Research into Attitudes of Accountants in Trade Companies on the Importance and Role of External Audit

In this paper we carried out the comparative analysis of the referent audit literature of the United States of America (USA), the country where the audit profession has reached the highest level of development and attitudes of accountants in the Republic of Serbia (RS) according to the role and importance of external audit. The research included a sample of 214 companies of central Serbia and initial hypotheses were tested with the aim of proving the similarities and differences in auditing theory and practice of the two countries. The results of the research show that in the majority of answers in the questionnaire the attitudes of accountants of the USA and RS coincide, while the differences are caused by underdevelopment of capital market, stockholding and corporate governance in companies in RS.