This paper investigates factors associated with audit firm positions on Auditing Standards Board issues during the three-year period ending during 1984. The major finding is that firms with relatively structured audit technologies tend to favor proposed statements while firms with relatively unstructured technologies do not. Audit firm size is not associated with firm position. Also, Big 8 firms favoring proposed statements have lower staff-to-partner ratios and concentrate less in auditing. The staff-to-partner ratio is negatively associated with technology. The results' implications for auditing profession organization studies and auditing and financial reporting research are investigated.

Auditing, Sampling, Substantive test, Dollar-Unit sampling

William R. Kinney, Jr., The Predictive Power of Limited Information in Preliminary Analytical Review: An Empirical Study, Journal of Accounting Research, Vol. 17, Studies on Auditing-Selections from the "Research Opportunities in Auditing" Program (1979), pp. 148-165

Internal control, Internal control system, Decision making, SAS No. 1

Auditing, Sampling plan, Materiality, Dollar-Value sampling

Conglomerates, Earnings forecasting, Earnings predictability, Earnings disaggregation

Standards for evaluating the performance of outlet managers in companies with numerous outlets are difficult to formulate because. of the differences in the profit potentials of the various outlets. Differences in measured contribution margins among outlets may be explained by differences in the characteristics of the locations and facilities of the outlets as well as the differences in the performance of the outlet managers. Since the location and facilities of an outlet are not controllable by the outlet manager, the effects of these environmental factors should be extracted before evaluating the performance of the manager. For a small number of outlets, central marketing officials can be familiar with the potentials of the outlets and can subjectively adjust for the potential differences. However, for a larger number of outlets, subjective adjustments for potential differences are not feasible. The performance measurement and evaluation system proposed here extends responsibility accounting to make objective intraperiod performance standards valid and operational. The extended system incorporates statistical techniques to provide a means for estimating the effects upon an outlet's measured performance' of the nonmanagerial environmental factors associated with an outlet. Since these environmental factors are not controllable by the outlet manager, they can be eliminated and the manager held responsible only for the effects of those factors controllable by him.

Environmental model, Performance measurement, Managerial contribution

A brief review of some precursors of modern auditing scholarship and changes in the current environment and their implication is provided with the intent to stimulate future research in auditing. After distinguishing between the attestation and checking functions, the paper offers some research questions which may be considered by auditing researchers in the future.