Imhoff (2003, pp. 120–121) concluded that the
accounting profession has ‘‘increasingly provided
managers with incentives to manage earnings and to
delay and/or conceal bad news.’’ Auditors are finding themselves working closely with the managers
they audit – placing auditors under tremendous
pressure if they seek to retain client business for both
audit services and supplementary nonaudit services
provided by their firm (Imhoff, 2003, p. 123). At the
same time, the events of the past three years have put
the audit profession under a white-hot spotlight
while the Sarbanes-Oxley Act has mandated that
auditing firms be held accountable to new standards
– although the operational meaning of those standards
is subject to interpretation by the newly created
Public Company Accounting Oversight Board
(PCAOB) (Constantini, 2004).