O relatório de auditoria e as diferenças de expectativas em auditoria: recentes alterações

Abstract

Several efforts have been made to restore the confidence of users of financial statements, especially after the huge financial scandals in the early twenty-first century. Thus, they are planned changes to the audit report, either on the transposition of European regulations, which refer to the direct use of the International Standard on Auditing, or by additional national requirements. The main purpose of these changes is to increase the informational value of the report, and it is therefore an attempt to reduce differences in expectations for audit, that is the gap between what society expects of the audit and the results thereof. The determination of the impact of these changes on the Portuguese reality thus becomes attractive. Therefore, the overall objective of the study is to assess the expected effect of the changes planned for the audit report in narrowing the audit expectation gap, in light of agency theory. From the quantitative analysis of questionnaires and content analysis of face to face interviews with financial analysts, auditors and chief executive officers, we obtained evidence that in perception of respondents, the planned changes to the audit report have a positive effect in reducing the audit expectation gap in Portugal.