Expectation gap
The term expectation gap ( Expectation Gap ) comes from the area of economic examination system . It describes the phenomenon that occurs when auditing the annual financial statements by an auditor that the public's expectations regarding the auditor's performance may differ from the auditor's actual statutory mandate.
background
The aim of an audit of the financial statements is to assess with sufficient certainty whether all relevant accounting standards (see also accounting ) were observed in the preparation of the financial statements to be audited . On the other hand, it is explicitly not the task of the auditor to give an opinion on the economic situation of a company. This means that the financial statements of an economically ill-positioned company can also be given an unqualified audit opinion , provided that its asset, financial and earnings position is appropriately reflected in the financial statements. However, the auditor has to check the fulfillment of the going concern assumption , since the valuation of the assets and debts shown in the balance sheet would otherwise not have to be carried out at amortized cost (in the case of accounting according to German HGB ) but at liquidation values. In addition, it must be taken into account that the audit of the financial statements is always based on a risk-oriented audit approach for economic reasons, i. H. no full examination of the examination subject is carried out. The auditor can therefore only come to an audit opinion with sufficient certainty and can never rule out the residual risk of a financial statement that is still flawed despite the fact that the audit is carried out extremely carefully and in accordance with standards.
In the past, especially after the occurrence of serious accounting violations that were not discovered by the auditor (so-called accounting scandals), it was observed that the public viewed an unqualified audit opinion previously issued as a guarantee for an economically sound company. However, if the company went into trouble or collapsed, it was often deduced that the auditor was wrong.
Causes and possible solutions
In the literature, three fundamentally different causes and the associated possibilities for overcoming the expectation gap are discussed.
Examiner failure
If an auditor violates relevant audit standards while conducting a final audit, one speaks of auditor failure . One way of overcoming examiner failure and thus the problem of the expectation gap is to find strategies that encourage the examiner to adhere to the relevant standards. An example of this is a functioning auditor oversight, to which u. a. the external quality control matters.
Norm failure
It is also possible that the existing examination standards per se are not suitable for inducing the examiner to behave in the manner desired by the public. Leads to the view that this approach supported by the public to the examiner expectations are desirable also from an objective viewpoint, is a further development of auditing standards a possible solution to the problem of expectation gap. One possibility for overcoming standard failure therefore is more stringent in the introduction legal requirements for a job as an auditor, e.g. B. in the form of stricter independence regulations such as a ban on simultaneous auditing and consulting activities for the same client company.
Public failure
If, on the other hand, the existing standards are considered appropriate and sufficient, the expectation gap can be countered by providing the public with more information in order to bring their (in this case exaggerated) expectations into line with the reality of the examination and thus overcome the public failure.
Individual evidence
- ^ Kai-Uwe Marten , Reiner Quick, Klaus Ruhnke: Auditing - Fundamentals of business auditing according to national and international standards. 3. Edition. Schäffer-Poeschel Verlag, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-7910-2595-7 , p. 19 f.
- ↑ Holger Reichmann: Expectation gap. In: Carl-Christian Freidank , Laurenz Lachnit, Jörg Tesch (eds.): Vahlens Großes Auditing Lexikon. Verlag CH Beck, Verlag Franz Vahlen, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-8006-3171-1 , p. 436 f.