Research about audit quality

Measuring audit quality is problematic. The outcome of audit quality is not directly or immediately observable. Audit quality-control procedures attempt to maintain high standards of control over the process of an audit, but an audit failure usually becomes known in the context of a business failure. Since audit quality is unobservable, researchers look at surrogates or indicators of experts, to determine the inputs and outputs of a quality audit. Other researchers use more objective outputs as a source of determining audit quality. DeAngelo developed a 2-dimensional definition of audit quality in 1981 that set the standard for addressing the issue. First, a material misstatement must be detected, and second, the material misstatement must be reported.