Staff auditors often rely on team members as a source of information to determine the behaviors that are normal and acceptable. This may be one cause of the prevalence of audit quality reducing dysfunctional audit behaviors (DAB) within the profession. Social influence theory, applied in an auditing context, posits that staff auditors are influenced not only by the preferences of their superiors (i.e., compliance pressure) but also by their peers' DAB (i.e., conformity pressure). Given the importance of the work performed by staff auditors, I conduct an experiment to identify the role that a peer team member's behavior and a superior's preference plays in influencing staff auditors' behavior. I predict, and find, that staff auditors with a peer team member who engages in a DAB are more likely to engage in a DAB. I also predict, and find, that staff auditors with a superior who has a preference toward efficiency are more likely to engage in a DAB. Finally, I predict that a superior's preference toward efficiency will amplify the influence of a peer team member's involvement in a DAB. Interestingly, I find that a superior's preference amplifies the effect of a peer team member's behavior when it is toward efficiency only, not effectiveness, for a face-to-face request from the client, but not for an email request. These results suggest that peer behavior influences the effect of a superior's preference of staff auditors in the intimidating situation of having a face-to-face interaction with the client. This could be because of the cognitive dissonance staff auditors experience when their general understanding of the standards does not align with their peer's behavior. The results of this study provide insights into a potential risk introduced to the audit engagement through audit team dynamics. / Doctor of Philosophy / Financial statement audits conducted by public accounting firms are frequently performed in a team setting. Most of the audit team consists of younger, inexperienced staff auditors who perform much of the testwork that informs the final audit opinion. Staff auditors’ lack of knowledge requires them to seek information to complete their testwork, from both their peer team members and their superiors. Peer team members may engage in behaviors that reduce the quality of the audit, which shows staff auditors that these dysfunctional behaviors are acceptable. At the same time, superiors often display a preference toward effectiveness (i.e., improving audit quality) or efficiency (i.e., saving time). I perform an experiment to determine if staff auditors mimic the audit quality reducing behaviors of their peer team members, while also considering the preference of their superior. I find that staff auditors are more likely to engage in audit quality decreasing behaviors when their peer team members have done so previously. I also find that staff auditors are more likely to engage in audit quality decreasing behaviors when their superior has a preference toward efficiency. I find that a superior’s preference toward efficiency, but not effectiveness, amplifies the effect that a peer team member’s behavior has on the likelihood that a staff auditor engages in an audit quality increasing behavior of requesting information from the client in a face-to-face interaction, but not for an email request. These results suggest that peer behavior influences the effect of a superior’s preference of staff auditors in the intimidating situation of having a face-to-face interaction with the client. In general, I find that peer behavior and superior preference influence staff auditors’ chosen behaviors.

Auditing literature recently identified what has been termed a "social mismatch" between novice auditors and older, more experienced, more knowledgeable client contacts (Bennett and Hatfield 2013). This phenomenon occurs when novice auditors avoid face-to-face interactions with clients and can adversely affect the audit process. In light of the importance of novice auditor-client interactions, I conduct an experiment to identify potential mechanisms to mitigate the social mismatch phenomenon. Specifically, accounting students proxying for novice auditors are randomly assigned to experimental conditions in which they participate in role-play and perspective-taking exercises and complete an audit task commonly performed by novice auditors. Initial findings indicate that role-play interventions, such as those currently used in training at large public accounting firms, may exacerbate novice auditor inhibition tendencies. Furthermore, additional results suggest that actively taking the client's perspective prior to choosing an evidence gathering technique does not improve novice auditor decisions. Finally, auditor inherent characteristics are studied, including levels of emotional intelligence and impression management, and also do not appear to have implications for selection of evidence gathering techniques. Results of this study provide valuable insight into novice auditor-client interactions, as well as the implications of such interactions for audit evidence gathering activities. / Ph. D.