Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management (ETDs)
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Item Exploration of audit quality disclosures contained in the transparency reports of audit firms(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022) Raphadu, Mpya Aaron; Buchling, MichaelPurpose: The purpose of this study is to explore the disclosure practices of audit firms issued in the transparency reports. This study uses audit quality standards to assess how disclosures regarding audit quality have been included in the audit transparency reports. Methodology: This study analysed the publicly available transparency reports of the big 4 audit firms and medium audit firms. These reports were analysed following an interpretive approach to determining the extent of disclosure on audit quality from 2016 to 2020. This study also considered the change in disclosure on audit quality over these five years. A disclosure checklist has been developed using professional literature. Content analysis has been used to codify the disclosed information with disclosures being scored using an ordinal scale. Descriptive statistics have been used to analyse and graphically present the data. Findings: The findings suggest inconsistencies in the preparation of the transparency reports. The number of disclosures did not increase significantly from 2016 to 2020, even though there was increased public scrutiny of the audit firms in the wake of audit failures over the same period. Additionally, the big 4 audit firms provided more disclosures compared to medium-tier firms. Research limitations: The research is limited to the publicly available transparency reports and, therefore, the findings are not representative of all assurance providers in the South African market Practical implications: The findings can be used to aid audit regulators in understanding inconsistencies in audit firm transparency reports to develop assurance reporting frameworks. Additionally, the findings can inform regulators of these reporting issues about audit quality indicators. Value: This study complements the current research by providing insight into audit firms' disclosure practices in audit transparency reports. Current research has been focussed on corporate governance-specific disclosuresItem Exploring the role external audit regulation in Namibia plays in ensuring the quality of financial statement audits in the country(2020) Dikuua, Miriam BIn Namibia external regulation of the audit profession is enforced by the Public Accountants’ and Auditors’ Board as well as the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Namibia, with the ultimate goal of enhancing the quality of financial statement audits. This study explored the role external audit regulation in Namibia plays in actually ensuring the quality of financial statement audits in the country and is the first research of its kind. Previous research includes the exploration of a correspondence between audit quality and reportable irregularities in South Africa, however the correspondence between external audit regulation and audit quality, specifically in Namibia, is yet to be researched. To address this gap, a mixed method approach grounded in an interpretive epistemology was employed. The opinions of audit and regulation experts on the effect that external regulations have on audit quality using a correspondence analysis instrument was sought and interviews were conducted to complement the correspondence analysis. This research is helpful to regulators and audit practitioners in gaining a better understanding of whether or not the current regulations adequately enhance audit quality, instead of being a perceived ‘tick-the-box’ exercise