THE SWISS CHEESE MODEL AND EXTERNAL AUDITING

Reason’s Swiss Cheese Model (SCM), which is sometimes called the cumulative act effect, is a model used in risk analysis and management. Even though it has been widely used in aviation, engineering, and healthcare; there is no sample of its usage in the accounting field. This study aims to contribute to the prevention of audit failures by applying the Swiss Cheese Model. It can be hypothesized that audit failures can be attributed to one or more of four levels of failure: executive effects, inadequate oversight, suitable ground for flawed acts, and the flawed acts. Audit firms’ countermeasures against failures can be modeled as a series of bulwarks, represented as slices of Swiss cheese. The cavities in cheese slices represent discrete weaknesses in distinct parts of the system and are constantly varying in dimension and setting in all slices. The system, as a whole, produces failures when all of the cavities in each of the slices momentarily align, so that a peril passes through all of the holes in all of the defenses, leading to a failure. Adding more layers of defense—slices of cheese—may help reduce errors and, consequently, failures. This research initiates the literature on the application of SCM in accounting and auditing, thereby contributes to the field.