A Study of the Influence of Management Services on the Chartered Accountant's Audit-Independence

Abstract

Satisfactory adjustment and adaptation to the reality of change is a challenge facing all professional groups. The confrontation is signified by changing political ideology, differing attitudes to large scale business investment, the necessity for higher levels of expertise and the increasing importance which attaches to administrative and productive planning. In addition to these general changes, professional groups working primarily within the business environment are receiving the full impact of the tremendous technological advances in electronic data processing (EDP) and its peripheral areas. At one time the accounting system within an enterprise was considered the chief formal means of providing the information link between business events and the decision taken in response to their planning and control. But the information technology has stimulated the rapid development of many new fields, including operations research, statistical and quantitative analysis, information and communications theory, cybernetics and behavioral science. In brief it has created a scientific technology for the development of integrated systems of management information. The accountant, whether he is in public practice or in industry, is in the midst of these developments; he must deepen and broaden his involvement with information requirements so as to meet the greater demands made of him.