(Un)realised independence in the CEE region: Insights from interpretive cultural theory

Drawing on Geertz [Geertz. Thick description: toward and interpretive theory of culture. In: The interpretation of cultures: selected essays by Clifford Geertz. New York: Basic; 1973], the paper investigates how culture impacts upon the construction of auditor independence (AI) within the Central and Eastern Europe region (hereafter CEE), illustrated with the examples of the two new EU members: Poland and the Czech Republic. In an era of growing global pressures for harmonisation of systems of corporate governance and accountability, it is important to study professional developments in other cultural contexts, especially where auditing has only recently been legislatively established, in the CEE region. What emerges from this study is heterogeneity of AI, a construct of differences which appears rather resistant to a norms and principles-based summary, as in the IFAC code. In Poland and the Czech Republic an emphasis on the different interpretations of more general notions of independence, such as ideas of individual freedom, political and economic liberalism, as well as economic reality, inform a construct of auditor independence locally. What we need, is thinking about AI that is responsive to cultural particularities, individual interpretations, and plurality of ways for its operationalisation. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.