The adoption of technology in the audit profession has substantially lagged behind the development and utilization by management (Curtis and Payne 2008; Kim, Mannino, and Nieschwietz 2009; Bierstaker, Janvrin, and Lowe 2014; Cangemi 2015; Cangemi 2016; Li, Dai, Gershberg, and Vasarhelyi 2016). The consideration of technology by standard-setting bodies lags even further, hampered by an extant codification based on the facts and economics of obsolete measurement methods, practices, and technologies.
Acceleration of changes may occur when management's needs/technological changes force accounting methods to adapt and these, by their turn, pressure changes in assurance (Krahel and Titera 2015). For example, the adoption of large databases and cloud technology prompted the development of software and application layers for performance measurement, naturally leading to a demand for assurance.
This paper aims to imagineer the effects and usage of the technologies that encompass Industry 4.0...