LIABILITY OF EXTERNAL AUDITORS: A SYSTEMATIC APPROACH

Abstract

The main objective of the paper is to present factors relevant to the descriptive model of liability of external auditors. Detailed analysis of theory and practices of many countries in the field enabled to define currently dominating approaches. Their application to few prepared case studies showed that they could not reliably predict the outcome for a particular case or could not provide an opposite result to what was actually achieved. This failure happened because liability is still analysed only from a few different and isolated views but not as a complex and an even multidisciplinary problem. On the basis of analysis a systematic approach for the description of liability of external auditors is proposed. Novelty of the proposed approach is in statement that liability of external auditor in particular case is determined by interference of numerous factors. Four groups of such factors for the descriptive model were selected and described. Application of argued approach to the same cases achieved better explanatory results.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.em.17.2.2165