Contributions of the "Research Opportunities in Auditing" Program: An empirical assessment

Some of the contributions of KPMG Peat Marwick's Research Opportunities in Auditing (ROA) Program are assessed in this paper. The ROA Program supported auditing research projects with data from actual audits, partner and staff time, and financial resources from 1976 to 1993. The results of a survey of ROA grant recipients are reported, as well as other archival data, that document some of the program's impacts on auditing research, education and practice. Among other matters, the relative extent to which many substantive auditing issues were addressed by ROA-supported research is described as well as the relative extent to which different research methods were employed. The results suggest that the ROA Program had a leveraging effect on auditing research beyond the specific projects that were directly supported.