The implementation of quality review programmes on audit firms in Saudi Arabia : an illustration of change processes in a transitional economy

Abstract EN

This paper provides an understanding of the nature and extent of the changes that took place within audit firms operating in Saudi Arabia following the implementation of quality review programmes for audit firms by the Saudi Organisation for Certified Public Accountants (SOCPA).

Establishing this understanding was based upon the ‘processual’ theoretical models of ‘first and second order’ organisational change.

The Habermasian ‘three stage discursive processes’ were used, as the methodological approach for this empirical research, to explore a case-study involving a variety of seven selected audit firms operating in Saudi Arabia.

This paper concludes that the implementation of quality review programmes for audit firms by SOCPA has affected the core activities of the seven audit firms in question, generating ‘second order’, ‘evolution’ and ‘colonisation’ changes.

It also concludes that although the consequences of the new imposed programmes have been welcomed by some individual professionals and firms, as well as representatives of other interest groups within the Saudi accountancy context, they were unwelcome to many others