Title: Audit committee effectiveness: did the blue ribbon committee recommendations make a difference?

Authors: L. Murphy Smith

Addresses: Department of Accounting, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-4353, USA

Abstract: Several years prior to the 2002 passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt, identified problems regarding audit committee effectiveness. In response, in September 1998 the Blue Ribbon Committee (BRC) on Audit Committee Effectiveness was established jointly by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD). The BRC issued its recommendations regarding the appropriate make-up and function of the audit committee on February 8, 1999. The current study attempts to measure the change in audit committee behaviour (and presumably effectiveness) subsequent to implementing the BRC recommendations.

Keywords: audit committees; effectiveness; corporate governance; blue ribbon committee; audit committee behaviour; auditing.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAAPE.2006.010303

International Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Performance Evaluation, 2006 Vol.3 No.2, pp.240 - 251

Published online: 13 Jul 2006 *

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