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Thomas CarringtonAssociate Professor

Publications

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

  • The Client as a Source of Institutional Conformity for Commitments to Core Values in the Auditing Profession*

    2019. Thomas Carrington (et al.). Contemporary Accounting Research 36 (2), 1077-1097

    Article

    Based on an analysis of questionnaire data from a large sample of certified auditors, we examine how the main type of client being served influences auditor conformity to the core values of their profession. We contrast auditors of (primarily) listed companies with auditors of (primarily) single member companies, that is, limited liability companies with a single owner who typically is also the only employee of the company. We show that these two groups of auditors differ in the extent to which they hold certain values important (i.e., show compliance) and in the closeness with which these values are held within each group of auditors (i.e., show convergence). Our results also demonstrate that the type of client predominantly served by an auditor is relevant for explaining variation in professional values both within and between organizational contexts. In addition, we offer a new theoretical approach to classifying auditors and analyzing their commitment to core values of the profession. We analyze commitment to values via both compliance and convergence, two often overlooked aspects of conformity to value commitments in professions.

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  • Sais work against corruption in Scandinavian, South-European and African countries

    2019. Kristin Reichborn-Kjennerud (et al.). The British Accounting Review 51 (5)

    Article

    International pressures on Supreme Audit Institutions (SAls) to fight corruption are increasing. Nevertheless, SAls lack a clear mandate and may appear ineffective in their anticorruption work. Using an institutional approach, this paper compares the cases of seven SAls from Scandinavian, South-European and African countries to better understand how these institutions perceive their role in fighting corruption. Our article demonstrates that the way SAls organize their work cannot simply be explained by the countries' level of corruption. Rather, efforts to fight corruption reflect the ways in which coercive, mimetic and normative pressures interact with institutional logics to guide the SAls' work. We conclude that the influence of INTOSAI still appears to be limited, and it needs increased institutional recognition if it is to be effective in harmonizing SAls' work worldwide to fight corruption.

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  • Consulting or holding to account?

    2017. Thomas Carrington. Statsvetenskaplig Tidskrift 119 (1), 91-109

    Article

    This paper explores the impact of the performance audits of a national audit office, Sweden’s Riksrevisionen, on the public administration it audits. It does so by inves- tigating how the auditee perceives their relationship with the auditor in terms of accountability and consulting with the aim to explore the role of the national audit office as an agent of change in the entities of the public administration. Riksrevi- sionen is found to take a consulting approach in their performance audits and the stronger the relationship is perceived as consulting, the higher the propensity to change. The same relationship is found with regard to the accountability relation- ship when the accountability pressure is perceived internally in the organization. When the accountability pressure is external no relationship with change can be corroborated. 

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  • Auditing Stories about Discomfort

    2007. Thomas Carrington, Bino Catasús. The European Accounting Review 16 (1), 35-58

    Article

    The sociological strand of auditing research has pointed to some difficulties of the American Accounting Association's (AAA) (and mainstream) definition asserting that auditing is about ‘objectively obtaining and evaluating evidence regarding assertions about economic actions’ (AAA, The Accounting Review, Suppl., 1972, p. 18). Instead, auditing has been described as rituals of verification that produce comfort. In this paper we seek to widen the understanding of the production of comfort by investigating the processes that end up as an audit. The processes are investigated by addressing the research question: how do auditors perceive the production of comfort? Twenty seniors were interviewed on the subject of identified discomforts in the audit process. The interviews were designed to identify the main allies and foes in the processes that make up an audit. In the presentation of the interviews, comfort theory is employed as a device to interpret the seniors' statements in terms of comfort as state, comfort as relief and comfort as renewal. Our conclusion is that the state of comfort that is demanded to become comfortable with an audit changes in relation to which actors get involved in the comfort production. Attaining a state of comfort involves a decision that sufficient discomforts have been relieved. In addition, as the definition of what it means to attain a state of comfort changes, more or less comfort as relief is required, and the audit, understood as becoming comfortable, is renewed. Suggested by comfort theory, the paper in this way develops the idea of auditing as a comfort-producing activity by examining three dimensions of audit comfort.

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