1. Introduction

The introduction provides a map of the entire book, which focuses on going concern evaluations of companies in financial distress. A complete overview of this corporate path is relevant for both academic debate and the professional world. The classification and updating of the existing academic literature allow us to highlight the key features, types, and signals of corporate financial distress. The evaluation of companies in financial distress and the respective roles of auditors and managers are explored first of all in the US context, where going concern assessment has for years been exclusively the responsibility of auditors. The book analyses the timing of going concern evaluation during corporate financial distress, in order to introduce the recent modifications of accounting and auditing standards in both US and international contexts.