4,938 research outputs found
Small firm auditing using the analytical procedures (APs) in a politically challenging context
Purpose
This study aims to explore the use, effectiveness, motives and obstacles of analytical procedures (APs) used by auditors in Palestine, a context characterised by a pool of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), a limited skill set, poor quality of data, political uncertainty and a community-based business culture.
Design/methodology/approach
The study considers the audit market in Palestine using a sequential mixed-methods approach combining a questionnaire survey and a series of in-depth interviews. A total of 129 Big-4 and non-Big-4 auditors were surveyed.
Findings
The use of APs is driven by the auditor size (Big-4 vs non-Big-4) and the client size (large vs SMEs). Even though the use of APs has increased over the past decade, audit objectives, know-how, and personal, family and social connections among auditors and clients influence the quality of the audit process.
Practical implications
Small firms take advantage of the lack of audit governance in Palestine. Our findings suggest that the regulators should help bridge the knowledge-sharing programmes between the small and large audit firms to help improve audit quality.
Originality/value
Studies on audit quality, particularly using APs, in the context of politically unstable cases such as Palestine are limited. The study has implications for the use of APs in the case of SMEs to prepare for the technological revolution that will modernise audit procedures and quality soon
Interplay between Zeeman interaction and spin-orbit coupling in a two-dimensional semiconductor system
We analyse the interplay between Dresselhaus, Bychkov-Rashba, and Zeeman
interactions in a two-dimensional semiconductor quantum system under the action
of a magnetic field. When a vertical magnetic field is considered, we predict
that the interplay results in an effective cyclotron frequency that depends on
a spin-dependent contribution. For in-plane magnetic fields, we found that the
interplay induces an anisotropic effective gyromagnetic factor that depends on
the orientation of the applied field as well as on the orientation of the
electron momentum.Comment: 5 page
Ostrogradsky's Hamilton formalism and quantum corrections
By means of a simple scalar field theory it is demonstrated that the Lagrange
formalism and Ostrogradsky's Hamilton formalism in the presence of higher
derivatives, in general, do not lead to the same results. While the two
approaches are equivalent at the classical level, differences appear due to the
quantum corrections.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure, REVTeX
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