Audit Review: The Impact of Discussion Timing and Familiarity

I investigate how the trend in audit practice of including face-to-face discussions between the preparer and the reviewer affects audit team performance. Specifically, I focus on the timing of reviewer/preparer discussion and explore whether performance of the audit team in a task involving a review by interview process is affected by the timing of the discussion. The discussion timing compares senior/manager teams when review discussions are held either concurrently with or following the manager's review of the senior's work. Additionally, I explore how reviewers' familiarity with preparers may also affect the audit team performance. Familiarity is examined by comparing senior/manager teams where the managers had either positive prior involvement or no prior involvement with the reviewed seniors. The audit team performance in generating hypotheses in a preliminary analytical review case was measured to assess any differences due to those attributes. Consistent with expectations, I find that post-review discussion and familiarity with the preparers are both, independently, important sources of audit team performance gains in a review process that includes face-to-face discussions.