The auditors' preliminary analytical review procedures (PARPs) have recently received increased attention in the accounting literature, because of the growing realization that PARPs may significantly enhance audit effectiveness and efficiency. Although both judgmental and statistical PARPs (JARPs and SARPs respectively) are recognized in the professional literature, earlier research has concentrated exclusively on statistical ARPs (SARPs). This research bias is inappropriate, given that SARPs merely supplement, but do not replace, auditor-judgments in PARPs. Enhancement of audit effectiveness and efficiency requires, therefore, evidence bearing on several aspects of auditors' PARPs judgments. This dissertation uses a model based on Signal Detection Theory to provide evidence relating to the following aspects of auditors' PARPs judgments: (a) judgmental accuracy, (b) decision errors, (c) implicit loss functions, and (d) information required to facilitate PARPs judgments. The major findings of the study were: (1) auditors can make reasonably accurate AR judgments on the basis of limited information available at the onset of an audit; (2) their responses were affected by judgmental biases, with a propensity to flag for intensive audit account book values which are fairly presented; (3) the auditors' judgments were miscalibrated, being mostly overconfident; and (4) simple ARPs such as ratio analysis, scanning, and comparisons amongst data, are those preferred by auditors for their PARPs judgments. This study's findings suggest the need to identify the causes, and subsequently mitigate the effects, of judgment biases before the potential of auditors' AR judgments at enhancing audit effectiveness and efficiency can be fully realized.

This dissertation develops a model which predicts that others' preferences, operationalized as client-imposed fee pressure and a partner's preferred "approach" to auditing, will affect audit judgments. The model also develops hypotheses predicting that information acquisition and information evaluation are the mechanisms through which others' preferences influence audit judgments. The model's predictions were tested in a behavioral experiment in which four versions of an audit case were distributed to audit managers from one auditing firm. A between-subjects design was used; two levels of client fee pressure and two partner-preferred approaches to auditing were manipulated between participants. The experiment required auditors to determine the extent to which work performed by a client's internal audit department would affect planned external audit procedures. Additionally, participants provided assessments of the level of quality of the client's internal audit department. Participants determined the number of information cues to acquire before providing the above judgments. For each information cue acquired, the participants assessed: (1) whether the cue was positive, negative, or irrelevant; and (2) the importance of the cue. Consistent with the model's predictions, participants experiencing a high level of fee pressure relied on work performed by the client's internal audit department to a greater extent than did participants experiencing a low level of fee pressure. Contrary to the model's predictions, a partner's preference did not have significant influence on audit judgments. Surprising was the finding that while the number of audit hours budgeted was influenced by fee pressure, assessments of the quality of the internal audit department, which were relatively low, did not vary as predicted across the treatment conditions. These results suggest that information acquisition and evaluation need not be the mechanisms through which others' preferences influence audit judgments. A conjecture is that the mechanism through which others' preferences influence audit judgments is through biased interpretation of that level of quality at which the internal audit department's quality is considered acceptable. Congruent with the above conjecture, but contrary to the model's predictions, evidence from this study indicates that information acquisition and information evaluation were not the mechanisms through which others' preferences influenced audit judgments. The results of this study highlight the need for additional research examining how and in what contexts the various components of the judgment process are affected by others' preferences.

Over the last fifteen years, beginning with the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990, the Federal government and specifically, the Department of Defense have been in an ambitious financial reform effort. However, the Government Accountability Office, the efficiency, economy and effectiveness experts who report to the U.S. Congress continue to criticize the DoD's efforts at reform. This paper applies a specific methodology to determine if success factors, i.e. factors that substantially contribute to achieving a "clean" audit opinion within governmental organizations, exist within DoD compoents. This thesis seeks to answer two questions: whather DoD agencies with clean, disclaimed or qualified audit opinions display common success factors, found in prior research, that contribute to clean audit opinions and whether the DoD , as a whole, exhibits those success factors as well. The benefits of this study include contributing to DoD's effort to achieve clean audit opinions and the benefits contained therein. Moreover, this paper seeks to extend the examination of DoD components that are required to submit independent, audited financial statements. Finally, this paper provides specific recommendations based upon common strategies of unqualified-audit DoD agencies to those DoD components that have yet to obtain a clean audit opinion.

by Au Kwok Wai. / Summary in Chinese. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1976. / Bibliography: l. 143-145.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington. / Bibliography: l. [133]-144.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 1987. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 314-323). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1983. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 248-255).

Theisi--University of Wisconsin--Madison. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 428-434).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1933. / Vita. Bibliography: p. 201-204.

Proefschrift Universiteit Maastricht. / Met lit. opg. - Met samenvatting in het Nederlands.