The Impact of the Pandemic of Covid-19 on the 'Audit Expectation Gap' - The Case of India

Abstract: The purpose is to explore the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the AEG by exploring the perceptions of two groups namely, (i) auditors and (ii) the users of the audited financial statements. This research is conducted in the Indian context, meaning the participants of this study are Indian Chartered Accountants and users of financial statements. The analysis of the findings of this study suggests that the audit expectation gap (AEG) existed in India during the pre-pandemic period and it has been widened further by the pandemic. Porter’s (1996) AEG model suggests that there has been a deficient performance by the auditors, and also the users have excessive unreasonable expectations arising from the risk perception of the financial crisis created by the pandemic. However, the analysis of the underlying reasons behind such impact of the pandemic on the AEG shows that the major contributor to this gap is the users and their unreasonable expectations. Also, the auditors faced numerous professional and personal challenges due to the changes brought by lockdowns and social distancing, which may have impacted the audit quality to some extent. But, with the support from the regulator, ICAI, in terms of guidance and training, they found alternate ways to conduct the audit procedures and put significant efforts to keep up the audit quality. The users, on the other hand, driven by the fear and uncertainty of a pandemic, developed unreasonable expectations from auditors demanding a higher level of assurances owing to the risk of fraud and misstatements arising during the pandemic. The users believe that both the auditing standards and auditor performance did not evolve to suit the needs and concerns of the pandemic, but rather stayed stagnant, causing the overall expectation gap to widen further.