Revisorns kunskapsbas

: vilka kunskaper har och använder en revisor i revisionsprocessen?

Abstract

The auditor has an important role in the society. The main task within this role is to control if the information in companies financial statements, represent a true and fair picture of the audit entity. In order to controll this information the auditor must have knowledge about auditing and the audit process. Previous research indicates that the auditors’ knowledge base is difficult to define, because the audit profession requires expertise in different areas of knowledge. For this reason the purpose with this assignment is to decribe and explore the knowledge which are used by the auditor in the audit process. By applying a positivistic methodology and an eclectic approach, a quantitative questionnaire has been applied. This research is also based on a selection of 2899 authorized auditors in Sweden and 116 answers were received from the selected respondents. In order to test the auditors’ knowledge base empirically, 32 knowledges and abilities from previous researches have been used as options in the survey, which later were tested with different analysis methods.

Results from these anlaysis shows that the identified 32 knowledges and abilities are relevant and applicable in different parts of the audit process. These factors were categorized in eleven different components based on their explanation abilities in the different phases of the audit process. Every factor gave more or less explanation of the duties that the auditor performs in different parts of the audit process, where the factors with the highest explanation degree were placed in the first component in each audit phase. One conclusion is that the identified factors only describe a part of the auditors’ knowledge base, which indicates that the knowledge base is wide. Therefore a suggestion for future reaseach is to decribe and examine the undefined knowledges, to be able to achieve a more comprehensive and overall picture of the auditors’ knowledge base. Based on the reseach question, the study has contributed with a clarifying descripition of the knowledge base, which is difficult to identify. The research can also serves as a guideline for the knowledge that students need to possess in order to achieve the knolwledge required from the auditing industry. Another contribution is that this research can be used as an instrument when the education insitutions are creating course plans and deciding expected learning outcomes for different courses.

Keywords: Audit, knowledge, knowledge base, abilities, the audit process, components.