Accounting Firm Culture and Governance: A Research Synthesis

This paper summarizes research related to accounting firm culture and governance. While perennially important, this topic has immediacy due to the intention of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) to consider revisions of the current U.S. interim auditing standards on quality control. Our purposes are to bring together several disparate lines of research on this broad topic in order to identify specific areas of insufficient research. We review literature related to the roles of culture and subcultures within audit firms, and the relation between culture and audit quality. We also consider governance and control mechanisms, including policies related to consultation, independent monitoring boards, ethics training, and acculturation. Throughout the paper, we offer suggestions for future research based on the current status of the literature and the recent environmental changes in the auditing profession.