Forventningskløften mellem samfundet og revisor i relation til hvidvask

Abstract

It has often been a tendency in society that the auditors bear the responsibility for not discovering fraud in financial reports. In recent years is seems that the focus has shifted from general fraud to money laundering. Money laundering has now become a new focus in financial reports. The purpose of this thesis is to examine whether the auditors live up to expectations that society has or whether there is an expectation gap. The thesis additionally wanted to clarify how much knowledge auditors, public and professionally relevant have about money laundering. For investigating whether an expectation gap exists regarding money laundering, Brenda Porter’s and Bent Warming-Rasmussen’s theories regarding the expectation gap have been used. To understand society’s expectations, the thesis used surveys to obtain empirical evidence. The collected empiricism have been used in context to the theories to investigate whether the level of experience and knowledge has a connection to the expectation gap. To access the experience, society will be divided into following groups: Auditors, professionally relevant. These groups will be used in the analysis. In the analysis of the thesis, society’s knowledge of money laundering, expectations law and standards, as well as expectations to auditors’ services, have been researched. The analysis has been divided into analysis of the expectation of the three society groups, but also whether society’s education is related to their expectations. It has also been investigated whether the respondent’s gender has significance. Based on the results obtained through the analysis, it has been possible to conclude that there exists an expectation gap between society and auditors regarding money laundering. The gap exists both due to inadequate standards and society’s unreasonable expectations of auditors. The thesis has also been able to conclude that the expectation gap exists regardless of profession, education level and gender. However, it has also been possible to conclude that the gap decreases the more professional experience the society acquires. Lastly, the thesis also found that both society and auditors are assessed to have insufficient knowledge about money laundering.