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Abstract:
In 1997, the North American accounting Institutes launched the WebTrust seal of assurance, aimed at providing comfort to consumers who buy online. This paper uses actor-network theory to better understand how and why the construction of the need for WebTrust was difficult. Specifically, we examine how WebTrust was developed and promoted through the use of rhetorical devices such as market research data that emphasized consumer concerns of electronic transactions and consumer interest in Web assurance.

Our analysis also provides insights into the difficulties that WebTrust proponents had in building a network of support for the seal in the marketplace. For example, managers of online organizations objected to WebTrust on the grounds that customers are neither aware of the seal nor interested in actively learning of it. They also objected because, in their view, consumer fears are not justified given that e-commerce information technology (which relies on encryption) virtually eliminates the risk of unsecured transmission of data. Furthermore, accountants' support of the Institutes' initiative was decreasing, and a significant number of them tended to be quite critical of the way in which WebTrust was implemented. These criticisms suggest that the credibility of the Institutes in the eyes of their members in sustaining concerted competitive efforts in the marketplace is far from being established.

WebTrust, E-commerce, Actor-network theory, Professionalization

Abstract:
This paper reviews literature on audit committees in order to evaluate the extent to which committees are effective in terms of strengthening financial reporting. Specifically, we examine academic research on the topic of audit committee effectiveness published in a variety of accounting journals from 1994 until 2008. In particular, our review investigates from a meta-perspective the results reported in studies which examine the relationship between certain audit committee characteristics and measures of audit committee effectiveness. A large proportion of the studies report a positive association between effectiveness and the following characteristics: presence of the audit committee; audit committee members’ independence; and members’ competencies. However, the number of meetings and the size of the committee are not frequently associated positively with audit committee effectiveness. Our review also highlights important gaps in literature. Most studies are relational and explanatory; very few studies are exploratory, descriptive or transformative. Psychological and sociological perspectives of analysis are neglected. Knowledge is scant on audit committees in jurisdictions which do not follow the Anglo-Saxon model of corporate governance. Further, research on dynamics surrounding audit committee processes is scarce. As a result of these gaps in literature, our review aims to sensitize accounting researchers about the appropriateness of extending the boundaries of research on audit committees: methodologically, theoretically, and geographically speaking. Further, by summarizing research results on the effectiveness of various audit committee attributes, our review can be useful for regulators in terms of assessing the impact of extant regulation or in terms of implementing new regulation. Regulators and practitioners, however, should be careful in interpreting the results; 59 percent of the studies we reviewed focus on US public companies and most of the other studies rely on data gathered in countries characterized by the Anglo-Saxon model of corporate governance.

Audit committee, Corporate governance, Effectiveness, Regulation, Review of literature

Abstract:
Journal rankings and performance measurement schemes tend to become increasingly influential within many fields of research, thereby consolidating the prevalence of performativity on the life and research endeavours of many academics. The latter are nowadays often pressured to publish in "top" journals to ensure they have a displayable level of performance. Drawing from literature on identity, this paper introduces and details the construction of the academic performer - a representation of identity which is increasingly typical of what it means today to be an actor in academia, in terms of attitudes and behaviour. Fundamentally speaking, this paper constitutes a critique of a detrimental tendency in academia, that is to say the excessive spread of performance measurement practices and the flow of superficiality and conformity they consolidate.

Accounting academia, Intellectual conformity, Representations of identity, Journal rankings, Performance measurement practices, Superficiality

Abstract:
This paper examines attitudes about professionalism in accounting shortly before the debacles of Enron and Andersen. Interviews with experienced Canadian Chartered Accountants (CAs) conducted mostly in late 2000 and early 2001 indicate significant doubts about the notion of auditor independence and a relatively high degree of uncertainty about the future of the profession. Accountants also expressed significant difficulties in describing the basic features of what it meant to be a professional accountant. Based on these observations we introduce and detail the construct of professional insecurity. Relying on Giddens' theoretical developments on the role of trust and systems of expertise in today's society, we reflect about the significance and implications of CAs' professional insecurity, particularly in terms of its impact on accountancy's ability to secure its jurisdictional boundaries. Our thesis is that the difficulties that accountants experienced in their day-to-day life in sustaining a coherent sense of self-identity were particularly stressful to them given people's fundamental need for coherence, and significantly affected the capacities of their profession to hold jurisdiction.

Accounting profession, Auditor independence, Professional identity, Professional insecurity, Systems of expertise

Abstract:
This paper examines the attempts by the North American Accounting Institutes to develop a new market in e-commerce assurance based on their claims to professional expertise through the WebTrust project. Employing actor-network theory in an in-depth longitudinal field study we investigate how WebTrust was originally developed and promoted as a seal of business-to-consumer assurance, which largely failed to generate support in the marketplace. Proponents were subsequently able to generate more interest in the eyes of managers of online organizations by reshaping WebTrust as a flexible set of principles and criteria for systems advice and business-to-business assurance. Our analysis suggests that attempts to expand the accounting profession's domain of expertise reflect a trial and error process where the outcome achieved may be far from the vision that motivated the Institutes into undertaking the project in the first place. We further show that the initial network of support for such projects can be quite fragile and dynamic as various actors reposition themselves around the shifting meanings attributed to the project.

E-commerce, professionalization, new assurance services, expertise claims

Abstract:
This paper aims to improve understanding of the construction of controllability boundaries surrounding the financial audit function, through a set of interviews with former members of Arthur Andersen reflecting upon the collapse of their firm. Our focus is how members, in light of their firm’s downfall, assess the abilities of public accounting firms to control financial audit work and auditor behaviour (i.e., organizational controllability), and the abilities of outside, non-accounting bodies to regulate financial auditing (i.e., regulatory controllability). The investigation is predicated on interviews with twenty-five former partners and employees of Arthur Andersen, mostly in Canada and the United Kingdom. our qualitative analysis indicates that a majority of interviewees adheres to the view that financial auditing can best be controlled via a network of bureaucratic and clan controls established within accounting firm organizations, without any direct involvement from the part of regulators. A number of interviewees, though, consider that a reinforcement of outside regulation is necessary to discipline financial auditors. In spite of these differences, the vast majority of interviewees consider that financial auditing is controllable (via organizational or regulatory control), which is of interest, given their spatial and emotional proximity from the controversial collapse of their firm. Also, most participants do not see the professional association as a useful or relevant party in helping the professional accounting community manoeuvring in times of turmoil. Important governance issues, ensuing from our analysis, are discussed.

Arthur Andersen, Controllability boundaries, Financial auditing, Organizational controls, Regulation

Abstract:
This paper provides insights into the dynamics underlying the construction of controllability boundaries surrounding the financial audit function, through an analysis of the sensemaking narratives of former members of Arthur Andersen reflecting upon the collapse of their firm. Our focus is how members, in light of their firm’s downfall, assess the abilities of public accounting firms to control financial audit work and auditor behaviour (i.e., organizational controllability), and the abilities of outside, non-accounting bodies to regulate financial auditing (i.e., regulatory controllability). The investigation is predicated on interviews with twenty-five former partners and employees of Arthur Andersen, mostly in Canada and the United Kingdom. Our qualitative analysis indicates that a majority of interviewees adheres to the view that financial auditing can best be controlled via a network of bureaucratic and clan controls established within accounting firm organizations, without any direct involvement from the part of regulators. A number of interviewees, though, consider that a reinforcement of outside regulation is necessary to discipline financial auditors. In spite of these differences, the vast majority of interviewees consider that financial auditing is controllable (via organizational or regulatory control), which is of interest given their spatial and emotional proximity from the controversial collapse of their firm. Also, most participants do not see the professional association as a useful or relevant party in helping the professional accounting community manoeuvring in times of turmoil. Important governance issues, ensuing from our analysis, are discussed.

Arthur Andersen, Controllability boundaries, Financial auditing, Organizational controls, Regulation, Sensemaking

Abstract:
This paper seeks to better understand interdisciplinary movements in the making. Our investigation focuses on the processes through which a network of support surrounding Michel Foucault's ideas originally developed in the sociological and organizational stream of accounting research. Drawing on the sociology of translation, we first examine how a network of support emerged around the journal Accounting, Organizations and Society (AOS), which is generally perceived as the main vector of dissemination of sociological and organizational accounting research. Our investigation then focuses on how Foucault's ideas, a few years after the founding of AOS, came to the attention of a group of accounting academics in the United Kingdom - a group in which the editor-in-chief of AOS was a key actor. We also examine how a network of support surrounding Foucault's ideas subsequently developed in the greater accounting research community. Our analysis emphasizes the role of epistemological uncertainty in the constitution of networks of support around journals and ideas, and the role of trials of strength (Latour, 1987) in fuelling or mitigating this uncertainty, thereby influencing actors' interests and commitments to particular networks. Our analysis also highlights the critical role that imitation and social differentiation play in the travel of ideas between scientific fields and the creation of scientific knowledge.

Epistemological uncertainty, Interdisciplinary movements, Michel Foucault, Networks of support, Sociology of translation, Travel of ideas

Abstract:
Auditing is often depicted in scientific as well as professional literature as a practice subject to conflicting influences, such as mechanisation vs. flexibility, and professionalism vs. commercialism. This paper examines how auditors actually make the client-acceptance decision in action, in the midst of these conflicting influences. The investigation was conducted via a field study at three Big Six firms located in Canada.

The results show that in all firms the decision processes are largely flexible, being characterised by a high degree of informal communications and the adaptation of the firm's rules and decision aids to circumstances. Furthermore, while commercialism exerts in one firm a significant influence on the decision processes, in the two other firms the decision processes are mostly consistent with professionalism. This finding seems to contradict the deprofessionalisation claims that are often made vis-a-vis the auditing profession within the academic literature: in the majority of the firms, professionalism appears to be significantly influential when auditors make client-acceptance decisions.