■ Auditing as a social phenomenon
Although the conceptual approach proposed in the study of Mautz and Sharaf (1961) was based on principles of more general application, they were primarily concerned with the audit of business corporations and not with the concept of audit in a wider sense. Mautz and Sharaf ’s work has been enormously influential for subsequent auditing writers. The work of David Flint is an important attempt to elaborate general principles or postulates of auditing.
The work of Flint is based on Limperg’s stimulating Theory of Inspired Confidence and other efforts to establish a theoretical foundation for auditing. This work has examined the audit function from the perspective of society in general. Proceeding from this broad concept, Flint examines the theory, authority, process and standards of audit. In his forward to Flint’s book, Mautz asked: What is the role of auditing in society? What is society’s need that auditing can meet? Does society expect too much of auditing? In effect, what are the mutual obligations of auditing and society to one another so that society’s needs for this service may be met adequately and indefinitely? In seeking answers to these questions, Flint looks at auditing from the point of view neither of an auditor nor of an auditee, but from that of one whose concern is for the well-being of society, and of auditing as an element in that society.