Audit expectation gap: Evidence from Morocco

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Global scandals and the collapse of major entities without any prior warning have undermined stakeholder confidence in the auditing profession and have shown that users of financial statements may have different opinions on the auditors’ responsibilities, highlighting the audit expectation gap. The present study aims to identify the existence of an audit expectation gap and its components in an emerging country, namely Morocco. For this purpose, a structured questionnaire based on a five-point Likert scale was randomly administered to 152 respondents, including auditors, investors, managers, bankers, and academics. The study explores the audit expectation gap under several components, such as the auditor’s general responsibilities, auditor’s independence, his/her responsibility to prevent and detect fraud, his/her responsibility in assessing internal control, his/her responsibility in assessing the going concern assumption and audit report. The results of this paper show evidence of the audit expectation gap in Morocco in the studied components, except the audit report. The results of the study encourage public decision-makers and professional audit bodies in Morocco to adopt an expanded audit report containing more information on the audit mission and auditors’ and management’s responsibilities. On the other hand, training and education sessions on the nature and functions of auditing should be provided on an ongoing basis to the various users of audit reports.

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    • Table 1. Sample population
    • Table 2. Descriptive results
    • Table 3. Average responses for the auditor’s general responsibilities
    • Table 4. Average responses for auditor independence
    • Table 5. Average responses for the auditor’s responsibility in preventing and detecting fraud
    • Table 6. Average responses for the auditor’s responsibility in assessing internal control
    • Table 7. Average responses for the auditor’s responsibility in assessing going concern statements
    • Table 8. Average responses for audit report statements
    • Conceptualization
      Anass El Badlaoui, Saida Naji, Badreeddine Chegri
    • Data curation
      Anass El Badlaoui
    • Formal Analysis
      Anass El Badlaoui
    • Investigation
      Anass El Badlaoui
    • Methodology
      Anass El Badlaoui, Saida Naji, Badreeddine Chegri
    • Visualization
      Anass El Badlaoui, Saida Naji, Badreeddine Chegri
    • Writing – original draft
      Anass El Badlaoui
    • Writing – review & editing
      Anass El Badlaoui, Saida Naji, Badreeddine Chegri
    • Project administration
      Saida Naji, Badreeddine Chegri
    • Supervision
      Saida Naji, Badreeddine Chegri
    • Validation
      Saida Naji, Badreeddine Chegri