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An increasing number of earnings restatements along with many allegations of financial statement fraud committed by high profile companies (e.g. Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing, Adelphia) has eroded the public confidence in corporate governance, the financial reporting process, and audit functions. The Sarbanes‐Oxley Act of 2002 was an attempt to regain confidence and trust in corporate America and the accounting profession. The Act addresses corporate scandals and the perceived crisis in the auditing profession. Some of its provisions relate to the audit committee oversight function over corporate governance, financial reporting, internal control structure, internal audit functions, and external audit services. This study examines three types of audit committee disclosures: the annual report of the audit committee; reporting of the audit committee charter in the proxy statement at least once every three years; and disclosure in the proxy statement of whether the audit committee had fulfilled its responsibilities as specified in the charter. This study conducts a content analysis on audit committee disclosures of Fortune 100 companies.

This paper aims to analyze Public Companies Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) inspection reports on audit reports of those inspected accounting firms in Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC). In meeting the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the PCAOB conducts inspections on audit reports of firms listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

The reports include those submitted by both the US audit parent firms and their secondary firms located outside the USA. In each PCAOB report, it unravels the nature of audit deficiencies. The focus is on Big Four because they play a dominant role in the marketplace and issuers’ market capitalization. All the seven-year deficiencies are documented since publications of the reports from 2004 to 2012.

Of the 37 reports, 19 (51 per cent) were issued relating to audits conducted by the Big Four. Out of these 19 reports, 10 (53 per cent) contain inspection criticism. These include audit quality and common recurring audit deficiencies.

This paper is based solely on those inspection reports published by the PCAOB.

The findings have significant implications to audit firms and the audit profession on improving audit quality, firms’ internal control and reports.

No known prior research paper is available on the ramifications of the PCAOB’s inspection reports relating to BRIC.

Describes how audit reports issued by the General Accounting Office (GAO) can be used to teach internal auditing students not only about audit reports, but the wide subject‐matter examined by internal auditors. Audit reports are available free from the GAO. Details how students learn by comparing the GAO reports with the recommendations in textbooks and journal articles.

The Centre for Reviews and Dissemination was commissioned to conduct a systmatic review of clinical audits undertaken to assess the implementation and effectiveness of the National Health Service (NHS) two‐week waiting time policy for cancer referrals in England and Wales. This paper highlights the logistical difficulties experienced by the review team in trying to obtain information from the NHS, and discusses what needs to be done in order to improve the reporting and usefulness of clinical audit reports.

A total of 650 key individuals within NHS Trusts and Strategic Health Authorities were contacted for copies of relevant audits. Other key individuals and organisations across the NHS were also contacted, web sites of key organisations searched, requests for audits on relevant e‐mail discussion lists posted and electronic databases and conference proceedings searched.

Finds that many trusts do not appear to hold a centralised record of what clinical audits have been performed within the trust. In many instances several follow‐up contacts were necessary. The majority of included audits were poorly reported, with fewer than half providing sufficient detail on methodological aspects for the audit to be reproducible.

There should be a system of recording ongoing and completed audits conducted within the NHS, to ensure that audit reports are produced and accessible. The NHS needs to make sure that not only are appropriate audit methods used but that audit reports are written up in sufficient detail to allow the reader to ascertain how the audit was conducted and to assess the validity of the results. Documentary evidence of action plans would make it easier for those not directly involved in the audit to assess if, and in what ways, the audit findings are being acted upon to improve existing practices and procedures.

This paper discusses what needs to be done in order to improve the reporting and usefulness of clinical audit reports.

Conducting an audit is an input. Gaining effective action on the findings is an output. Auditors need therefore to involve their clients more in the total process.

It is clear that the trend toward measuring and managing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on a global scale is not slowing, even though different countries and geographic regions are approaching the issue with different points of view and different levels of vigor. Along with an increase in measuring and managing GHG emissions, enterprises around the world should expect to see a higher level of independent assurance and audit reporting needed. The purpose of this paper is to identify and discuss the challenges and opportunities that accompany GHG emissions accounting and auditing, as well as the supply chain and operational dependencies that are different from traditional financial auditing.

This paper explores the challenges and opportunities from measuring and auditing GHG emissions, and contrasts audits of sustainability information with more traditional financial auditing. It also explores some of the issues in supply chain and operational dependencies that are important in measuring and auditing GHG emissions and are different from more traditional accounting practices.

With the importance of processes to independently audit GHG emissions and natural resource consumption expected to grow in the future, it is important to understand how past experience with financial accounting and auditing can play a role in shaping the future for environmental stewardship. This paper shows that there are a number of key differences between financial and carbon auditing, which must be considered as enterprises begin to consider how to best support increasingly important sustainability reporting. As more publicly traded firms voluntarily issue sustainability reports and new legislation drives a greater need for standardized carbon accounting, so too will the need for auditing GHG emissions grow. This paper explains that GHG auditing will require cross‐functional skills with operational and process knowledge, accounting capabilities and an understanding of how operational data correlates with estimates for GHG emissions.

Much existing work addresses why, where, how, and who should be measuring and managing GHG emissions, but little attention is being given to the unique challenges that must be overcome in order to achieve reporting transparency. Independent auditing of GHG emissions has maintained a low profile while reporting is voluntary and standards are not fully agreed upon. However, with the possibility of legally binding legislation on the horizon, enterprises that are prepared to audit their GHG emissions and resolve issues early will be well positioned from both a compliance and market‐competition perspective.

Examines the influence of various audit firm and client characteristics on compliance with Generally Accepted Auditing Standards’ (GAAS) reporting standards for private sector audits performed by small audit firms. Because prior studies in this area have focused on public sector audits, an important contribution of this study is the use of an observable quality measure as the dependent variable on audits performed in the private sector. Obtains data for the study from the quality reviews of firms licensed to practise in the State of Arkansas during the years 1989‐1991. Suggests that audit fees, the complexity of the engagement and membership in the state Certified Public Accountants’ society are positively related to compliance with GAAS reporting standards on private sector engagements performed by small audit firms. In addition, firm size is negatively related to compliance with GAAS reporting standards on private sector engagements performed by small audit firms.

This paper aims to examine the perspectives of auditors, regulators and financial report preparers on the effects of key audit matters (KAMs) reporting on audit effort, fees, quality and report transparency.

The authors conducted 21 semi-structured interviews with stakeholders (13 Audit Partners, 5 Chief Financial Officers and 3 regulators) and thematically analysed the interviews. They use the frame of “Paradox of Transparency” to explain the findings.

Auditors perceive that the overall quality control of their audits has improved both in the planning and execution stages, and such improvement can mostly be attributed to the coercive pressures from professional bodies and regulators. Nevertheless, audit fee remains unchanged. Auditors disclose industry generic items and descriptions of KAMs, sometimes masking the real problem areas of the clients. Even after improving the performative audit quality, transparency of audit reporting has not improved. Issues that warrant going concern qualifications or audit report modifications are now reported as KAMs. Hence, KAMs reporting might make the audit report less transparent.

Localised audit environments and institutions affect the transparency of KAMs reporting. Without attention to corporate governance and auditors’ independence issues, paradoxically, performative improvement in audit quality (due to the KAMs reporting requirement) does not enhance the transparency of audit reports.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to provide field-level evidence in Bangladesh and other developing countries about the perceptions of auditors, financial report preparers and regulators on the effects of KAMs reporting on audit efforts, fees, quality and report transparency.

This study aims to investigate the moderating effect of the COVID-19 epidemic on the relationship between key audit matter (KAM) and auditing quality.

The authors use the ordinary least squares regression on data from 942 firm-year observations of Jordanian non-financial institutions across the period (2017–2022) to test the hypotheses. The authors use content analysis method to measure levels of KAM disclosure.

The investigation’s findings highlight the importance of KAM disclosure in achieving audit quality in line with international standard on auditing no. 701 (ISA-701) requirements. COVID-19 is also found to have a positive relationship with audit quality, further confirming the crisis’s devastating impact on audit complexity and risks and providing evidence for the need for supplementary, high-quality audit services. Due to the correlation between KAM disclosure and increased auditor workload and responsibility, the analysis reveals that the COVID-19 factor strengthens the link between KAM disclosure and audit quality.

This study has the potential to be used as a basis for the creation of a new regulation or standard regarding the reporting of unfavourable events in financial filings. This study’s findings provide standard-setters, regulators and policymakers with current empirical data on the effects of implementing ISA-701’s mandate for external auditors to provide more information on KAM. The COVID-19 crisis offers a suitable setting in which to examine the value of precautionary disclosures in times of economic uncertainty, as well as the significance of confidence interval disclosures and the role of external auditing in calming investor fears. This analysis is helpful for stakeholders, regulatory agencies, standard-setters and readers of audit reports who are curious about the current state of KAM disclosures and the implementation of ISA-701. The results may have ramifications for academia in the form of a call for more evidence expanding this data to other burgeoning fields to have a clear explanation of the real impact of reporting KAM on audit practices.

To the authors’ awareness, this research is one of the few empirical studies on the effect of the COVID-19 crisis on auditing procedures, and more specifically, the effect of disclosures on KAM by external auditors on audit quality. This study’s findings represent preliminary scientific evidence linking the pandemic to business performance. Minimal research has been done on how auditors in developing nations react to pandemic investor protection and how auditors’ enlarged reporting responsibilities affect them. The vast majority of auditing studies have been conducted in a highly regulated system, so this research contributes by examining audit behaviour in a weak legal context.

This study aims to examine how new regulation changes for the auditor’s report, so-called key audit matters (KAMs), influence tax avoidance.

This study uses data from firms listed on the Omani capital market over the period 2012–2019 and analyzes these data using pooled panel data regression with a robust standard error. It uses two common proxies for tax avoidance and two measures for the KAMs disclosure requirement.

This study finds a sharp decrease in the effective tax rate following the introduction of KAMs disclosure and the issuance of more KAMs in audit reports. This result is supported by several robustness checks. In an additional analysis, the authors observe interesting results, indicating that real earnings management mediates this association, while the audit committee plays a moderating role. The authors do not find a moderating effect of Big4 on this association, but find discrepancies within the Big4 firms in relation to this moderating effect.

The results of this study indicate that although the introduction of the KAMs disclosure requirement may have positive consequences, it may also lead to unintended negative consequences. This conclusion has not been comprehensively reported in literature.