| Summary: | The thesis consists of two main parts. First, the thesis is examining the level of voluntary corporate disclosure of the Egyptian companies' annual reports during the period of 2004-2005 and 2005-2006. The examined level is justified by the impact of two groups of· determinants; firm characteristics, including firm size, firm profitability, and industrial membership, and corporate governance characteristics, including board size and role duality. The findings of this part of the thesis indicate a relatively low level of voluntary corporate disclosure. Moreover, it is found that firm characteristics have a significant impact of the level of voluntary disclosure, while corporate governance characteristics have an in significant impact on the level of this sort of disclosure. In addition, the thesis examined these relationships not only on the total level of voluntary disclosure, but also for each category of this examined disclosure. Second, the thesis is examining the existence of the auditing expectations gap in Egypt through the different stakeholders' perceptions. The findings indicate the existence of this sort of gap in Egypt. Therefore, the thesis is investigating the usefulness and effectiveness of the traditional methods, including audit report fOrni, user's education, and standards settings, in comparison to each other in reducing the existing gap. In addition, the thesis provides the theoretical bases for selecting the voluntary corporate disclosure auditing as an effective method of reducing such existing gap. Therefore, the thesis is investigating the usefulness and effectiveness of voluntary corporate disclosure 'auditing, as a proposed method of reducing the existing expectations gap, in comparison to the traditional methods. The findings of this part of the thesis indicate that voluntary disclosure auditing is an effective method of reducing the auditing expectations gap in comparison to the traditional methods. Furthermore, the thesis points the most important categories of voluntary disclosure that would be worth it to begin with as have a countable impact on reducing the expectations gap. However, it is noted that the relatively important categories of voluntary disclosure that would effectively contribute to the reduction of the auditing expectations gap are characterized by scoring a relatively low level of disclosure. Therefore, the thesis is suggesting two stages to reduce the auditing expectations gap through voluntary disclosure auditing. First, is to increase the level of voluntary disclosure of these categories in the Egyptian companies' annual reports. Second, is auditing these categories of voluntary disclosure as an introductory stage of launching the concept of voluntary disclosure auditing. Finally, it is recommended by the thesis to introduce this new area of auditing of voluntary disclosure. However, this new area of auditing needs further research concerning the qualifications and procedures required to apply this new paradigm to make it ready to be in action. Moreover, auditing voluntary disclosure does not mean that it would be obligatory for the companies to have this sort of disclosure, as this would affect the voluntary nature of these disclosures, but if the companies have chosen to disclose this sort of information voluntarily, so it is obligated to audit these disclosures as a matter of securing the stakeholders against any manipulated information that may direct them towards making wrong decisions.
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