The Effect of Staff Auditor Reputation on Audit Quality Enhancing Actions

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Blum, Emily S.; Hatfield, Richard C.; Houston, Richard W.
• 署名单位: Texas A&M University System; Texas A&M University College Station; University of Alabama System; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
• 刊物名称: ACCOUNTING REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0001-4826
• DOI: 10.2308/TAR-2019-0341
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 75-97
• 关键词: SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION; management; courage; images; POWER; fear

摘要

Auditors often face situations in which acting on their professional obligations comes with potential personal costs. Drawing upon the Theory of Reputation in Organizations, we predict that perceived costs associated with these actions are lower for auditors with positive reputations, which, in turn, influences their actions. In our first experiment, participants perceive that auditors with negative reputations face a more constrained choice set when anticipating a budget overage. Further, participants perceive that those with positive reputations are more likely to proactively report the overage and less likely to underreport hours worked, a result mediated by the anticipated impact on evaluations for speaking up.In a second experiment, we manipulate reputation in a live simulation and demonstrate a causal link between reputation and auditors' skeptical action. Taken together, our experiments provide evidence that an auditor's perceived reputation influences their choice to engage in audit quality enhancing behaviors.