Research Trends in Public Sector Auditing

The purpose of this study is to show how audit research has developed and to identify avenues for future research in the field of auditing. The direction of public sector audit research has changed rapidly in the last four decades.

To write this article, a review of articles published in domestic and foreign journals has been used. The research sample includes articles on public sector auditing that were published in accounting and public sector management journals between 1991 and 2020 for foreign journals and between 2001 and 2021 for domestic journals.

The results of the study show that researchers' interest in public-sector auditing has increased and the scope of the research has expanded.Therefore, it can be argued that this issue represents a transformation in the public sector in recent decades, due to the development of the institutional logic of public sector reforms, from traditional public management to modern public management.

This article provides a comprehensive review of the public sector audit literature and discusses different perspectives over time. Also, the various reforms of the public sector presented during the study period are explained, and finally, by identifying the research gaps, research proposals will be presented.

Contribution:

 The findings of this research enrich the research literature on public sector audit and its results can be used by the state supreme audit Court.