RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AUDIT COMMITTEE CHARACTERISTICS AND THE AUDIT EXPECTATION GAP WITHIN STATE CORPORATIONS IN KENYA

Purpose: The current study sought to identify the relationship between audit committee characteristics and the audit expectation gap within the public sector in Kenya.Methodology: The study adopted a positivism philosophy and a descriptive research design in solving the research problem. The target population for the research was pooled from audit committee members in all the 119 state parastatals. The study relied on primary data that was collected using semi-structured questionnaires and key informant interview schedules. This was further supplemented using secondary data that was sourced from government reports and published reports. The collected data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Statistical tests such as ANOVA and t-test was conducted to help in accepting or rejecting the research hypothesis.Results: The study findings indicated that audit committee composition R2 = .107 and audit committee meetings R2 = .19   had the highest association with audit expectation gap in state corporations.Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: The study recommends that gender inclusion should be upheld within the public sector and more so within audit committees. Further in constituting audit committees there is need for stakeholders to ensure individual competencies such as technical skills, leadership qualities and integrity are available to help mitigate expectation gap. More so there should be appropriate skill mix within the audit committee which should be regularly assessed to ensure conformity to best standards of practice.