The Role of Audit Committees in Enhancing a Transparent Corporate Reporting

Abstract

The impetus for the development of audit committees in 1970's was the unexpected corporate failures that resulted from corporate misconduct. The situation seems to have hardly changed almost 30 years on. As corporate failures become more spectacular due to big‐names failures and the ever‐developing means of communications that brought such failures to the forefront of the news and almost into every household, more attention is drawn nowadays to the role of audit committees in preventing such failures. With audit committees now the norm in developed countries and increasing number of emerging economies, the role of audit committees has developed from being seen as means of strengthening the external financial reporting process to being seen as means of detecting and preventing corporate misconduct and failures. Thus this study investigates the international developments of audit committees and their role in the issues concerned. It also evaluates the advantages and disadvantages of audit committees, as well as providing possible suggestion to the crucial role that audit committees could play in preventing and detecting corporate misconduct and failures.