（2005）The Assurance Paradigm.pdfVIP

Chapter 8 THE ASSURANCE PARADIGM Organisational Semiotics Applied to Governance Issues Hart Will and Darren Whobrey School of Public Administration, University of Victoria, B.C., Canada and School of Information Systems, Technology and Management, University of New South Wales, Australia Abstract: Major organisational scandals, such as the Enron accounting fiasco and the demise of Arthur Andersen, have driven the financial world to seek more rigorous methods for explaining and possibly regulating financial reporting and auditing. As the principal guarantor of information quality, the public accounting sector is presently confronted with a credibility gap that it tries to bridge with an assurance paradigm. In this paper the growing demand for, and reliance on assurance techniques, is discussed from the semiotic point of view. Using this as an increasingly more important applications domain, the organisational semiotic modelling requirements of a methodologically tenable assurance approach are set out. Based on a review of current modelling techniques, extensions are suggested that would be needed to support the objectives of the public accounting sector in its adoption of organisational semiotics to governance issues. Key words: accountability, assurance, audit, risk, risk management, integration, modelling, organisational semiotics, technologies. 1. INTRODUCTION The recent scandals in commerce, such as the demise of Enron and WorldCom as auditees and