Abstract:

This paper analyzes transparency of audit firms that audit financial statements of listed companies. Audit Act requires that all listed companies in Croatia must have their financial statements audited. In addition, the Act obliges auditing firms which carry out audits of public interest companies to prepare transparency reports and to publish them on their websites or on websites of the Audit Chamber. Considering the above, the main objective of this paper is to explore if audit firms operate transparently or not, and to create the quality index of transparency report based on archival analysis of published transparency reports and survey analysis conducted with relevant audit experts. Also, with regard to the essential elements of the audit transparency report, the aim of this paper is to investigate their stability and quality. Moreover, we wanted to find out whether there is a significant difference in transparency between the 'Big Four' audit firms and others. The analysis comprises the examination of the importance of certain elements of audit transparency reports, with aim of finding new elements (i.e. voluntary reporting) to achieve a more transparency and better reports. The results of our study indicate that audit firms are not transparent fully.

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