The Relationship Between Audit Technology, Client Risk Profiles, and the Going-Concern Opinion Decision.

Abstract Evidence exists that audit technologies differ across accounting firms, and research suggests that differences in audit judgment are related to the type of technology used by a given firm. The suggestion is that firms which use a more structured audit approach make better judgments in the sense that there is more consensus and greater accuracy in their decisions. Given rational behavior, it seems doubtful that firms would choose a technology that leads to inferior decisions. In this study, it is posited that there is a relationship between audit technology and the risk profile of the audit client base. In fact, a relationship is found between audit technology and audit client pools and, once controls are established to account for variations in client pools, there are no apparent differences in the going-concern opinion decision across Big Eight accounting firms. However, a negative correlation was found between decision accuracy and audit structure.