Reinstatement or Raised Limit Values for Statutory Audit? : A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Debate Regarding the Statutory Audit in Sweden

Abstract: Background/Problematization: The statutory audit was abolished for small limited companies in Sweden, in 2010, with the intention of easing the burden on enterprises with high audit expenses and enhancing Sweden's competitiveness. After the abolishment, the debate about statutory audit has rekindled once more, where various actors and scholars emphasize the meaningfulness of statutory audit for small firms in terms of fighting criminality and ensuring financial information quality for stakeholders, while others argue that the benefits of the audit do not justify the expenditures incurred. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to map the debate about the statutory audit for small companies in Sweden since the abolishment in 2010 by exploring the main stakeholders, their differences in power as well as the arguments provided by the debaters. Methodology: This thesis adopts a critical discourse analysis method with an abductive research approach, where predetermined codes were developed in a scheme in order to collect the empirical data. The study includes 90 articles that were collected and used from 8 newspapers, magazines, or websites. Findings: The findings suggest that auditing- and accounting organizations, legislators, authorities, audit firms, clients, creditors and business associations are the main stakeholders of the debate. Further, the prominent arguments for a reinstatement are the increased criminality and the decreasing financial quality in the absence of an auditor, while the arguments for raised limit values involve the lack of necessity of audit in small firms as well as the incurred cost and lack of competitiveness due to statutory audit. Our findings indicate that there exist differences in power in the debate, where some stakeholders are more prevalent in the debate and are seen to be more influential than others.