The shifting and permeable boundaries of auditing: Evidence from early Australian examination papers

This article provides insights into the shifting and permeable character of auditing and is based on analysis of 214 auditing examination papers in the archives of Certified Practising Accountants Australia for the period 1889–1952. Utilising the theoretical concept of ‘boundary-work’, we position examination papers as key discursive documents for articulating the competencies required of candidates at the time of their candidature. In contrast to conventional depictions of auditing as being mainly concerned with fraud and error detection and financial statement verification, we show that advisory work was a key theme in almost one third of all the questions studied. Interestingly, the notion of auditor independence was entirely absent from the examination regime. The analysis also shows that the emphasis on advisory work began to decline in the late-1930s as the boundary-defining knowledge and competencies associated with auditing began to narrow towards an almost exclusive focus on the audit as independent attestation.