I investigate how nonprofessional investors’ confidence in the financial statements and the audit report is influenced by the firm specific details of a critical audit matter (CAM) disclosure in conjunction with the description of the audit procedures engaged to address the CAM in the audit report. Using participants recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk as a proxy for nonprofessional investors in a 2x2 +1 (control) between-participants experiment manipulating CAM disclosure detail (Detailed/Generic) and the description of the audit procedures engaged to address the CAM (Detail/Generic) I find that greater detail in the description of the CAM results in higher confidence in the accuracy and reliability of the financial statements than a generic description of the CAM, consistent with boundary condition of Support Theory. Further, I find that greater detail in the description of the related audit procedures engaged to address the CAM increases nonprofessional investors’ perceptions of audit quality. Evidence of an effect of CAM and audit procedure disclosure language on investment judgments is also presented. These results have implications for researchers, practitioners, and regulators to carefully consider the language used to disclose CAMs in the auditor’s report.

Bakgrund: I samband med införandet av ISA 701 och EU direktiv 537/2014 år 2016 materialiserades omfattande förändringar för revisionspraxis gällande revisionsberättelsens innehåll och långvariga klientrelationer. Trots att dessa förändringar implementerades samtidigt har vi identifierat utrymme att fördjupa förståelsen på vilket vis ISA 701 och EU direktiv 537/2014 påverkar varandra i hur informationen i revisionsberättelsen påverkas av revisionspartnerrotation.SyfteSyftet med studien är att förklara hur rotation av revisionspartner påverkar mängd och innehåll av Särskilt Betydelsefulla Områden i revisionsberättelsen för bolag noterade på Stockholmsbörsen. Metod: Denna kvantitativa studie har en deduktiv forskningsansats.  Studiens data utgörs av sekundärdata i form av räkenskapsinformation och revisorsinformation, vilket i sin tur analyserats med logistisk regression. Slutsats: Studien fann inga samband mellan revisionspartnerrotation och ökad mängd av rapporterade SBOer i revisionsberättelsen. Inga samband hittades heller mellan revisionspartnerrotation och en ökad andel av bolagsspecifika SBOer. Dock fann studien att innehållet av de kontospecifika SBOerna förändras i samband med revisionspartnerrotation. Detta resultat indikerar att revisorer från olika revisionsbyråer rapporterar i överlag om samma risker, men skillnader kan förekomma inom rapporteringen av SBOer relaterade till enskilda konton. / Introduction: As ISA 701 and EU directive 537/2014 were implemented in 2016, extensive changes for audit practitioners materialized regarding the content of the audit report and long-term client relationships. Although these changes were implemented at the same time, we have identified an information gap where we can enhance the understanding in the ways ISA 701 and EU directive 537/2014 influence each other by studying how the information in the audit report is affected by audit partner rotation. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to explain how rotation of audit partners affects the amount and content of Key Audit Matters in the audit report for companies listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange.MethodThe research approach is deductive. The study applies a quantitative method. Data collection took place through work with annual reports of companies listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. Logistic regression method is used for empirical analysis. Conclusion: The study found no correlation between audit partner rotation and an increased amount of reported KAMs in the audit report. Nor were any correlations found between audit partner rotation and an increased proportion of company-specific KAMs. However, the study found that the content of the account-specific KAMs does change when an audit partner rotation has taken place. This result indicates that auditors from different audit firms generally report on the same risks, but differences may arise within the reporting of KAMs related to individual accounts.