Aligning programmes with operations: Privileging practitioner perspectives

Brendan O’DwyerProfessor of Accounting

University of Amsterdam Business School

The GRI Amsterdam Global Conference on Sustainability and Transparency

Academic conference: Assurance of sustainability reportingThursday 27 May 2010

Overview of presentation

Consensus set of programmatic ideals for assurance

Practitioner perspectives on the operational capabilities of and prospects for assurance

Reflections for future practice

The export of ‘audit’ to new contexts: Programmes and technologiesNew aims/expectations and a reassembly of practices

‘Audit practices continually reassemble themselves to suit programmatic expectations’

Export/extension of ‘audit’ not unproblematic

technologies emerge through a trial and error process enrolment and coordination of ‘non-accountants’

necessary – necessity of practitioner consensus

Emerging consensus on ‘official’ programmes and ambitions for sustainability assurance

Professional accounting and other associations

Shift from focus on reporting accuracy to reporting relevance, completeness and responsiveness

Many assurors now explicitly recognise: ‘Duty’ to assess completeness, materiality and

responsiveness

Operationalising programmatic aims: The practitioners’ perspectives

1. Confronting ambitions with data struggles2. Harnessing ‘accountant’ and ‘non-accountant’

habits and routines3. Shifts to structure ‘judgement’4. Stakeholders as assurors - outsourcing the delivery

of key programmatic aims5. The eternal quest for legitimacy

1. Confronting ambitions with data struggles

1.Practitioner ambitions for assurance idealistic and committed to ambitious aims committed change agents ‘natural’ conflation of advice and assurance

2. Struggling with and struggling for assurance technologies

coping with diverse, vague, disconnected data complexities surrounding assessments of reporting

completeness

2. Harnessing ‘accountant’ and ‘non-accountant’ habits and routines ‘Accountants’ characterised as:

lacking flexibility and expert knowledge sometimes ignorant of and resistant to context

considerations misapplying and misinterpreting materiality

‘Non-accountants’ considered: somewhat naive, but intensely committed assertive and confrontational less concerned with, and often engaged by data

ambiguity

3. Shifts to structure ‘judgement’

More focus on ‘due process’

Emergence of distinct methodologies

Limits to innovation

The overriding role of risk management and internal control

4. Stakeholders as assurors - outsourcing the delivery of key programmatic aims

Recognising problems for ‘financial audit’ practice

Public reframing of expectations attached to professional accounting firm assurance

Enrolling the ‘stakeholder’

The ultimate coupling of programmes with technologies?

Regressing to ‘second generation’ audit?

All occurring in the midst of …

A persistent practitioner quest to establish the legitimacy of assurance with key audiences …

5. The practitioner quest for legitimacy

Securing legitimacy with the ‘internal world’

Securing legitimacy with the non-client

‘external world’

Securing legitimacy with

clients (auditees) Assurance practice

Reflecting on practitioners’ perspectives (1)Who and where are the ‘external’ users?

“A mythical reference point within expert [assurance] discourse”?

Who takes responsibility for ‘stakeholder’ assessments?

Is reigning in of expectations placed on and ambitions of traditional auditors advisable?

Reflecting on practitioners’ perspectives (2)Are ‘accountants’ ever able or willing to deliver reasonable assurance on non-quantitative data?

Is a global, institutionalized assurance approach desirable?

Do ‘users’ require standardization?