The effect of the form and content of the audit report on the value relevance of accounting information An Empirical study on listed companies in the Saudi stock market (Tadawul)

     The research aimed to study and test the value relevance of accounting information, and to test the effect of the form and content of the audit report after adapting international auditing standards on the value relevance of accounting information.
   To achieve this goal, an applied study was conducted on 114 non-financial companies registered in the Saudi stock market (Tadawul) for the period from 2014 to 2019, with a total of 684 observations, to test the value relevance of accounting information in Saudi companies.
   The (Ohlson) model was used to measure the value relevance of accounting information. This model is based on measuring the value relevance by testing the relationship between the market value of the share and each of the book value of the share and the earnings per share. The results indicated that there is a direct significant relationship between the market value of the share and each of the book value of the share and the earnings per share in the Saudi companies. That means, the accounting information in the financial statements of the companies registered in the Saudi capital market has a value relevance.
   Then, the relationship between the value relevance of accounting information and the form and content of the audit report was tested after it was changed after adopting international auditing standards in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia since 2017. This was done by entering the audit report as a moderating variable in the (Ohlson) model, while adjusting this relationship by a group of control variables are the size, age and financial leverage of the companies, and the size of audit firm, and the auditor's change. The results showed that changing the form and content of the audit report affects the value relevance of the accounting information through the earnings per share, but don’t through the book value of the share.
   An additional analysis was done by introducing operating cash flow per share as the third variable in Ohlson's model. The results indicated that the relationship between the market value of the share and the operating cash flow per share in Saudi companies is not significant.
  The relationship between the value relevance of the accounting information and the form and content of the audit report was re-examined with additional control variables are the loss of companies and the audit tenure. The results showed that the explanatory power of the model under the additional analysis increased from the primary analysis, and this may be due to the increase in the variables.
   Based on the results, the researcher recommends increasing interest in the issue of the value relevance of accounting information, because it has a positive impact on the usefulness and quality of accounting information. she also recommends raising awareness and understanding towards the adoption of international auditing standards, which have a positive impact on the audit quality.