Une approche de la théorie institutionnelle à la réglementation de l'audit légale et statutaire

As a framework of analysis, Institutional Theory has been used to explain the various ways that organizations develop and change through time in response to various kinds of institutional pressure. This paper contributes to the Institutional Theory literature in several ways. First, the focus of the paper is on recent changes in the regulatory structures for "statutory auditing", an important function in contemporary capitalism. Second, we extend Institutional Theory through an international comparative analysis of changes in the regulatory structures for statutory auditing in the United States, France and Canada. Third, in a manner similar to Dillard et al. (2004), we extend Institutional Theory through an increased focus on the political aspects of institutional change with regard to the regulation of statutory auditing. Our overall finding is that there has been significant change in the regulatory structures for statutory auditing in recent years, resulting in increased levels of institutional isomorphism. Pressures, primarily external to the domestic regulatory frameworks, have resulted in greater legalism in the regulation of statutory auditing in the three countries examined. Globalization of international capital markets partly explains this phenomenon, but coercive isomorphism and mimetic isomorphism are also seen as playing important roles in this process. Key words: