditors’ independence as well as the negative impacts caused by the client employment of previous auditors. These countermeasures refer to all three parties – (I) the company, (II) the audit service providers and (III) the bank. Especially regulation, both of the audit and the bank, but as well voluntary acting can be consulted. Further research needs to be done in order to proof the results of this study preferably in a quantitative way. An extension to how banks act instead on looking how they perceive the client employment would be interesting in order to draw more conclusions and develop further countermeasures.