IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/xrs/sfbmaa/04-20.html

Evaluation and Response to Risk in International Accounting and Audit Systems: Framework and German Experiences

Author

Listed:
  • Wüstemann, Jens

    (Lehrstuhl für ABWL und Wirtschaftsprüfung/Sonderforschungsbereich 504)

Abstract

This paper presents arguments with respect to the evaluation and response to risk, placing an emphasis on German corporate governance. It starts by discussing opportunities and limitations of the audit risk approach in detecting accounting and economic risks. Hereafter individual responses to material risks are analyzed by considering potential shortcomings arising from systematic deviations from rational behavior. In the main part, it will be argued that German corporate governance stresses internal reporting duties, some of which could serve as models for future international standards on auditing. By internalizing the information flows regarding substantial risks, negative effects of publicizing this kind of information can be reduced (e.g. self-fulfilling prophecies and litigation risks). This also facilitates a more open communication with monitoring parties. But to ensure the effectiveness of such an internal control, it is essential that the reporting duties of the auditor and the management towards the board members are legalized and put into compulsory form. In an appendix, legislative responses to audit failures in Germany since 1870 until today are summarized. Legal requirements and their development regarding the statutory audit in general, auditor independence, the auditor�s report and the audit opinion are presented.

Suggested Citation

  • Wüstemann, Jens, 2004. "Evaluation and Response to Risk in International Accounting and Audit Systems: Framework and German Experiences," Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications 04-20, Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim;Sonderforschungsbereich 504, University of Mannheim.
    • Handle: RePEc:xrs:sfbmaa:04-20
    Note: Financial support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, SFB 504, at the University of Mannheim, is gratefully acknowledged. I thank Christopher Koch, Matthias Maucher and Christina Reifschneider for valuable research support.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sfb504.uni-mannheim.de/publications/dp04-20.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Einhorn, Hj & Hogarth, Rm, 1981. "Behavioral Decision-Theory - Processes Of Judgment And Choice," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(1), pages 1-31.
    2. Rabin, Matthew, 2002. "A perspective on psychology and economics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(4-5), pages 657-685, May.
    3. Rajan, Raghuram G & Zingales, Luigi, 1998. "Financial Dependence and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 559-586, June.
    4. Leuz, Christian & Wüstemann, Jens, 2003. "The role of accounting in the German financial system," CFS Working Paper Series 2003/16, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    5. Jennifer Arlen & Matthew Spitzer & Eric Talley, "undated". "Endowment Effects Within Corporate Agency Relationships," Yale Law School John M. Olin Center for Studies in Law, Economics, and Public Policy Working Paper Series yale_lepp-1016, Yale Law School John M. Olin Center for Studies in Law, Economics, and Public Policy.
    6. Cohen, J & Kida, T, 1989. "The Impact Of Analytical Review Results, Internal Control Reliability, And Experience On Auditors Use Of Analytical Review," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(2), pages 263-276.
    7. Birnberg, Jacob G. & Shields, Michael D., 1984. "The role of attention and memory in accounting decisions," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 9(3-4), pages 365-382, October.
    8. Reinhard H. Schmidt & Marcel Tyrell, 1997. "Financial Systems, Corporate Finance and Corporate Governance," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 3(3), pages 333-361, November.
    9. Daniel Ellsberg, 1961. "Risk, Ambiguity, and the Savage Axioms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 75(4), pages 643-669.
    10. Herbert A. Simon, 1955. "A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 69(1), pages 99-118.
    11. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    12. Shanteau, James, 1989. "Cognitive heuristics and biases in behavioral auditing: Review, comments and observations," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 14(1-2), pages 165-177, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wüstemann, Jens, 2004. "Evaluation and response to risk in international accounting and audit systems : framework and German experiences," Papers 04-20, Sonderforschungsbreich 504.
    2. Gerd Gigerenzer, 1997. "Bounded Rationality: Models of Fast and Frugal Inference," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 133(2), pages 201-218, June.
    3. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    4. Manski, Charles F., 2013. "Public Policy in an Uncertain World: Analysis and Decisions," Economics Books, Harvard University Press, number 9780674066892, march.
    5. Daniele SCHILIRÒ, 2013. "Bounded Rationality: Psychology, Economics And The Financial Crises," Theoretical and Practical Research in the Economic Fields, ASERS Publishing, vol. 4(1), pages 97-108.
    6. Daniele Schilirò, 2012. "Bounded Rationality And Perfect Rationality: Psychology Into Economics," Theoretical and Practical Research in the Economic Fields, ASERS Publishing, vol. 3(2), pages 99-108.
    7. Christina Leuker & Thorsten Pachur & Ralph Hertwig & Timothy J. Pleskac, 2019. "Do people exploit risk–reward structures to simplify information processing in risky choice?," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 5(1), pages 76-94, August.
    8. S. Larsson & G. R. Chesley, 1986. "An analysis of the auditor's uncertainty about probabilities," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 2(2), pages 259-282, March.
    9. Sadok Mansour, 2007. "Modelisation Du Risque Dans Les Methodologies D'Audit : Apport Des De La Psychometrie," Post-Print halshs-00543217, HAL.
    10. Enrico G. De Giorgi & David B. Brown & Melvyn Sim, 2010. "Dual representation of choice and aspirational preferences," University of St. Gallen Department of Economics working paper series 2010 2010-07, Department of Economics, University of St. Gallen.
    11. Jacobs Martin, 2016. "Accounting for Changing Tastes: Approaches to Explaining Unstable Individual Preferences," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 67(2), pages 121-183, August.
    12. Feduzi, Alberto & Runde, Jochen, 2014. "Uncovering unknown unknowns: Towards a Baconian approach to management decision-making," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 124(2), pages 268-283.
    13. F. Knobloch & J. -F. Mercure, 2016. "The behavioural aspect of green technology investments: a general positive model in the context of heterogeneous agents," Papers 1603.06888, arXiv.org.
    14. Bruno S. Frey & Reiner Eichenberger, 1989. "Should Social Scientists Care about Choice Anomalies?," Rationality and Society, , vol. 1(1), pages 101-122, July.
    15. repec:dau:papers:123456789/3528 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Eddie Dekel & Barton L. Lipman, 2010. "How (Not) to Do Decision Theory," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 257-282, September.
    17. Aharoni, Yair & Tihanyi, Laszlo & Connelly, Brian L., 2011. "Managerial decision-making in international business: A forty-five-year retrospective," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 135-142, April.
    18. Ronald Schettkat, 2022. "The Behavioral Economics of John Maynard Keynes," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 21192.
    19. Dohmen, Thomas, 2014. "Behavioral labor economics: Advances and future directions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 71-85.
    20. Pech, Wesley & Milan, Marcelo, 2009. "Behavioral economics and the economics of Keynes," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 891-902, December.
    21. Ronald Schettkat, 2018. "Revision or Revolution? A Note on Behavioral vs. Neoclassical Economics," Schumpeter Discussion Papers sdp18005, Universitätsbibliothek Wuppertal, University Library.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:xrs:sfbmaa:04-20. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Carsten Schmidt The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Carsten Schmidt to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sfmande.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.