Abbas Lari Dashtbayaz, Mahdi Salehi, Mahmoud Mousavi Shiri
Purpose –This paper aims to assess the relationship between an audit report tone and the audit expectation gap.
Design/Methodology/Approach– The procedure of the study is descriptive-correlation based on information released from listed firms on the Tehran Stock Exchange during 2013-2019 using a sample of 128 firms (816 observations). The method used for hypothesis testing is linear regression using panel data.
Findings –The results testing show a negative and significant relationship between audit report tone and audit expectation gap.
Originality/value – Since the present study was carried out in an emergent financial market, like Iran, with a highly competitive audit market to figure out the relationship between audit report tone and audit expectation gap, it can provide helpful information in this field the readers.