The contribution of this paper to the CA literature is threefold. This paper 1) defines how CA has
innovated the practice of the traditional audit, 2) describes the audit stages and processes of the
continuous audit paradigm and 3) formulates propositions concerning the future of assurance. These
contributions will allow future researchers to advance the development of CA. Researchers can use the
CA paradigm as a springboard for development of specific stages or process within a continuous audit.
Although CA research by industry and academics may overlap, academics have the clear competitive
advantage to innovate the stages of data modeling and data analytics. Academics are generally well13
educated in the area of statistics, data mining, and machine learning. However, academic research
innovations are fruitless without the implementation and validation by practitioners. As a result, we
emphasize that continuing partnerships between practitioners and academic researchers are necessary
to create genuine advances in the practice of continuous auditing.