Behavioral research demonstrates significant effects of experience and task complexity on audit judgments, highlighting implications for auditing practices.
Key Points
This research examines how experience and task complexity influence audit judgments in decision-making contexts.
Conducted experiments with structured, semi-structured, and unstructured tasks.
Divided subjects into experienced and inexperienced groups based on normative skill levels.
Used separate responses from 88 partners and managers to establish staff level appropriateness for tasks.
Significant decision-making differences were found between experienced and inexperienced groups on each task.
Pooling all subjects revealed an isolated significant experience effect when controlling for task complexity.
The findings suggest that less experienced auditors cannot serve as reliable surrogates for certified public accountants in complex audit settings.
Cite This Study
Abdolmohammadi et al. (1987) studied this question.