Text similarity, boilerplates and their determinants in key audit matters disclosure

Like the European Commission, many regulators and standard setters worldwide have substantially revised requirements for auditor’s reports on statutory audits of public interest entities. Their objective was to improve report’s information content and, hence, transparency audit. A significant change introduction a key audit matters (KAM) disclosure which increased scope, meaningfulness, individuality reports. However, critics fear that auditors could use similar or formulations (i.e., boilerplate reporting) not really increase value report. Therefore, this study investigates text similarities in KAM practice German HDAX companies between 2017 2019. The results suggest often when disclosing same issue at client level consecutive years. We further find similarity rate is significantly negatively correlated an firm change, positively firms stable financial position measured by high portion equity