The Disruption of Blockchain in Auditing - a Systematic Literature Review and an Agenda for Future Research

Abstract

Purpose - This paper presents a systematic literature review, including content and bibliometric analyses, of the impact of blockchain technology (BT) in auditing, to identify trends, research areas, and construct an agenda for future research.
Design/methodology/approach – We include studies from 2010 to 2020 in our Structured Literature Review (SLR), using accounting journals on the Scopus database, which yielded 40 articles with blockchain and auditing at its core.
Findings – One of the contributions of our analyses is to group the prior research, and therefore also the agenda for future research, into three main research areas: 1) Blockchain as a tool for auditing professionals to improve business information systems to save time and prevent fraud; 2) Smart contracts enabling Audit 4.0 efficiency, reporting, disclosure and transparency; 3) Cryptocurrency and Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) as a springboard for corporate governance and new venture financing. Our findings have several important implications for practice and theory.
Implications for research and practice – The results of our study emphasize that 1) the disruption of blockchain in auditing is in a nascent phase and there is a need for compelling empirical studies and potential for the involvement of practitioners; 2) there may be a need to reconsider audit procedures especially suited for digitalisation and BT adoption; 3) standards, guidelines, and training are required to pivot towards and confront the challenge BT will represent for auditing; and 4) there are two sides to the BT coin for auditing, enthusiasm about the potential and risk upon implementation. These practical implications can also be seen as a template for future research in a quest to align theory and practice.
Originality/value – Our SLR facilitates the identification of research areas and implications, forming a useful baseline for practitioners, professionals and academics, as we draft the state of the art on the disruption of blockchain in auditing, highlighting how BT is changing auditing activities and traditions.

Keywords: blockchain, auditing, accounting, distributed ledger technology, smart contracts, cryptocurrency, ICOs, token