Abstract
This paper contributes to judgment and decision making and expertise development literature by identifying the types of review experiences that contribute to better decisions by auditors. Explicit consensus in decision-making is important because it makes the decision binding. Expert judgments on specific topics are expected to be in explicit consensus because experts are assumed to have similar expertise in decision making. Yet, this is often not the case in audit reviews. Further, the reviewers’ disagreements with the auditors’ work may damage the auditors’ professional reputation. We conducted a survey with 74 expert auditors with a minimum of five years of experience to identify the relationship between audit experts’ review experience type and the conservativeness of their decisions. The decision scenario we use asks for the audit experts’ agreement with the decisions of lead engagement reviewers. We find that individuals with internal quality review experience type alone or in combination with various experience types tend to agree less with the lead engagement reviewer who had originally conducted the audit provided in the scenario and tend to be more conservative in their decision making.
Recommended Citation
Johnson-Snyder, Anna J.; Erkan-Barlow, Asligul; Eseryel, U. Yeliz; Killingsworth, Brenda L.; and Reed, April H.
(2024)
"Decision Making by Expert Reviewers in Auditing,"
The Coastal Business Journal: Vol. 20:
No.
1, Article 6.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.coastal.edu/cbj/vol20/iss1/6