Abstract:

Accounting and auditing scandals and global economic crises have diminished confidence both in financial reports published by the enterprises and in the auditor's reports in which they expressed their views. Improvements were made at the international level in order to increase the reliability of independent audit activities and to regain the trust. In this respect, the key audit matters in the new format of the independent auditor reports are aimed to increase the communication power with the information users. The matters to be subject to key audit and the scope of the disclosure regarding these matters are left to the auditor's judgment. However, the relevant independent audit standard states that it is necessary to provide a narrative that will enable the target users to understand how the matter is addressed in the audit. The aim of this study is to investigate the legibility of key audit matters in terms of gender differences according to ARI readability index. We assessed the readability index of the key audit matters section in the 2018 independent auditor reports published by the companies in the banking, manufacturing and telecommunication sectors. As a result of the research, we found that the readability of the key audit matters prepared by the female responsible auditors is more difficult and that the average readability index of the key audit matters of the banking sector is higher than the other sectors, in other words, the readability is more difficult.

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