Importance of Ethics and Education to Understand the Audit Mission

Abstract

The chapter brings forward the discussion of how the level of accounting and audit knowledge has an impact on how stakeholders understand the audit mission, the auditor's responsibilities, and the message conveyed by the audit report, even when considering the new and extended reports. The preliminary results of this analysis indicate that audit education influences the audit expectation gap (the reasonableness gap), and if measures would be taken to upsurge the stakeholder's levels of education in auditing and accounting, combined with new and revised standards, the audit expectation gap can be reduced. In this sense, the International Accounting Education Standards Board (IAESB) is an independent standard-setting body that serves the public interest by establishing standards in the field of professional accounting education that prescribe technical competence and professional skills, values, ethics, and attitudes.