Abstract
The development of the recent audit regulations underline the fundamental role played by auditors. They are the guarantee of the financial statement fiability to protect investors. The question of real or perceived audit quality is on the heart of these recent regulations. This research develops an original theoretical framework established on a three-dimensional conception of audit quality to understand how auditors perceive the criteria influencing audit quality. To analyse this problematic, the methodology developed combines a qualitative and a quantitative approach based on French auditors. The qualitative phase leads to identify 65 audit quality attributes ranked into three themes: audit mission, audit team and regulation. The results reveal that auditors share a positive view about all the criteria. Moreover, even usual dimensions of audit quality (competence and independence) are confirmed, the study underlines criteria which are few developed by previous literature. The quantitative phase is based on responses from 140 auditors. It measures the relevance and the relative weight of the audit quality attributes. It also permits to identify three auditors’ group perceptions. The prevailing group presents an expended cognitive process, the second one is qualified as an audit technicity advocate group. The smallest group privilege an interpersonal audit conception.