Process of Disclosing Key Audit Matters in Audit Report: Grounded Theory

Since 2022, disclosing key audit matters (KAMs) has been required, aiming to enhance the information content of audit reports. KAMs are challenging issues that have played a vital role in the audit process. They are divided into 2 classes: account-level and entity-level KAMs. This research seeks to design a model for the process of disclosing KAMs in Iran. This study uses grounded theory for its purpose. Moreover, its research instrument is in-depth interviews with experts, to understand the current situation and discover the bottlenecks and challenges of this process. According to the obtained findings (74 concepts and 13 categories), The main reason for the need to disclose the KAMs was synchronizing with international authorities to increase the information content of audit reports and its requirement by Iranian policymakers. An appropriate strategy is to evaluate and identify risky and challenging points in the audit process and disclose these issues and how the auditor deals with them in the report while informing the company's management. Various factors affect the implementation of this strategy, including the characteristics of the client, the characteristics of the audit firm, and the characteristics of the audit work. The obtained results show that the process of disclosing KAMs in Iran is far from reaching the desired point and faces big challenges (the challenges alluding to users, standards, and the audit profession). If these challenges are not solved, the profession will not reach its ultimate goal, i.e., increasing the information content of the report and helping users make decisions and public trust. Due to the novelty of the requirement to disclose these issues in the auditor's report and the little research conducted, this research can provide guidelines and add to the relevant knowledge in understanding the mentioned process until reaching the desired point for policymakers and relevant stakeholders