EN
Frames are mental models that determine, often subconsciously, how we understand reality. There is little research on the frames in which (performance) audit work is drenched. This article tries, through some case studies, to gain more insight into the frames performance auditors have about social problems and their solutions, about management and policy making, about audit evidence and so on. The research shows that auditors adopt the government’s policy frame on social problems and the solutions pursued, and on the role that the involved actors (government, market, etc.) have in it, although sometimes with subtle comments. Auditors start from a strongly rational frame of how government should behave, sometimes enriched with e.g. elements from systems thinking. They believe that societies and government organizations are, to a large extent, engineerable. Auditors have a realist view of knowledge acquirement; they believe that objective knowledge is possible.