Reviewed by Jean C. Wyer The College of William and Mary

This volume is the sixth in a series documenting the biennial con-ferences on auditing problems held by Touche Ross and the School of Business at the University of Kansas. As in previous years, there are eight papers, generally presented with comments from discuss ants. The high quality of the comments reflects the beneficial prac tice of providing papers to participants in advance. The synergy between papers and comments is also aided by the mixture of prac titioners and academicians in both roles.

The sixth proceedings contain papers on eight auditing topics:

— “The Evolution of Audit Reporting” by D. R. Carmichael and Alan J. Winters
— “How Not to Communicate Material and Immaterial Weaknesses in Accounting Controls” by Wanda A. Wallace
— “Human Information Processing Research in Auditing: A Review and Synthesis” by Robert H. Ashton
— “Audit Detection of Financial Statement Errors: Implications for the Practitioner” by Robert E. Hylas
— “A Multi-Attribute Model for Audit Evaluation” by Theodore J. Mock and Michael G. Samet
— “Some Thoughts on Materiality” by Kenneth W. Stringer
— “SAS 34 Procedures vs. Forecast Reviews: The Gap in GAAS” by Robert S. Kay
— “Developments in Governmental Auditing: Their Impact on the Academic and Business Communities” by Rich ard E. Brown.

The Proceedings are of special interest to accounting historians for two reasons. First is the explicit treatment of history in the first paper. Carmichael and Winters present an analysis of the history of audit reporting. Their basic premise is that audit reporting changes have led the development of practice standards and pro-cedures. They discuss eleven landmarks in the development of the audit report, covering the period from the 1917 Federal Reserve Bulletin to the consideration of revisions to the standard report in 1979-80. The authors note in their conclusions that “The dormant nature of the report over the past three decades has caused readers to view it as a symbol.” The discussant, J. Alex Milburn, observes that the authors have reached conclusions that are dependent on their limited focus on audit reports. He uses his comments to ex pand the discussion to cover other types of assurance which are where, he argues, much activity has taken place in recent times.

The Carmichael and Winters paper and the Milburn responses are knowledgeable, readable, and compact. The works could be used as an additional assignment in an introductory auditing course to provide some exposure to history (a topic that is often over-looked, especially in one-semester courses).

The second reason that the proceedings are of special interest to historians is their utility as a part of a unique, continuing record of current discussion. They permit us to take a possibly premature look at recent observations which will likely be significant indicators to historians in the future. Because the conferences have been held every two years since 1972, the volumes of papers provide an in teresting longitudinal study of the trends in the analysis of auditing problems.

A cursory review of the last three volumes yields interesting ob-servations on authors and topics. There appears to be a trend to ward the combination of academic and practical experience. Three of the eight papers in the sixth volume were written by individuals or pairs who represent both backgrounds. The topics of the papers also present evidence about the areas that have been important. The editors state that the papers “reflect no unifying theme or pur pose, other than that the topics addressed or the research reported hold promise of being of interest to the invited participants from both practice and academe.” The areas which have received the most attention in these last three volumes are internal control and the combination of legal liability and fraud detection. A more com-prehensive survey, covering all six volumes in the series, might pro vide insight into the trends in auditing thought since 1972.

Auditing Symposium VI is a useful addition to the libraries of ac-counting historians who are interested in auditing, lt, like its pre-decessors, provides explicit coverage of one historical topic and observations for future analysis of contemporary perspectives on auditing problems.