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The credibility of external auditors is increasingly being called into question in many countries around the world, as evidenced by widespread criticism and litigation directed against auditors (Porter, 1993). There is evidence that some of this criticism is based on society's lack of knowledge of company law and auditing standards and a misunderstanding of the fundamental role of the external auditor, which is an expectations gap. The expectation gap is considered to be one of the major issues confronting the accountancy profession in recent times. Users of corporate reports such as investors, journalists, politicians and others expect auditors to detect and report material fraud and irregularities, amongst other things. In response, the profession argues that the public misunderstands the role of the auditor, and that fraud detection and reporting is not a major audit objective. Such divergence in views and beliefs, have created a vacuum between auditors and users of accounting information or stakeholders. The vacuum between these two interest groups is what has been described as expectation gaps.
The expectation gap, signifying the difference between what the public expects from an audit and what the auditing profession prefers audit objective to be, has been a recurring issue in the auditing literature (Chandler and Edwards, 1996). The expectation gap has over the years attracted considerable institutional interests. These institutions include; the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, 1978; Chartered Association of Certified Accountants, 1986a, 1986b and the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, 1988 as it is considered to be a threat to effective corporate governance. |
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