The Relationship Between Audit Expectation Gap and Audit Report Readability

The present study assesses the relationship between the audit expectation gap and reports' readability. The study uses information from firms listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange from 2014-2020, using a sample of 128 firms (816 observations). The regression method was employed for testing hypotheses. Based on the text length index, the results indicate a negative and significant association between the audit expectation gap and audit report readability. However, no association was found between the total audit expectation gap and the report readability based on the Fog index. The relationship between the illogical expectations gap and the audit report readability based on the Flesch index was insignificant. The Fog index shows a negative and significant relationship between the illogical expectations gap and audit report readability, and the Flesch index shows a negative and significant relationship between total audit expectations and audit report readability.