La tesis engloba un estudio sobre preferencias económicas, en concreto, preferencias individuales bajo Riesgo, Riesgo Compuesto y Ambigüedad. Este trabajo muestra la evidencia de un experimento de laboratorio en el que los individuos se enfrentan a una incertidumbre creciente (Riesgo/Riesgo compuesto/Ambigüedad) en tres dimensiones diferentes: probabilidades, pagos y tiempo. Se obtiene el Equivalente Cierto del Valor Presente (PVCE) de 36 loterías con tres fechas de pago diferentes para cada sujeto, y se atribuyen a las condiciones de tratamiento las diferencias entre esos PVCE. Utilizando pruebas no paramétricas y regresiones de efectos aleatorios, la evidencia muestra una notable heterogeneidad en el comportamiento de los individuos según la dimensión afectada por la incertidumbre. En concreto, si bien confirmamos la amplia evidencia sobre la aversión a la Ambigüedad en las probabilidades, encontramos que este efecto prácticamente desaparece cuando las dimensiones de incertidumbre son los pagos y, aún más, el tiempo. Para el caso del Riesgo Compuesto, los resultados encontrados van en la misma línea. Además, se encuentra heterogeneidad en cuanto al comportamiento bajo Riesgo. / Esta tesis ha sido elaborada gracias a la financiación de la Generalitat Valenciana (SEJI/2019/005 y Research Project Group 3/086).

This research study investigates the relationship between ambiguity, litigation risk, and auditor decision-making. In addition, this study investigates how auditor trust of his or her client may change these relationships. It is important to investigate the relationships of ambiguity, litigation risk, and client trust to auditor decision-making because auditors face these factors on a regular basis. This research uses a 2x2 experiment to investigate auditor reaction to ambiguity and litigation risk. The first factor, ambiguity is operationalized as auditor reaction to potential real transaction earnings management (low ambiguity) and potential accrual transaction earnings management (high ambiguity). The second factor, litigation risk is operationalized through an income increasing (high) or income decreasing (low) earnings management attempt. Auditors were given company background information, selected account information, and comparative financial statements and then asked to state the likelihood of material misstatement in the financial statements as a whole and the sales, selling and marketing expenses, research and development expenses, and general and administrative expenses individual accounts. The ambiguity manipulation was imbedded in the description of the research and development account while the litigation risk factor was imbedded in the comparative financial statements. The findings indicate that the subjects reported a relatively high likelihood of material misstatement of research and development expenses regardless of the earnings management method. The findings further indicate that when a real earnings management transaction was present, auditors rated the likelihood of material misstatement in sales and the financial statements as a whole higher than when an accrual earnings management transaction is present. Additionally, when the subject group is limited to individuals working for Big-4 and National non Big-4 firms the auditors assessed the likelihood of material misstatement in the financial statements as a whole, sales, selling and marketing expenses, and general and administrative expenses significantly higher when a real earnings management transaction is present than when an accrual earnings management transaction is present. The lawsuit risk factor was not found to be significant in any of the primary analyses. The research also explores the relationship between an auditor's trust of the client and the likelihood of material misstatement assessment. Auditors completed the Kerler and Killough trust scale to measure trust of the experimental client. The findings report that as external auditor experience increases, auditor trust of the client decreases. However, this decrease in trust does not significantly affect the likelihood of material misstatement assessment. This research study is the first step in developing an understanding of the relationship between ambiguity, risk, trust, and auditor decision-making. The findings indicate that auditors do use information about potential earnings management in one account when evaluating the likelihood of material misstatements in other accounts. Future research should develop an understanding about whether auditors should take these factors into consideration in the planning stages of the audit. / Ph. D.

Villette (1853), Charlotte Brontë's last novel, is famously riddled with ambiguity: its narrator-protagonist, Lucy Snowe, avoids disclosing details about her childhood, fails to reveal to readers the identity of characters she recognizes from her past, and, at the end of the novel, refuses to confirm if her love interest, M. Paul, has died at sea after a storm. Believing Lucy's ambiguous narrative style to be a tool she uses to train readers to better understand her, many critics have focused their efforts on trying to interpret Lucy's silences and evasions "correctly," thereby turning themselves into Lucy's or Brontë's "ideal" authorial readers. However, throughout her life, Lucy has resisted being read by people who assume they can fully know her and fit her into their worldview. Unwilling to impose her views on others, Lucy's autobiography encourages readers to make their own meaning without deciphering how she intends for it to be read. In this way, she maintains that she is ultimately unknowable to her readers, just as they are to her, and preserves, rather than erases, the distance that exists between reader and author. By constructing an authorial reader who does not seek to think as Lucy does, Villette invites readers to enter into an ethical relationship with Lucy, one in which otherness is respected and intimacy is possible despite differences.

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