Too big to be audited? The new world of auditing in international organizations

• Date: 01 May 2019
• Author: Patrizio Monfardini,Patrick Maravic
• Published date: 01 May 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/faam.12186

Received: 10 October 2016 Revised: 20 February2018 Accepted: 16 April 2018

DOI: 10.1111/faam.12186

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Too big to be audited? The new world of auditing in

international organizations

Patrizio Monfardini Patrick von Maravic

Departmentof Economics and Business Sciences,

Universityof Cagliari – via Sant'Ignazio, 17,

Cagliari,Sardinia, Italy

Correspondence

PatrizioMonfardini, Department of Economics

andBusiness Sciences, University of Cagliari Viale

S.Ignazio 17, 09123 Cagliari, Italy.

Email:monfardini@unica.it

Fundinginformation

DeutscherAkademischer Austauschdienst;

Ministerodell'Istruzione, dell'Università e della

Ricerca,Grant/Award Number: Vigoni Project

2012

Abstract

Within the NPM debate, audit reforms have been largely investi-

gated at the national level. The best-known theoretical approach

to approach audit reforms is provided by Michael Power, who sug-

gested the idea of an “audit explosion” and then of an “audit soci-

ety.” Power draws his insights from cases situated at the national

level without explicitlyconsidering international organizations (IOs)

as both subject and object of audit reforms, despite their increasing

relevance in economy and society.It, therefore, makes sense to con-

sider Power's hypotheses as a starting point for the analysis of audit

reforms in IOs to investigate whether the framework has value in

studying audit reforms in such organizations. This research adds to

the existing body of literatureby providing a comparative analysis of

audit reforms in six IOs over the course of the past 20 years to shed

light on a fundamentally changing method of auditing them.

KEYWORDS

audit architecture, audit reform, audit society, international organi-

zations, Supreme Audit Institutions

1INTRODUCTION

The rising importance of international organizations (IOs) has increased the pressure to hold these organizations

accountable (Caporaso & Madeira, 2012; Keohane & Nye, 2003; Rittberger & Zangl, 2006). Although the body of

knowledge on management reforms (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2011) and the accountability of IOs (Buchanan & Keohane,

2006; Koenig-Archibugi, 2010) is steadily developing,students of public organizations have yet to consider the trans-

formation of audit systems in IOs that has occurred since the mid-1990s. Given the importance of IOs to the economy

and society,it seems surprising that so little is known about the evolution of their audit systems.

The best-known theoretical approach to audit reforms was provided by Michael Power,who coined the terms an

“audit explosion”and “audit society.” Power draws his insights from cases situated at the national levelwithout explic-

itly considering IOs as both subject and object of audit reforms (Power,1997). This research uses Power's framework

as the starting point for the analysis of audit reforms in IOs, and aims at understanding whether it has value in studying

audit reforms for such organizations.

Financial Acc & Man. 2019;35:143–157. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/faam c

2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 143