906 A SEMIOLOGIC APPROACH TO AUDIT EXPECTATIONS GAP Dobroţeanu Laurenţiu Academia de Studii Economice Bucureşti, Facultatea de Contabilitate şi Informatică de Gestiune Piaţa Romană, nr. 6, sector 1, cod 010374, laurdll@yahoo.com, tel. 0726-683-385 Dobroţeanu Camelia Liliana Academia de Studii Economice Bucureşti, Facultatea de Contabilitate şi Informatică de Gestiune Piaţa Romană, nr. 6, sector 1, cod 010374, camidll@yahoo.com, tel. 0726-683-384 Ciolpan Daniela Academia de Studii Economice Bucureşti, Facultatea de Contabilitate şi Informatică de Gestiune Piaţa Romană, nr. 6, sector 1, cod 010374, ciolpandana@yahoo.com, tel. 0722-462-093 Audit expectations gap (AEG) is one of the most debated phenomena animating the international scientific research scene. The volume of papers focused on defining the AEG concept, examining its determinants, implications, and mechanisms to minimize the gap almost exceeds those dedicated to the exploration of creative accounting. Our paper, as an integral part of a wider research 450 , seeks to review the conceptualization of AEG on international arena along with its identified determinants and behavioral path, and the research methodologies employed by researchers in their studies on AEG. Our approach relies heavily on an extensive international literature review, based on which we conclude with taxonomy on AEG. Keywords: audit expectation gap, audit research, auditors, perceptions JEL classification: M42 Introduction Under the circumstances of current international developments, dominated by financial crises, the traditional role played by the external audit in rendering confidence in companies‘ financial reporting on their financial position and performances is increasingly becoming questioned. Limperg (1932 cited in Porter et al 2005 p.119) points out that the “audit function is rooted in the confidence that society places in the effectiveness of the audit and in the opinion of the accountant…if the confidence is betrayed, the function, too, is destroyed, since it becomes useless”. Confused by economic crises, the public turn its eyes on auditors: Why auditors do not report the frauds committed by his clients? To what extent should an auditor be invested with confidence since it gets paid by its client? How reliable and useful could be an audit report if ambiguous wording is extensively used in it? If auditors are not able to explain intelligibly their work, how could one expect that non-auditors would understand it? (Humphrey, 1997). Why auditors do not disclose creative accounting techniques used by their clients? Why financial failures are invariably showing up auditors‘ tolerance to manipulations of financial information by their clients? Concluding on such questions, and many others not captured above, perhaps, the most serious perception widely shared by the public that undermines the external audit – drawn from the audit‘ inability to early signal and disclose the corporate failures – is: why is external auditing compulsory to companies? (Manuzi, 2008). Looking in the past, one could notice that this is a cyclical phenomenon: whenever the economic world is shaken by financial scandals or is going through financial crises, external auditing is exposed to wide public criticisms which do not save any effort to question on its role (Humphrey, 1997). Accumulated in time, such noisy voices have placed a strong pressure on the international professional community to react in various ways: either by adjusting some professional 450 The research was conducted as part of a CNCSIS financed research project – „Studiu bipolar privind controversele de perceptie asupra auditului (audit expectation gap): profesie versus utilizatori performanta autohtona versus performantele europene si internationale‖, project manager, Laurentiu Dobroţeanu, 2009.