Strategic Perspectives in Financial Audit

Author:Professor Eugeniu ŢURLEA, Ph. D., Mihaela MOCANU, Ph. D. Student

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Keywords:competition, cooperation, co-opetition, financial audit, strategy

Abstract:
Auditing companies usually face the same or even higher challenges as other businesses, which makes good strategic planning important for them, too. However, few researches have focused on financial audit from a strategic perspective. The objective of the present paper is to fill in this knowledge gap by offering a strategic perspective on financial audit. As methodology, the paper applies an innovative managerial instrument – the co-opetitional model – to identify and explain the underlying mechanisms in an auditing company’s environment and to show how these mechanisms can be changed to increase those companies’ success. The main participants in the financial audit "game" (clients, suppliers, competitors and complementors) are identified, as well as the other elements of the game (added values, rules, tactics and scope). Based on this analysis, the authors offer suggestions of potential strategies audit companies might choose in order to increase business success and at the same time point out approaches and strategies that work in most businesses, but not in financial audit. The present article brings a contribution to knowledge by applying this co-opetitional model to the financial audit field and has implications for the auditing companies’ managers willing to improve their strategies. The article aims at making these managers aware of the importance of a strategic perspective in running auditing companies, of the interdependencies among different participants at the financial audit game and of the need of taking into consideration both competition and cooperation (in a word „co-opetition”) when running their business.\r\n

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