Strategic Management: A Competitive Advantage Approach, Concepts and Cases, 16/e

Auditing

A frequently used tool in strategy evaluation is the audit. Auditing is defined by the American Accounting Association (AAA) as “a systematic process of objectively obtaining and evaluating evidence regarding assertions about economic actions and events to ascertain the degree of correspondence between these assertions and established criteria, and communicating the results to interested users.”14

Auditors examine the financial statements of firms to determine whether they have been prepared according to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) and whether they fairly represent the activities of the firm. Independent auditors use a set of standards called generally accepted auditing standards (GAAS). Public accounting firms often ...