IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/acbsfi/v15y2005i3p317-343.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The formation and early development of German audit firms

Author

Listed:
  • Reiner Quick

Abstract

This paper examines the emergence of audit firms in Germany through an analysis of contemporary sources. Special attention is paid to the range of services offered, their legal forms and ownership structure. In Germany, the demand for external audits developed because the corporate supervisory boards had been unable to fulfil their monitoring task satisfactorily. As a consequence of the major economic crisis of 1929-1931 and the collapse of large corporations caused by the fraudulent actions of managing directors, statutory audits for stock corporations were introduced in 1931. The first German audit and trust company, the Deutsche Treuhand-Gesellschaft, was established much earlier in 1890. Like other trust companies which emerged from 1905 onwards, it was owned by large banks. After the First World War, large commercial groups on the one hand, and the state on the other hand, started to form their own audit firms. Most of the audit and trust companies used the legal form of a corporation. Originally, the main activities of the trust companies were trustee activities and audits. Subsequently, they also offered tax and business advisory services. These features (a broad range of services offered, the corporation as the dominant legal form, and clients who are also owners) help us to understand key characteristics of modern German audit firms such as their limited liability to third parties.

Suggested Citation

  • Reiner Quick, 2005. "The formation and early development of German audit firms," Accounting History Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(3), pages 317-343.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:acbsfi:v:15:y:2005:i:3:p:317-343
    DOI: 10.1080/09585200500284252
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09585200500284252
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09585200500284252?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Teodora Viorica Farcas & Adriana Tiron Tudor, 2015. "An Overlook into the Accounting History Evolution from a Romanian Point of View – A Literature Review," Knowledge Horizons - Economics, Faculty of Finance, Banking and Accountancy Bucharest,"Dimitrie Cantemir" Christian University Bucharest, vol. 7(3), pages 14-27, September.
    2. Meuwissen, Roger & Quick, Reiner, 2019. "The effects of non-audit services on auditor independence: An experimental investigation of supervisory board members’ perceptions," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 1-1.
    3. Heidhues, Eva & Patel, Chris, 2011. "A critique of Gray's framework on accounting values using Germany as a case study," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 273-287.
    4. Löhlein, Lukas & Müßig, Anke, 2020. "At the boundaries of institutional theorizing: Individual entrepreneurship in episodes of regulatory change," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    5. Vlad‐Andrei Porumb & Abe De Jong & Carel Huijgen & Teye Marra & Jan Van Dalen, 2021. "The Effect of Auditor Style on Reporting Quality: Evidence from Germany," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 57(1), pages 1-26, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:acbsfi:v:15:y:2005:i:3:p:317-343. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RABF21 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.