The impact of digital transformation on audit quality : exploratory findings from a Delphi study

Abstract EN

The study is designed to explore the effect of digitalization on audit quality.

To achieve this objective, A Delphi study with 20 projections about the quality of auditing related to digitalization was developed and evaluated by a panel of Egyptian auditors on two rounds.

Some of the results of this investigation showed that the respondents expect some major changes in the determinants of audit quality in the future as a result of digitalization especially when it comes to the qualifications of auditors, some audit procedures performed, and the timeliness of audit report.

Other findings demonstrate that experts do not see a dramatic impact of technological progress on the determinants of audit quality mainly in the areas related to the audits becoming less informative or obsolete thus making audit users lose trust in them, increasing the auditing expectation gab, or increasing the regulatory gap between auditing standards and the new business reality.

Among the issues that emerge from these findings is that advanced technologies such as big data analytics, artificial intelligence, blockchain technology, and Robotic process automation have the potential to decrease human involvement in the auditing process.

Thus it cannot be expected that the auditing profession will stay the same under the prevalence of digitalization.