A Theoretical Examination of the Role of Auditing and the Relevance of Audit Reports

The objective of this book is to present and discuss the frameworks that affect the demand for audit services. Knowledge of the theories discussed in this book are fundamental to everyone studying auditing and accounting. While most of the “normal” auditing text books focus on what the auditors do and how they do it, this book goes one step back and examines why auditors exist in the first place. The author believes that by knowing the theories and factors affecting existence and the demand for audit services, the understanding of what and why certain things are done by auditors is deepened.

This book is structured in the following way. In “Part I” the theories of auditing
are presented. The main focus here is on agency theory because it is the most
prominent of the existing theories. In the latter half of “Part I” the factors affect-
ing the demand for financial information and auditing are discussed. This per-
spective is important because it helps the reader better understand, for example, why different companies or users demand different levels of information or assurance.

The purpose of “Part II” is to illustrate what implications auditing, particularly
audit reporting, may have. This section examines the usefulness of audit reports to financial statement users by examining evidence from the stock markets and decision making processes. To activate the reader each chapter is preceded by a statement of the learning objects. These are matters that the author thinks that the reader should know after reading the chapter. In addition, each chapter is followed by discussion questions. The chapter does not necessarily give a direct answer to these questions, but rather, they are questions that arise from the issues discussed.