Abstract This article presents a study on the impact of management accounting system (MAS) on auditor independence. In this study, 181 auditors from different firms and offices were asked to evaluate internal control for a written case description. The evaluation consisted of three phases: a preliminary evaluation, a subsequent review of compliance test data prepared by a staff assistant and a final evaluation of internal control. It was expected that auditors who understood that their accounting firm had helped design and install the internal control system would be more likely to rate the system as stronger than would the auditors who believed another firm had helped design and install the system. Based on this study, there is no evidence that the independent under increased scrutiny. Audit quality and mental attitude of the auditors in this experiment was measurably affected by whether their own or another firm performed the MAS described. The most significant aspect of this study is that there is no evidence that the fact of an auditor's firm designing a client's internal control system had a measurable impact on the auditor's thought processes in his or her audit capacity. If anything, the data suggest some auditors become more critical of their firms' MAS clients. Moreover, this study examined auditor-behavior related to questions of MAS and independence. The results demonstrate that these issues are very complex and cannot be analyzed or summarized simplistically. The authors hope there will be additional studies of the factors that might affect auditor independence and that the studies will help clarify perceptions of auditor independence.
Corless et al. (Tue,) studied this question.