All I Want to Know is, Can I Get on the Plane?

Standard setters and market participants continue to debate the content and informativeness of the standard financial statement audit report. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 25 highly experienced business professionals to explore their perceptions of the current audit report and how they believe proposed changes (e.g., adding disclosures related to fraud) may impact its value. Our results reveal that interviewees perceive a general lack of understanding of the report's current disclosures, possibly due to unnecessary complexities in the wording of the current report. Interviewees expressed a preference for a simplified report that gives more insight into the audit process. Finally, most interviewees conveyed concerns that proposed changes to the audit report will result in unintended, possibly adverse, consequences. Our results suggest that standard setters should more closely incorporate stakeholder preferences into the standard setting process.