In an effort to provide more meaningful information to financial statement users, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) recently adopted sweeping changes to the audit report, requiring the audit firm to disclose whether or not it identified a critical audit matter (CAM) and its...

A primary concern facing the PCAOB's requirement of disclosing critical audit matters (CAMs) is increased auditor litigation risk. Evidence with Key Audit Matters from the U.K. indicates auditors may subsequently remove a CAM or continue to report the same CAM for several years. Therefore, we...

Retaliation against whistleblowers is a well-recognized problem, yet there is little explanation for why uninvolved peers choose to retaliate through ostracism. We conduct two experiments in which participants take the role of a peer third-party observer of theft and subsequent whistleblowing....

We find that when a manager concedes on an initial potential adjustment, auditors place more trust in the manager and propose smaller aggregate adjustments. Furthermore, ingratiation has a marginally positive effect on auditor trust when the manager first concedes. However, our results indicate...

Public accounting firms traditionally use a billable time entry (BTE) model to assist in budgeting engagements, evaluating personnel, and determining audit fees. However, research has identified drawbacks including time pressure and incentives to engage in audit quality-reducing behavior....