I am recently returned from the Illinois Audit Symposium that is arguably the premiere university based symposium on audit research.

The good news is that the number of non- grey, non- balding, non- bottled hair coloured heads was at an all time high since I first attended in 1990!

Nonetheless research about auditing rather than research on auditing clearly dominated. What do I mean? Research about the effects of auditing on others (e.g. Shareholders, loan officers, jurors) dominated whereas research on auditing itself was scarce!

What a contrast to 24 years ago when while we might not have been academically respectable as we are today, we were a lot more focused on understanding and improving the practice of auditing rather than viewing it as a social phenomena!