Expectation Gap and Auditing

人们期望外部审计师在他们的审计过程中做的是发现管理舞弊。然而，外部审计师没有达到他们的期望。人们的期望与审计人员所做的工作之间的差距加大了。每当大公司的丑闻被披露时，人们都会提到加强审计。在日本，公司法和审计准则已经进行了修订，以缩小差距。换句话说，差距是会计准则和理论的一种轮子。与此同时，人们认识到传统会计理论与新会计理论以及审计在未来审计前景、外部审计师名册、审计制度等方面还存在着显著的差距。本研究项目的最重要目的是调查日经500强公司管理层和注册会计师对外部审计名册、审计规则及其制度框架的意见。其他目标是理解差距对审计方法、审计准则修订和审计定义的影响。

What people expect external auditors to do in their auditing process is to find frauds of managements. However, external auditors do not measure up to their expectations. The gap between people's expectation and what auditors do has been increased. Whenever scandals of big companies are revealed, people address to reinforce auditing. In Japan, company law and standards of auditing has been revised to decrease gap. In other words, the gap is a kind wheel of accounting standards and theories. At the same, people come to understand that other significant gap exists between traditional accounting theories and new ones as well as auditing in the respect of prospects for the future auditing, roll of external auditors, auditing system and so on.The most important objectives of this research project is to survey the opinions of management of Nikkei big 500 companies and certified public accountant about the roll of external auditing, regulations for auditing and its institutional framework. The other objectives are to make sense of the influences of the gap on auditing methods, the revision of auditing standards and definition of auditing.