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Virtual, Distributed and Flexible Organisations pp 129–152Cite as

The Assurance Paradigm

Organisational Semiotics Applied to Governance Issues

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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.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Public Administration, University of Victoria, B.C., Canada

    Hart Will & Darren Whobrey

  2. School of Information Systems, Technology and Management, University of New South Wales, Australia

    Hart Will & Darren Whobrey

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  1. Hart Will
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  2. Darren Whobrey
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. The University of Reading, Reading, Berkshire, UK

    Kecheng Liu

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© 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers

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Will, H., Whobrey, D. (2004). The Assurance Paradigm. In: Liu, K. (eds) Virtual, Distributed and Flexible Organisations. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-2162-3_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-2162-3_8

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-2161-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-2162-6

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