Summary of 2008 Auditing Midyear Conference

Austin, Texas

By Roger Martin (University of Virginia) and
Gary Peters (University of Arkansas)

The 2008 Auditing Midyear Conference was held in Austin, Texas, January 17-19, 2008, at the Sheraton Austin Hotel. The meeting was preceded by the 9th annual Auditing Section Doctoral Consortium and the "Excellence in Audit Education" workshop.

The meeting included two plenary sessions on Friday. The morning's plenary speech by Michael J. Ryan, Jr. (Sr. Vice President, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness), "The United States' Challenge in Maintaining Leadership and Competitiveness in Global Capital Markets," provided the U.S. Chamber's view of recent developments in capital market, accounting and auditing matters and their position on appropriate regulatory and legal responses. Friday afternoon's plenary speech by Bruce Dorris (Program Director, Association of Certified Fraud Examiners), "Fraud Awareness," reviewed the ACFE's fraud education programs and how educators might benefit from those resources.

From left: Gary Peters (Conference Co-organizer), Bernie Milano (President of the KPMG Foundation), Mark Peecher (Auditing Section President), Michael J. Ryan, Jr. (Plenary Speaker, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness), and Roger Martin (Conference Co-organizer).

From left: Bruce Dorris (Plenary Speaker, Association of Certified Fraud Examiners) and Mark Peecher (Auditing Section President).

The meeting also included four outstanding panel sessions. The Education Committee and Practice Advisory Council co-sponsored a session on audit education to share education processes and challenges of the large public accounting firms and how educators might contribute to that process. The Auditing Standards Committee sponsored a panel titled "Engagement Quality Review" and the Research Committee sponsored "The Current State and Future of Auditing Research." Martha Eining coordinated and moderated a panel on "Assurance Over Interactive Data, the SEC Voluntary Filing Project, and Potential Future Mandates: Issues of the Auditing Profession." Panelists included representatives from the SEC Office of Interactive Disclosure, Grant Thornton, and W.R. Grace. All four panels were well attended and generated extensive discussion of current issues in the profession and academe.

Forty-five papers were presented in the concurrent sessions, including three teaching cases. Another 30 papers were presented at the Research Roundtable session on Saturday morning. Total attendance was 312. As in prior years, the Doctoral Consortium had a capacity group of 50 students.

The conference program and copies of many of the papers featured at the meeting are still available at: http://aaahq.org/meetings/2008AUD_program.htm.

We are very grateful to the many people who helped make this conference successful. First, we thank the KPMG Foundation and Bernie Milano for their faithful sponsorship and support of the conference. Second, we thank the 2008 Program Committee Vice Chairs, Brian Ballou and Chris Hogan, and the Doctoral Consortium Chair, Vicky Hoffman. Third, we thank our friends at the AAA, especially Debbie Gardner and Dee Strahan. Finally, we thank all of the authors, reviewers, discussants, moderators, and panelists who helped make the program possible.

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