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Among others, agency theory yet provides another reason justifying the need for audited financial information. Based on this
theory, audits are needed as a control mechanism to not only


detect, but also to prevent errors and irregularities.
In order to he effective, an audit has to be conducted in
accordance with applicable standards. In another word, auditing standards are measures of a udit quality. So far, it appears, the
practice of auditing in Iran has not enjoyed a set of recognized and coherent set of standards applied uniformly by auditors. That is being changed.
Given the raison d'etere of an audit., auditing standards are currently being shaped. For standard's to fulfill their desired
objectives, they have to be promulgated in such a way as to consider the peculiarities of the environment, including users
expectations. It is based on this presupposition that identi(ying the users' expectations of the areas of auditors' responsibilities
becomes an imperative and accordingly, is the main objective of
the study.
In this study, based on the existing literature and expert
opinions, a list of 7] areas of auditors' responsibilities were initially identified. Subsequently, by using different methodologies,
the list was narrowed to 25 areas, each of which formed one research hypothesis. The population of the study was five users'
groups and a sample of appropriate size from each of the groups was selected.
The study consisted of two sets of hypotheses. The first set was intended to measure the importance of each of the areas of
auditors responsibilities. The second set \Vas designed to


ddermine if any significant differences existed among the perceptions of different users groups. A pre-piloted survey questionnaire was used to collect the perceptions of the subjects
in three different waives. The comparison of the results of the three waves, for the most part, showed no significant differences
among the answers, thereby, minimizing the possibility of non¬response bias.
Appropriate statistics were used to analyze the data. Based on the results of the analysis, 17 of the 25 hypotheses were accepted,
suggesting 17 areas of the responsibilities to he more important than the rest. As for the between-group comparison, some
differences were detected. Finally, based on the result of the study, a descriptive model was constructed. This mode could he
used as a potential framwork to develop new auditing standards or modify the existing ones.