Audit and the Pursuit of Dynamic Repair
利用Sennett的“动态修复”概念，重新思考法定财务审计，提出审计应被视为独立的价值功能，而非依赖财务报表的次要功能，并探讨审计标准制定中的产品创新空间。
Is audit capable of evolving into something that is more consistently valued and socially purposeful? We address this fundamental question, utilizing Sennett’s (2008). The Craftsman. New Haven: Yale University Press) notion of ‘dynamic repair’ to present four key ways of thinking differently about the statutory financial audit and its core conceptual foundations. First, we highlight the capacity for audit to be regarded as a first-order function of value in its own right rather than a second-order function inherently dependent on corporate financial statements. Second, we call for a change in the assumed relationship between audit and assurance, arguing that assurance should be treated as a sub-set of audit rather than the other way round. Third, we consider the scope for audit standard setting to provide a space for ‘product’ innovation. Finally, we advocate moving beyond presumptions that the current statutory financial audit serves ‘the public interest’ to asking deeper questions about the type of society we want to inhabit and whether audit has a more direct and valued contribution to make. Collectively, such re-conceptualizations offer a broader canvas for audit innovation and can help to sustain the promise of current audit reform initiatives proposed by the Brydon Report and others.