Auditors' perceptions of the continuous auditing role in mitigating audit risks in Egypt during the corona pandemic : an experimental investigation

Abstract EN

This research aimed to explore the perceptions of external auditors in Egypt on both increasing the risks of auditing in the environment of electronic publication of financial reports, the role of the application of continuous auditing in reducing these risks, and the extent to which the experience of external auditors of information technology is considered an important determinant in the application of continuous auditing, and then to discuss the fundamental difference of these perceptions between the period before the coronavirus pandemic and during the pandemic.

Data were collected using experimental approach by online surveys from 126 local audit firms to achieve these research objectives.

Six hypotheses were tested, t-test, Paired Samples Statistics and Wilcoxon signed ranks Test are used to test the research hypotheses.

The overall results indicate that there are a fundamental difference in the awareness of external auditors in Egypt about the audit risks arising from the electronic publication of financial reports, and the importance of applying continuous auditing in this type of accounting and auditing firms to reduce audit risks, as well as considering the degree of auditor training and experience in dealing with information technology as one of the determinants of the success of the application continuous auditing.

The future research should focus on internal audit application for continuous audit of risk management and quality support for electronically published financial reports in Egypt.