In FARview #29, Anna Gold (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), Dominic Detzen (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) and Marshall Geiger (University of Richmond) present the first results of their FAR-interview-study on auditors’ going concern decisions. Philip Wallage (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Universiteit van Amsterdam) is also part of the research team, but was not present during the podcast.

The findings provide some initial insights from practice, on how audit professionals assess an auditee’s ability to continue as a going concern. The study follows the idea that engagement partners first need to recognize that the going concern is a critical issue at a client, before they set up and mobilize a network of internal and external actors that are involved in the going concern assessment. The engagement partner coordinates this network to negotiate both adequate management disclosures and the inclusion, or not, of an emphasis of matter paragraph in the audit opinion.

This work sheds some more light on the ‘black box’ of going concern assessments, both to reveal the complex decision-making process by auditors as well as to inform future studies on further research opportunities.