IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ids/ijaape/v13y2017i2p187-198.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do experienced auditors have a bias for confirmatory audit evidence?

Author

Listed:
  • Dennis M. O'Reilly
  • John T. Reisch
  • Robert A. Leitch

Abstract

In this study we experimentally test whether experienced auditors display a preference for confirmatory evidence when performing a routine part of a financial statement audit. We theorise that information auditors receive early during an audit leads them to form an initial belief about the correctness of an account balance. Subsequently, auditors may bias their evidence choices in a way that confirms their initial belief. We conducted a 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment with 97 experienced auditors. We manipulated whether early information came from a client's CFO or a firm partner and whether or not it supported the account balance as currently stated. We found that auditors selected more confirmatory evidence after receiving positive information from an audit partner compared to receiving the same information from a client's CFO. We found that experienced auditors selected more confirmatory evidence when the CFO provided negative information relative to when the CFO provided positive information.

Suggested Citation

  • Dennis M. O'Reilly & John T. Reisch & Robert A. Leitch, 2017. "Do experienced auditors have a bias for confirmatory audit evidence?," International Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Performance Evaluation, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 13(2), pages 187-198.
    • Handle: RePEc:ids:ijaape:v:13:y:2017:i:2:p:187-198
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=83030
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ids:ijaape:v:13:y:2017:i:2:p:187-198. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sarah Parker (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=41 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.