Stockholm university
Denna sida på svenska

Gunilla Eklöv Alander

About me

Gunilla Eklöv Alander, PhD, is a senior lecturer and researcher at SBS. Her research interests are in interdisciplinary research in auditing and accounting, especially in connection with corporate governance and financial reporting. Her teaching and research are informed by her work in practice for many years after she received her PhD. She performed work in methodology development for PwC in the areas of risk management and quality, and was a member of FAR (the institute for the accountancy profession in Sweden), working in FAR:s Auditing Policy group, and the Sustainability working group. During a short period in between PwC and academia she worked with quality inspections for the Swedish Inspectorate of Auditors. She has also served as one of the 18 members of the Swedish Auditing Academy, and as a member of the SBS board. She is a member of AES (the Academy of Management Accounting & Control in Central Government). Her current ongoing research projects concern the standardisation of external auditing and the resistance of external auditors to its impact on their practice (CARAS), and the role and independence of internal auditors in governmental agencies (RIIAGA). These projects have both received funding from Handelsbankens Forskningsstiftelser Jan Wallanders och Tom Hedelius Stiftelse. 

Publications

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

  • The construction of status in the auditor–audit committee relationship

    2023. Gunilla Eklöv Alander, Karin Jonnergård, Ulf Larsson Olaison. Auditing Transformation, 46-69

    Chapter

    This chapter investigates the construction of status in the relationship between the auditor and the audit committee. Such a study is merited considering that regulation as a driver of corporate governance has been designed towards a regulatory concern with lax audit practice, where the audit committee was presented as a solution. This is, however, a problem not manifested in the Swedish context. The driver was instead connected to the need for companies to follow suit with an Anglo-Saxon regulatory development. The study is informed by interviews with audit committee members and external auditors in large, listed companies and contributes novel insights to the understanding of the transformation of the role of the auditor due to the regulatory driver represented by the audit committees. The findings show a rather paradoxical development where the auditors increase their status through direct access to the board of directors, while also decreasing their status by being reduced to a supplier, among other suppliers of trust and comfort to the directors. The findings are of interest to accounting firms, as well as clients and investors, to recognise the transformation of the status of the auditor in spite of regulations to protect the role.

    Read more about The construction of status in the auditor–audit committee relationship

  • In pursuit of a more socially relevant audit in the context of international standardisation

    2023. Amanda Sonnerfeldt, Gunilla Eklöv Alander. Auditing Transformation, 19-46

    Chapter

    This chapter aims to enhance our understanding of the implications that international standardisation has for audit innovation at the national level. The study analyses the ways in which transnational regulation effectuates institutional constraints on audit innovation in Sweden as a setting to discuss the capacity of the audit profession to innovate and make audits more socially relevant. Based on document analysis, two standard-setting initiatives in which the Swedish professional association, FAR, was involved are reviewed: Standard for audits of small entities; and Standard for assurance of sustainability reports. While audit is conceived to be transforming to meet contemporary societal challenges, findings reveal that audit innovation has been constrained by normative, cognitive, and regulative forces interacting to reinforce international audit standardisation, thereby limiting the development of the role and conceptual foundations of audit. This chapter stresses the importance of critically reflecting on the conditions under which national professional associations engage in audit innovation. Based on our analysis of the audit innovation context, we offer ways forward to encourage policymakers, regulators, the audit profession, and academia to explore the possibilities to rethink and re-conceptualise audit differently in pursuit of a more socially relevant audit.

    Read more about In pursuit of a more socially relevant audit in the context of international standardisation

  • Internal auditor independence as a situated practice: four archetypes

    2023. Gunilla Eklöv Alander. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 36 (9), 108-134

    Article

    Purpose: This study aims to understand independence in internal auditing by investigating how internal auditor independence is constructed when analysed in its corporate governance context.

    Design/methodology/approach: A critical discourse analysis (CDA) of the corporate governance reports of Swedish large stock market listed non-financial companies, for three consecutive years, is undertaken, using a theoretical lens of organisational embeddedness and operational coupling to understand independence as a situated practice.

    Findings: The study develops four archetypes of internal auditor independence – autarchic, instrumental, symbiotic and subservient – and discusses each archetype's implications for independence, related to tripartite relations with management and the audit committee, regarding who has the mandate to direct work and how the work is done. It finds that internal auditors always have a capacity to be independent. Although they are not independent in relation to agents in the subservient archetype, they are independent of those down the organisational chain of command, suggesting independence is both situational and relational.

    Research limitations/implications: The analysis contributes a novel approach to the literature and develops a conception of independence using the dimensions of embeddedness and coupling. The archetypes offer an analytical framework for future studies on independence.

    Practical implications: Internal auditors may understand their practice differently through the archetypes that result from this study.

    Social implications: Internal auditors' power relations within corporate governance further an understanding of the pressures on internal auditors and their role.

    Originality/value: This study contributes new knowledge on the situatedness of independence by showing how internal auditors are embedded and coupled helps build their independence.

    Read more about Internal auditor independence as a situated practice

  • The politics of profit production

    2022. Thomas Carrington, Gunilla Eklöv Alander. Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management/Emerald

    Article

    Purpose - This paper aims to analyze the process of producing a reported profit number to understand how different actors overcome the tensions arising from the often conflicting value frames that apply in different situations during this process and how the actors can benefit from the ensuing friction.

    Design/methodology/approach - The tensions found in the profit production process are theorized in terms of dissonance (Stark, 2009), emphasizing how multiple voices, drawing on different value frames, contribute to the search for a profit number. The authors study this by means of a case study of a large listed company in the construction industry, where, because of how judgment pervades the profit production process, the search for profit is particularly exposed.

    Findings - The authors find three important value frames – caution, control and compliance – which managers, accountants and auditors draw on in the profit production process, depending on the situation they find themselves in. With this finding, the authors contribute to the previous research on financial reporting and management work and the production of profits by demonstrating how the relationships between the involved actors – primarily the auditor–client relationship – can be characterized by principled and constructive rivalry in which competing value frames can coexist alongside each other and how the dissonance created in these situations can produce generative and productive friction.

    Originality/value - Previous research has mostly focused on profit measurement, taking the existence of a “true” profit number for granted. The auditor–client negotiation literature typically suggests that actors endeavor to solve situations in a zero-sum game where different value frames are present. This paper, drawing on an incipient theoretical approach to accounting research which emphasizes multivocality and perspective, contributes to the nascent research on financial accounting and management work in general and the profit production process in particular. With empirical illustrations of the dissonance found in this process, this paper suggests that tensions resulting from dissonance (Stark, 2009) may be a resource in situations like the profit production process.

    Read more about The politics of profit production

  • Managing Ambiguity: Internal Auditors on their role and function in Swedish Public Sector Agencies

    2021. Gunilla Eklöv Alander, Mikael Holmgren Caicedo.

    Conference

    Although the literature on internal auditing is only burgeoning, it provides knowledge on the conflicts inherent to the role of internal auditors. Given such circumstances we ask how internal auditors frame their own role and function, in order to understand the basis on which they find support to handle the situations they face. Based on 29 semi-structured interviews with internal audit executives in Swedish public sector agencies this study describes the role of the internal auditor as a bundle of aspects and facets in tension with each other and how internal auditors frame and manage the complexity and precariousness that they find themselves in. In doing this we contribute to the literature on the role of the internal auditor from the perspective of Swedish internal auditors and how they manage conflicting demands.

    Read more about Managing Ambiguity: Internal Auditors on their role and function in Swedish Public Sector Agencies

  • Clash of corporate governance logics obscuring auditor independence

    2019. Gunilla Eklöv Alander. International Journal of Auditing 23 (2), 336-351

    Article

    Audit committees are regarded by regulators as beneficial for improving audit independence and are hence globally enforced. This study aligns with research that questions whether audit committees function well in nations that differ from the Anglo-Saxon model. The aim of the study is to examine if the auditor and audit committee relationship conforms with a Swedish or Anglo-Saxon logic, and to analyze the impact on auditor independence. A critical discourse analysis is undertaken on corporate governance reports and three dimensions of logics are found: one complying with Swedish logic (compliance) and two according to Anglo-Saxon logic (varieties of subordination). The study indicates that the discourse on audit committees following an Anglo-Saxon logic in this national setting constructs a power relation with the auditor that hampers the auditor's independence, and hence, that auditor independence is context bound. The importance of the composition of the audit committee and its members independence also from larger owners is discussed. The study contributes to research that marks the importance of a better understanding of national jurisdictions before international harmonization can be achieved.

    Read more about Clash of corporate governance logics obscuring auditor independence

  • Clash of corporate governance logics obscuring auditor independence

    2019. Gunilla Eklöv Alander.

    Conference

    Audit committees are regarded by regulators as beneficial for improving audit independence and are hence globally enforced. This study aligns with research that questions whether audit committees function well in nations that differ from the Anglo‐Saxon model. The aim of the study is to examine if the auditor and audit committee relationship conforms with a Swedish or Anglo‐Saxon logic, and to analyze the impact on auditor independence. A critical discourse analysis is undertaken on corporate governance reports and three dimensions of logics are found: one complying with Swedish logic (compliance) and two according to Anglo‐Saxon logic (varieties of subordination). The study indicates that the discourse on audit committees following an Anglo‐Saxon logic in this national setting constructs a power relation with the auditor that hampers the auditor's independence, and hence, that auditor independence is context bound. The importance of the composition of the audit committee and its members independence also from larger owners is discussed. The study contributes to research that marks the importance of a better understanding of national jurisdictions before international harmonization can be achieved.

    Read more about Clash of corporate governance logics obscuring auditor independence

  • Innefattar undervisningen i redovisning etik?

    2019. Gunilla Eklöv Alander. Ekonomisk Debatt 47 (6), 43-54

    Article

    Vid Sveriges högre lärosäten examineras varje år hundratals studenter med en kandidatexamen i företagsekonomi, inriktning redovisning. Under senare år har ett flertal företagsskandaler väckt uppmärksamhet, där finansiella rapporter visat sig innehålla missvisande information som företagsledningen avgivit till aktieägarna. Dessa felaktiga rapporter drabbar aktieägarna ekonomiskt, men angår också hela samhället. Här undersöks hur kursplanerna vid Sveriges sju största lärosäten med utbildning i företagsekonomi behandlar etik inom delämnesområdet redovisning. Resultatet visar att endast 19,5 procent av kurserna har etik i innehållsbeskrivningen och 37 procent har etik i lärandemålen. Etik hanteras i förekommande fall ytligt och främst inom ramen för principal-agentteorin och hållbarhet. 

    Read more about Innefattar undervisningen i redovisning etik?

  • IFRS

    2015. Thomas Carrington (et al.).

    Book

    I Sverige har införandet av obligatorisk IFRS för noterade företag varit omdiskuterat. I boken IFRS – Dilemman och utmaningar diskuteras skälen till detta, med användning av såväl författarnas egen som andras forskning. En aspekt av IFRS är att det är principbaserat och kräver bedömningar vid upprättande av finansiella rapporter. Detta kan leda till brist på harmonisering och skapa svårigheter för exempelvis revisorer. Å andra sidan skulle det sannolikt vara svårt att införa strikta redovisningsregler globalt. En annan aspekt av IFRS är att det baseras på en syn på ägande och företagsstyrning som skiljer sig från den som utgör grunden för svenskt näringsliv. Detta avspeglar sig exempelvis i användning av verkligt värde inom IFRS, och i den traditionellt svaga tillsynen i Sverige.

    Read more about IFRS

Show all publications by Gunilla Eklöv Alander at Stockholm University

Edit the profile