New development: Marketization versus politicization in a perpetual strive for public audit independence

This article reports on an investigation of audit independence in the context of local public audit in Sweden. The article focuses on the influence of two different sets of interests. The results show that there is a risk that the way the results of the audit process are communicated and disseminated in an organization is influenced by political, as well as market, interests. The article reveals the complexity of the public sector audit process and sheds light on the difficulty of securing audit independence and decreasing the audit expectation gap. This article provides valuable insight for researchers, practitioners, and policy developers.