By Michael Foster, Big4.com Blogger

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Ernst & Young Chairman James Turley discussed the difficulties that accounting firms have received in the recent financial climate and as a result of the Olympus scandal, which Turley says has not changed the perceptions and practices of his firm’s companies.

“We tried to get to the root causes of the problems identified by regulators,” Turley said in response to a question about PCAOB’s recent report on auditing faults at Ernst & Young. “Being regulated makes us better and we take it very seriously.”

On questions of whether accounting firms were being held responsible for the current financial crisis, Turley said that he felt auditors were less scrutnized than during the Enron crisis of the first part of the last decade. “In many ways, the profession executed quite well,” Turley said, adding that the auditing field is “no different from other people” when it comes to the need to anticipate future economic crises.

Turley pointed to Brazil, China, Southeast Asia, and India as engines of growth, while pointing to lower growth for Ernst & Young in continental Europe due to the “troubles” there.

Discussing his legacy, Turley said that he was proud of the “inclusiveness” of Ernst & Young and he was proud at how the firm created an environment in which employees would be happhy to return to work.

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