Education as a means to reduce audit expectation gap : a Malaysian study

Abstract

After the demise of Enron and World.com particularly, there is high concern regarding the responsibilities of the auditors among the users of financial statements. At times, there are misconceptions of auditors` responsibilities, hence resulting in an audit expectation gap. As the gap widens, it creates worries among the professional bodies, practicing auditors and the users of financial statements. Therefore, many researchers conduct their studies on audit expectation gap. Beginning from the research conducted by Liggio in 1974, further studies on audit expectation gap have been done by other researchers. A study done by Fadzly and Ahmad (2004), proved the existence of audit expectation gap in Malaysia. Since other literatures, Hussain (2003), Fadzly and Ahmad (2004) and Lee and Azham (2008a) suggest audit education could reduce audit expectation gap, this study focuses on whether audit expectation gap exists between auditors and accounting students, and whether audit education in terms of practical training and audit course reduce the gap. The study obtains auditors` perceptions on factors influencing audit expectation gap and suggested ways to reduce audit expectation gap. The survey method is used in the current study. The questionnaires were sent to the practicing auditors and disseminated to the accounting students in their auditing classes in a sample university. It is hoped that this study can provide more information regarding audit expectation gap in Malaysia especially on the issue of whether audit education does reduce audit expectation gap. The findings in the current study prove that there is an audit expectation gap between auditors and the accounting students. Furthermore, it is provides evidence that practical training has its limitations in narrowing the audit expectation gap compared to audit course which is found to be a better way to minimize the gap. Perhaps, the findings of this study could be useful to the accounting regulators, by providing empirical evidence, as they would have the first-hand knowledge of the challenges due to audit expectation gap.