The Effect of Domain-Specific Experience on Evaluation of Management Representations in Analytical Procedures.

Abstract While conducting an audit, auditors often seek explanations from clients regarding material findings. Such representations by management are to be considered as evidence, but not necessarily as competent evidence because lack of management's independence may reduce validity. This study evaluates the effect of management representations that vary in completeness on auditor performance of analytical procedures. The following features of the study are important. First, its experimental task enables determination of outcome quality, in order to distinguish performance. Second, the task provides a complex context for the study of auditor expertise. Third, several surrogate measures for expertise are employed, from general (rank and years of experience) to specific (recent time spent auditing manufacturing companies). Our findings indicate three important conclusions. First, the type of representation given by management as an explanation for analytical results significantly influenced the quality of the auditor's responses. Specifically, while the presence of an incomplete representation by management did not adversely affect judgment in the task, performance was significantly improved when the explanation by management was consistent with the cues. Second, domain-specific experiences was more highly associated with improved performance than were general measures of experience. Third, improvement associated with high levels of domain experience was apparent only when auditors were given a representation by management that completely explained all discrepancies in the case situation.