Innovative Accounting Interviewing: A Comparison of Real and Virtual Accounting Interviewers

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Pickard, Matthew D.; Schuetzler, Ryan; Valacich, Joseph S.; Wood, David A.
• 署名单位: Northern Illinois University; Brigham Young University; University of Arizona
• 刊物名称: ACCOUNTING REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0001-4826
• DOI: 10.2308/tar-2017-0235
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 339-366
• 关键词: COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION; self-disclosure; social responses; Similarity; INFORMATION; deception; Auditors; mimicry; agents; humans

摘要

Recent technological advances make it possible to create automated virtual interviewers, called embodied conversational agents (ECAs). We study how an ECA compares to a human interviewer in three experiments. In experiment 1, we show that two theoretically motivated factors-making the ECA facially and vocally similar to the interviewee-result in the ECA performing similarly to or better than human interviewers for six antecedents of disclosure quality. In two additional experiments, we show that employees are, on average, 21 to 32 percent more likely to disclose violating internal controls to an ECA than to a human, even if the human interviewer has significant interviewing experience. These findings contribute to the ECA design literature by showing that similarity-enhancing features of ECAs increase the antecedents of disclosure. The findings also contribute to the accounting literature by demonstrating that ECA technology can increase the scope of interviewing in accounting without reducing interview quality.