Coaching Today's auditors: What causes reviewers to adopt a more developmental approach?

Abstract

Audit workpaper review is a quality control mechanism intended to detect preparer errors and professionally develop preparers. In this study, we experimentally investigate two factors that theory predicts affect the degree to which audit reviewers adopt a developmental approach: local versus international preparer office affiliation and likely versus unlikely preparer recurrence. We find that reviewers adopt a less developmental approach for international preparers but a more developmental approach for preparers likely to recur. The adoption of a more developmental approach not only results in more coaching via review comments but is associated with greater detection of seeded preparer errors. Taken together, our findings highlight the susceptibility of quality control efforts in the global audit environment and identify recurrence as a potential intervention.