Abstract Audit working papers are typically reviewed by the senior, manager, and partner, and in some instances, by a second partner. Thus, firms invest costly professional time in working paper review. However, little is known about working paper review, despite its importance to the audit. This paper examines the information processing characteristics of audit managers' working paper review. In a structured experimental task, audit managers specified the audit review activities they would perform and which specific audit procedures they would review, for four different balance sheet accounts. Classification of the managers' review approaches suggested a review strategy characterized by directed and comprehensive information search. Managers also changed the focus of their review (i.e., emphasized different evidence in the working papers) in response to changes in the task environment. Based on these results, a number of directions for future research are suggested.
Bamber et al. (Tue,) studied this question.