Stewardship and a History of Auditing

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 20K02022
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 07100:Accounting-related
• Research Institution: Waseda University
• Principal Investigator: Toba Yoshihide 早稲田大学, 総合研究機構, その他(招聘研究員) (90106089)
• Project Period (FY): 2020-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: stewardship / entrustment / audit history / accountability / custodial responsibility / dominance / governance / audit and assurance

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The structure and characteristics of an audit emerged in the early days of the U.K., the U.S., and Japan are clarified and analyzed exclusively from the historical standpoint: an auditor performs the social function of discharging the trustee’s fiduciary stewardship that is recognized on the basis of the entrustment between a trustor and a trustee. Although the social environment that gave birth to auditing differed from country to country and from period to period, the “third-party function of discharging the fiduciary responsibility” was generally observed. The outcome of the research is finally published (March 2024) as an academic book under the single authorship entitled “Studies on the Audit History of the World: In Search for Audiing as a Separate/Academic Discipline of Knowledge.”

Free Research Field

accounting and auditing

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究の学術的意義・貢献しては、(1) 会計制度史・法制史の中で補完的に言及されていた監査史を、主たる研究テーマとして考察したこと, (2)英国、アメリカ、そして日本における監査を、委託受託関係に基礎を置く受託責任という観点から統一的に考察したこと, (3)受託責任概念を、内概念としての「会計責任」と「財産の保全管理責任」、素概念としての「支配」・「統治」に分け、これに基づいて監査史を分析していること、そして最後として、(4)監査という概念の定義が曖昧で、その濫用が顕著にみられる状況下において、内概念と外概念によってとらえられる範疇の保証を、学術的な監査概念とすべきことを主張したことがある。