Translating audit materiality in disclosure: Competing logics and different outcomes in Australia and New Zealand

Michael Kend and Lan Anh Nguyen

CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, 2023, vol. 95, issue C

Abstract: Within the accounting profession, PwC has introduced innovative practices related to audit materiality disclosures, and subsequently, some other auditors have accepted and followed PwC’s voluntary disclosure policy in audit reports, whereas others have rejected it. In this study we report on why external auditors in Australia and New Zealand have developed different audit materiality disclosure practices. As such, we explore the interplay between competing institutional logics, to shed light on the ways in which audit disclosure practices differ. Our findings indicate that, in New Zealand, both Deloitte and KPMG have been influenced by stakeholders pressuring them to accept and then follow the new voluntary disclosure practice introduced by PwC. In Australia, however, there has been resistance towards voluntary audit materiality disclosures. We examine claims about the various risks surrounding these audit disclosure practices. The study conveys how the circulation of ideas in the audit domain is influenced by a quest for tangibility (of claims), as mediated by the interplay between institutional logics, which has led to differences between audit disclosure practices in Australia and New Zealand.

Keywords: Audit reports; Materiality; Institutional entrepreneurship; Institutional logics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: M42 M48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1045235422000879
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:crpeac:v:95:y:2023:i:c:s1045235422000879

DOI: 10.1016/j.cpa.2022.102502

Access Statistics for this article

CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING is currently edited by Marcia Annisette, Christine Cooper and Yves Gendron

More articles in CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().