Audit Support Systems and Decision Aids: Current Practice and Opportunities for Future Research

Abstract:     
Technological changes and audit firm mergers over the last decade raise the question as to whether the decision aids reported in prior research are representative of the types of decision support currently employed in audit firms. To address this issue, a study was conducted of the audit support systems used at five international audit firms and the types of decision support embedded within their audit support systems. The concepts of system restrictiveness and audit structure were combined to develop a definition of audit support system restrictiveness, and the firms' systems were classified using this definition. Substantial differences in audit support system restrictiveness were found to be associated with the type of decision support embedded within these systems. In order to guide future research, existing audit decision aid studies were mapped to the types of embedded decision support and several future research opportunities were identified.

Keywords: audit support systems, system restrictiveness, audit firm structure, decision aids

JEL Classification: M49

Accepted Paper Series