David J. O'Regan

In The Closing of the Auditor’s Mind?, author David J. O’Regan describes internal auditing as an important "binding agent" of social cohesion, for the accountability of individuals and organizations and also at aggregated levels of social trust. However, O’Regan also reveals that internal auditing faces two severe challenges – an external challenge of adaptation and an internal challenge of fundamental reform.The adaptation challenge arises from ongoing, paradigmatic shifts in accountability and social trust. The command-and-control, vertical hierarchies of traditional bureaucracies are being replaced in importance by networked, flattened patterns of accountability. The most challenging assurance demands of the modern era are increasingly located in three institutional domains – in the inner workings of organizations; in intermediary spaces at organizational boundaries; and in extra-mural locations. Internal auditing continues to cling, barnacle-like, to the inner workings of traditional, bureaucratic structures, and it has little to offer the emerging assurance demands on or beyond institutional boundaries. The reform challenge arises from internal auditing’s prevailing tendency toward a rigid, algorithmic, checklist mindset that suppresses practitioners’ creativity and critical thinking. This trend is increasingly narrowing internal auditing’s intellectual and moral horizons. Under the pressures of these challenges, internal auditing is struggling to fulfil its primary purpose of serving the public interest.O’Regan’s powerful book focuses on:The redistribution of social trust from traditional, hierarchical institutions to diffuse, horizontally distributed networksThe perennial validity of the classical virtues as the humane foundation of professional activityThe role of creative expertise in promoting professional wisdomThe Closing of the Auditor’s Mind? is a philosophical audit of a profession on the threshold of crisis. The book presupposes no prior knowledge of philosophy, nor indeed of auditing. Philosophical technicalities are contained in an Appendix, leaving the main text jargon-free. O’Regan provides original and striking perspectives on the malaise of modern internal auditing, and he proposes radical remedies. This captivating and well-informed book is a must-read for all who are concerned with our collective socio-economic and political well-being.

In The Closing of the Auditor’s Mind?, author David J. O’Regan describes internal auditing as an important "binding agent" of social cohesion, for the accountability of individuals and organizations and also at aggregated levels of social trust. However, O’Regan also reveals that internal auditing faces two severe challenges – an external challenge of adaptation and an internal challenge of fundamental reform.The adaptation challenge arises from ongoing, paradigmatic shifts in accountability and social trust. The command-and-control, vertical hierarchies of traditional bureaucracies are being replaced in importance by networked, flattened patterns of accountability. The most challenging assurance demands of the modern era are increasingly located in three institutional domains – in the inner workings of organizations; in intermediary spaces at organizational boundaries; and in extra-mural locations. Internal auditing continues to cling, barnacle-like, to the inner workings of traditional, bureaucratic structures, and it has little to offer the emerging assurance demands on or beyond institutional boundaries. The reform challenge arises from internal auditing’s prevailing tendency toward a rigid, algorithmic, checklist mindset that suppresses practitioners’ creativity and critical thinking. This trend is increasingly narrowing internal auditing’s intellectual and moral horizons. Under the pressures of these challenges, internal auditing is struggling to fulfil its primary purpose of serving the public interest.O’Regan’s powerful book focuses on:The redistribution of social trust from traditional, hierarchical institutions to diffuse, horizontally distributed networksThe perennial validity of the classical virtues as the humane foundation of professional activityThe role of creative expertise in promoting professional wisdomThe Closing of the Auditor’s Mind? is a philosophical audit of a profession on the threshold of crisis. The book presupposes no prior knowledge of philosophy, nor indeed of auditing. Philosophical technicalities are contained in an Appendix, leaving the main text jargon-free. O’Regan provides original and striking perspectives on the malaise of modern internal auditing, and he proposes radical remedies. This captivating and well-informed book is a must-read for all who are concerned with our collective socio-economic and political well-being.

The only comprehensive and up-to-date dictionary covering the concepts and language of auditing The Auditor's Companion combines succinct definitions of core auditing terminology with more than one hundred expansive discussions of concepts important to auditing, such as the audit society, authority, judgment, logic in auditing, the postulates of auditing, and skepticism. This collection of mini-essays includes theoretical explanations and insights, sketches of arguments, historical developments, and guidance for further reading. Transcending the framework of a dictionary, The Auditor’s Companion is a reference book in which succinct definitions and conceptual explorations combine into a coherent whole to satisfy the needs of both novice and experienced auditors. The terminology of auditing covers both the evolving, socially constructed aspects of auditing's purposes, as well as auditing's methodological basis in the abstract, enduring techniques of traditional logic. The book's coverage of terminology therefore embraces auditing’s constantly developing socioeconomic roles in addition to its perennial methodologies of reasoning. The Auditor’s Companion is the only reference tool that addresses the underlying characteristics shared by all categories of auditing.

The only comprehensive and up-to-date dictionary covering the concepts and language of auditing The Auditor's Companion combines succinct definitions of core auditing terminology with more than one hundred expansive discussions of concepts important to auditing, such as the audit society, authority, judgment, logic in auditing, the postulates of auditing, and skepticism. This collection of mini-essays includes theoretical explanations and insights, sketches of arguments, historical developments, and guidance for further reading. Transcending the framework of a dictionary, The Auditor’s Companion is a reference book in which succinct definitions and conceptual explorations combine into a coherent whole to satisfy the needs of both novice and experienced auditors. The terminology of auditing covers both the evolving, socially constructed aspects of auditing's purposes, as well as auditing's methodological basis in the abstract, enduring techniques of traditional logic. The book's coverage of terminology therefore embraces auditing’s constantly developing socioeconomic roles in addition to its perennial methodologies of reasoning. The Auditor’s Companion is the only reference tool that addresses the underlying characteristics shared by all categories of auditing.