Beyond the Hype. Big Data Revolution in Accounting: the New Role of the Auditor.

Abstract

This academic thesis starts from the analysis of the critics moved against the Big Four professional accounting firms for their failure and backward alarm on the distressed and critical financial condition of their client organizations, immediately before the crack of the Great Recession and other famous corporate crisis. This victimization climate led to a loss of credibility and trust towards auditors and their role in the certification and assurance process of listed companies. The direct consequence is a lower reliance on capital markets and their efficiency. From a bibliographical research, insights emerged about the intent of the audit field to reaffirm and re-establish the credibility of the profession through huge investments in new technologies aimed to provide higher quality in audit at a lower risk and time consume. These innovative tools are derived from the Big Data Revolution and are commonly known as Predictive Data Analytics. Across the chapters of this work we will see what these instruments are and how they have been adopted and introduced in corporations. We will discover their limits, inhibitors to use, challenges and opportunities in the various fields of organizations, from a marketing to an accounting level. This is a fundamental passage as, to better understand and analyse the impact on audit, we firstly have to appreciate the deep changes occurring in its clients. In the conclusive stages we will get back to the audit transformation process and we will try to draw a humble forecast about what the new role of the auditor could be in this data-driven innovation panorama.