Future directions of auditing research;

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Future Directions for Auditing Research
Douglas R. Carmichael
American Institute of Certified Public Accountants
In mid-1969 the AICPA's auditing research program was officially launched.1 For three years I have attempted to plan and initiate a program to provide the Committee on Auditing Procedure, the Institute membership and others in­terested
in the advancement of auditing theory and practice with evidence and information useful in reaching sound decisions on auditing problems. A num­bered
series of monographs has been authorized and additional staff have been devoted to the effort. We are also beginning to contract for studies by outside researchers. Since we firmly believe that a researcher should have his own in­dependent
commitment to a project, we would prefer to find researchers in­terested
in, and working on, a subject rather than commission an individual with no demonstrated interest in the area. The main purposes of this paper are to identify major research problems, or topics, which will be significant in the future; indicate the factors which should be considered in approaching these topics to specify the problem and select a research method; and reflect upon the relationships which should be achieved among research, theory, and practice. An underlying purpose of the paper is to interest qualified individuals in con­ducting
research for the AICPA's auditing research program.
The Relation of Practice, Theory, and Research in Auditing
Research is the meeting ground of theory and practice for any applied field of knowledge. In its most general form, the research process consists of the identification and measurement of variables that are relevant to a given problem or phenomenon and determination of the nature and strength of the interrela­tionships
among these variables. The research process cannot ignore either theory or practice.
Auditing Theory and Practice. The link between theory and practice, how­ever,
exists apart from their intersection in the realm of research. In a treatise on accounting theory, A. C. Littleton offered the following observation on this interrelationship:
Practice is fact and action; theory consists of explanation and rea­sons.
Theory states the reason why accounting action is what it is, why it is not otherwise, or why it might well be otherwise.2
While the need for and desirability of a theory of accounting have been well accepted for a respectable length of time, the subject of auditing, until re­cently,
has remained for many a completely practical field of knowledge. From
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