Role of Performance Auditing on Public Accountability Improvement; Emphasis on the Report`s Content

Accountability refers to the commitment of public sector organizations and managers to make decisions about public resources and their other social responsibilities According to agency theory. Efforts to improve public accountability and move towards good governance are the demands of all citizens. One of the tools that can help improve public accountability is the implementation of performance auditing and appropriate content of the relevant reports in the country's executive agencies. The purpose of this study, which was carried out in Tehran in 2018 and 2019, is to determine the information that can be presented in performance audit reports using expert opinion. In this research, once the theoretical foundations of performance auditing was studied, the information presented in the public sector performance audit reports were analyzed. Then, the information presented in the reports to improve accountability were gathered based on expert opinions. In response to the question, 31 semi-structured interviews were conducted with performance audit experts. The interview data were analyzed using thematic analysis. According to the findings of this research section, the three key elements, sustainable development, systems and controls were identified as the main themes, and their subthemes were categorized. Therefore, performance auditing report can include far more concepts than the three key elements: efficiency, economy and effectiveness, in the public sector. With a systematic approach, it is expected that with the improvement of performance audit reports, we will witness its promotion as a subsystem of the accountability system, as well as an improvement in the public sector accountability system.This study enriches the performance auditing literature, and contributes to recognizing the areas of performance auditing and better understanding of the content of reports.