In this sixty-fifth anniversary year of the end of the Second World War and the liberation of Auschwitz, we are fast approaching the eightdecade death-knell for all “lebendige Erinnerung” (living, or communicative, memory) of the Nazi genocide. It would seem, then, that we have reached another critical milestone on our path backward into the future. As the last witnesses, survivors, and perpetrators pass out of real time, the imperative of Holocaust remembrance and attendant conundrum of how to express that re-presented past, seems to be entering a new and particularly perilous phase, one that will soon be exclusively characterized by “post-memory,” to borrow Marianne Hirsch's term. The idea of a dawning age of post-remembrance is associated for many with a terrible sense of urgency, fueled by the idea that such a transition may take us a step nearer to a coming time of complete erasure. The act of remembrance is now engaged in a “race against time,” requiring such massive interventions as, for example, the Survivors of the Holocaust Visual History Foundation, which aims to record and archive on film and in aeternum the memories of all remaining Holocaust survivors. So, nearly seven decades after the “break” of 1945, another major sense of caesura has come upon us, arguably even more radical than that first Zero Hour. With this sense of an impending end comes the sense that returns, recall, and representations are needed now more than ever.

Introduction

This chapter has four interrelated objectives. One objective is to provide an overview and evaluation of the many studies published during the last 20 years in which experienced auditors formed judgments or made decisions while performing audit tasks. The second objective is to recommend issues for and approaches to future research. A third objective is to compare findings of the audit judgment/decision–making (J/DM) studies with nonaudit J/DM studies, thereby increasing nonaudit J/DM researchers' awareness of these audit studies. The fourth objective is to provide a common foundation for Chapter 7 by Libby on knowledge and memory in auditing and Chapter 8 by Messier on audit decision aids. Meeting these objectives, as discussed later, should enhance the accessibility of audit J/DM research findings, highlight boundary conditions of extant theories, focus future research on promising issues, identify profitable methods for future research, and stimulate J/DM theory construction and revision.

The remainder of this chapter is divided into seven sections. The next section defines auditing and the following one highlights the objectives of J/DM research in the audit context. In these sections it is noted that the audit J/DM studies we review have primarily sought to: (a) describe how and how well auditors make judgments and decisions, (b) prescribe how to improve audit J/DM, and (c) contribute to nonaudit J/DM knowledge. In addition, it is noted that the totality of audit tasks/contexts features make auditing both distinctive and a rich arena for developing and testing J/DM theories.