This study investigates whether providing higher quality audits increases auditors' chances of avoiding legal liability. Negligence rules hold auditors responsible for plaintiff losses only when the quality of the audit provided fails to meet standards of care. The results of my experiment...

We experimentally examine the effects of trait professional skepticism on fraud brainstorming performance. We find that groups with a minority, but not a majority, of high trait skeptics assess fraud risk higher than control groups with no high trait skeptics. These effects persist to group...

Individual investors increasingly rely on investment advice from social media platforms. Even advice with little, if any, predictive value appears to influence investor decisions. Our study reports the results of two experiments that help explain why investors rely on such advice. We find that...

This paper considers the use of Judgment and Decision Making (JDM) experiments in accounting. It begins with a description of the purpose and goal of JDM experiments in accounting. The bulk of the paper discusses critical issues in designing and implementing JDM-style experiments. Our primary...

Intrinsic motivation is generally thought to be positively associated with performance on a variety of tasks; however, there is only sparse experimental evidence supporting this idea and we know little about the specific mechanisms behind any effect. We develop theory about how auditors'...

We experimentally examine how employees' employment horizons (long or short) and the performance measures in their incentive contracts (forward-looking or contemporaneous) affect employee effort allocation and performance. Consistent with economic theory, we find that the decision-influencing...

We experimentally examine whether audit seniors' use of simple cognitive processes for a complex task is affected by the strength of habits to use these processes that they developed as staff auditors. A habit is a mental association between a behavior and a specific context. We propose that,...

Auditors experience significant problems auditing complex accounting estimates, and this increasingly puts financial reporting quality at risk. Based on analyses of the specific errors that auditors commit, we propose that auditors need to be able to think more broadly and incorporate...

Based on literature on auditor expertise and workplace learning, this paper develops the Auditor Workplace Learning Framework. The Auditor Workplace Learning Framework distinguishes three categories of learning processes based on the extent to which (1) learning is an important focus of a...

This paper outlines strengths and limitations of three approaches to providing process evidence in experimental accounting research: moderation, mediation, and multiple experiments and methods. We argue that the research question determines the importance of process evidence in experimental...