The Expanded Audit Report—An Empirical Investigation

There is a widespread concern about the ‘expectations’ gap in auditing. To help close this gap the profession in the United States has recently expanded its standard audit report to give a fuller understanding of the scope, nature and significance of the audit. The primary research question addressed in this paper is whether a UK derivative of the US expanded report has the power, compared to the current short form report used in the UK, to help the reasonably intelligent reader to understand better the audit and the auditor's role. The research was conducted by experiment with 140 part-time MBA students from the University of Edinburgh. The results provide clear evidence of the ability of the UK derivative to change reader perceptions. Moreover significant changes are not limited to matters directly addressed in the expansion of the audit report. A ‘halo’ effect is observed whereby the expanded wording seems to generate a feeling of well-being which spills over to matters not directly addressed in the UK derivative. However, there is a danger that such a ‘halo’ effect might widen rather than narrow the expectations gap. The policy implication is that all important dimensions, including fraud, should be addressed directly in the expansion of the audit report.