On Friday 28 June 2013 Gert-Jan van der Pijl, Professor of IT-Auditing, will present his farewell address entitled ‘Auditing Transferal: A postmodern perspective’.
About the Farewell Address
The Auditing discipline, like many others, was conceived in the spirit of the positivist scientific philosophy. Modern day auditors may well find this context outdated, and in need of replacement. In his farewell address, Gert van der Pijl poses the question of what it would mean to auditors if the positivist paradigm were exchanged for a more postmodernist one. This could, he argues, lead to fascinating developments for the auditing profession, making it a more challenging and stimulating environment as a whole. A postmodernist footing would remove the certainty auditors have that the objects of their audits will adhere to rigid rules and laws. Formulating the ethical ground rules for auditing therefore becomes a dicier affaire.
Furthermore, auditors will be drawn into the company politics, inherent to every organisation, to a greater extent. More than ever, they will have to adapt to new situations with uncertain outcomes. For the average auditor, this means he will have look closely at his toolkit, and critically analyse which tools are still useful and which new ones he will need to develop.
About Gert-Jan van der Pijl
Gert van der Pijl is Professor of IT Auditing at the Erasmus School of Economics and programme director of the ESAA IT Auditing programme. After receiving his Bachelor’s econometrics and his Master’s degrees in economics about developing countries (with Tinbergen as one of his teachers), he was employed by the International Labour Organisation in Accra (Ghana) for several years. Returning to the Netherlands, Van der Pijl did contract research into a broad range of socio-economic topics. In 1993 he was awarded his PhD for the dissertation ‘Quality and Information in Theory and Practice’. He has been in his current position at Erasmus School of Economics since 1999, which has also afforded him the opportunity to participate in education within the IT and Economics departments. Gert supervised several PhD candidates, doing research into many different topics. He also served as Chief Editor of De IT Auditor and the Handboek IT-Auditing.
- More information
For more information about this ceremony, please contact Ronald de Groot, Communication Officer of the Erasmus School of Economics phone +31 10 408 1762 or by e-mail: rdegroot@ese.eur.nl.