Words Matter for Government Accountability? The Linguistic Tone of Government Reports and Audit Results

As a critical tool for accountability mechanisms, audits are expected to provide key stakeholders with impartial and unbiased information about government operations. However, meeting this expectation may not be readily achievable since auditors are not entirely free from various bias sources. One such bias source is the linguistic tone of government reports, which auditees can strategically manipulate when needed. To examine the potential existence of such bias in current audit practices, this study employs automated textual analysis of financial reports from all 50 U.S. states spanning fiscal years from 2002 to 2023. The findings reveal a significant relationship between the linguistic tone of financial reports and the discovery of internal control deficiencies, suggesting that auditees’ use of positive and negative words in financial reports is associated with more favorable and unfavorable audit results, respectively. This study contributes to the development of accountable public management practices by enhancing our understanding of the role of audits as effective accountability mechanisms.