Date of Award
1-1-2013
Document Type
Open Access Dissertation
Department
Moore School of Business
First Advisor
Scott D Vandervelde
Abstract
According to Auditing Standard No. 14, fraud is an intentional act. Thus, when a misstatement is identified during the audit, auditors should consider whether the misstatement might have been caused intentionally (PCAOB 2010a). The objective of the present study is to investigate whether considering the perspective of the manager responsible for a misstatement's occurrence impacts auditors' beliefs concerning the misstatement's intentionality. Using an experiment with 82 audit manager and senior manager participants, I find that auditors who actively consider the perspective of the manager who caused a misstatement assess the likelihood that the misstatement is intentional higher when the circumstances surrounding it are indicative of high versus low fraud risk. Conversely, auditors who do not consider the manager's perspective do not assess misstatement intentionality any differently in the presence of high fraud risk versus low fraud risk information. These findings suggest that the ability to recognize when client circumstances suggest an increased risk that a misstatement was caused intentionally may depend on whether auditors consider the perspective of the manager responsible for the misstatement.
Rights
© 2013, Erin L. Hamilton
Recommended Citation
Hamilton, E. L.(2013). Evaluating the Intentionality of Identified Misstatements: How Perspective Can Help Auditors in Distinguishing Errors from Fraud. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/455