Effects of Stories and Checklist Decision Aids on Knowledge Structure Development and Auditor Judgment

2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
James L. Bierstaker ◽  
Denise Hanes-Downey ◽  
Jacob M. Rose ◽  
Jay C. Thibodeau

ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to compare the usefulness of a story versus traditional checklist decision aids for enhancing knowledge structure development and for improving the judgments of auditors related to fraud risks. The results from the first experiment indicate that novice participants who read stories develop knowledge structures that more closely resemble the knowledge structures of experts than do participants who read checklists. The second experiment reveals that auditors who read stories make judgments more like experts than do auditors who use checklists. The findings demonstrate that stories may have the capacity to train auditors and improve their judgments. Audit firms constantly seek methods to improve auditors' knowledge and judgments, and our findings suggest opportunities for firms to employ fraud stories to enhance knowledge of fraud and improve professional judgment. This study's results hold important implications for the design of training materials, decision aids, and knowledge management systems.

2012 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob M. Rose ◽  
Britton A. McKay ◽  
Carolyn Strand Norman ◽  
Anna M. Rose

ABSTRACT We investigate whether the use of decision aids that integrate experts' knowledge structures into their designs can effectively promote the acquisition of expert-like knowledge and improve future judgments. Results of two laboratory experiments (one involving 115 senior accounting students and one involving 78 master of accounting students) indicate that: (1) novice users of a decision aid that has an expert knowledge structure embedded into its interface make complex fraud risk assessments that are more similar to experts' risk assessments than do users of aids without expert knowledge structures; (2) users of a decision aid that has an expert knowledge structure embedded into its interface develop knowledge structures that are more similar to the knowledge structures of experts than do users of aids without expert knowledge structures; (3) knowledge structures mediate the relationship between decision aid design and judgment performance; and (4) novices develop expertise through decision aid use even when they are not instructed to learn from the decision aid.


MIS Quarterly ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 299-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yinglei Wang ◽  
◽  
Darren B. Meister ◽  
Peter H. Gray ◽  
◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Syed Mubashir Ali ◽  
Asim Iftikhar

Recent past has seen an epidemic growth in the adoption of strategic information systems. In order to be successful, enterprises are putting in huge investments into implementation of information technology (IT) and knowledge management systems (KMS). KMS implementation in an IT industry has been discussed in this paper. Several challenges including multiple information sources, access control, and employee’s mistrust among others are being identified along with their possible solutions. Later foreseen benefits of KMS implementation including quicker problem identification, faster response time, and cost saving among others are being highlighted. The paper concludes with revealing future research possibilities.


2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 133-160
Author(s):  
Lili Jiu ◽  
Bin Liu ◽  
Yuanyuan Liu

SUMMARY In this study, we examine the roles of audit firms and individual auditors in improving financial statement comparability. We conduct the study in the Chinese setting, in which the identities of signing auditors are revealed in audit reports and accounting standards are principle based. After controlling for audit firm style, we find that firm pairs with shared signing auditors have incrementally greater comparability. Our results indicate that individual auditors exhibit their own personal style in implementing accounting standards and exercising professional judgment in the audit process. Overall, our study underscores the association between individual auditors and comparability, with practical implications for market participants and policymakers.


2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 211-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott E. Seavey ◽  
Michael J Imhof ◽  
Tiffany J. Westfall

SUMMARY Prior audit research suggests that most, if not all, audit quality can be explained at the office level. However, the question remains of whether office-level audit quality is contingent on how individual offices relate to the firm as a whole. Motivated by theories of knowledge management, organizational learning, and networks, we posit that individual offices are connected to their audit network through partner knowledge sharing and oversight, which impact office-level audit quality. We interview Big 4 audit partners and learn that knowledge sharing between partners in different offices is common and intended to aid in the provision of audit services. Using network connectedness to proxy for knowledge sharing and oversight between offices of the same firm, we document that more connected offices are associated with fewer client restatements and lower discretionary accruals. We additionally find that network effects are magnified when accounting treatments are more complex and require greater auditor judgement.


2002 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 39-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean C. Bedard ◽  
Lynford E. Graham

In auditing, risk management involves identifying client facts or issues that may affect engagement risk, and planning evidence-gathering strategies accordingly. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether auditors' identification of risk factors and planning of audit tests is affected by decision aid orientation, i.e., a “negative” focus wherein client risk and its consequences are emphasized, or a “positive” focus where such factors are not emphasized. Specifically, we expect that auditors will identify more risk factors using a negatively oriented risk identification decision aid, but only when engagement risk is relatively high. We address this issue in the context of auditors' knowledge of actual clients, manipulating decision aid orientation as negative or positive in a matched-pair design. Results show that auditors using the negative decision aid orientation identify more risk factors than do those using a positive orientation, for their higher-risk clients. We also find that decisions to apply substantive tests are more directly linked to specific risk factors identified than to direct risk assessments. Further, our results show that auditors with repeat engagement experience with the client identify more risk factors. The findings of this study imply that audit firms may improve their risk management strategies through simple changes in the design of decision aids used to support audit planning.


2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 250-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chulatep Senivongse ◽  
Alex Bennet ◽  
Stefania Mariano

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the value of using a systematic literature review to develop an integrated framework for information and knowledge management systems. Design/methodology/approach First, the systematic literature review method is introduced, differentiating it from traditional literature reviews in terms of value-added and limitations. Second, this methodology is used in a research application focused on absorptive capacity internal capabilities with regard to the processes of acquisition, assimilation, transformation and exploitation. Third, an integrated framework for information and knowledge management systems is developed from this application. Findings The systematic literature review approach provides a rigor that can assist in reducing researcher bias while simultaneously enabling the definition of a precise scope of review, with a clear explanation of selection criteria with the objective to find and review all the studies that are relevant to the search definitions. As a research method, it effectively supports a qualitative, quantitative or mixed methodology. Research limitations/implications This methodology was applied to one specific area of research. Specific limitations include the availability of articles in subscribed databases and the analytical capabilities of the tools used for text mining and analytics. Originality/value This paper demonstrates the usefulness of the systematic literature review methodology in developing an integrated framework for analysis.


2008 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holli McCall ◽  
Vicky Arnold ◽  
Steve G. Sutton

ABSTRACT: In an era where knowledge is increasingly seen as an organization's most valuable asset, many firms have implemented knowledge-management systems (KMS) in an effort to capture, store, and disseminate knowledge across the firm. Concerns have been raised, however, about the potential dependency of users on KMS and the related potential for decreases in knowledge acquisition and expertise development (Cole 1998; Alavi and Leidner 2001b; O'Leary 2002a). The purpose of this study, which is exploratory in nature, is to investigate whether using KMS embedded with explicit knowledge impacts novice decision makers' judgment performance and knowledge acquisition differently than using traditional reference materials (e.g., manuals, textbooks) to research and solve a problem. An experimental methodology is used to study the relative performance and explicit knowledge acquisition of 188 participants partitioned into two groups using either a KMS or traditional reference materials in problem solving. The study finds that KMS users outperform users of traditional reference materials when they have access to their respective systems/materials, but the users of traditional reference materials outperform KMS users when respective systems/materials are removed. While all users improve interpretive problem solving and encoding of definitions and rules, there are significant differences in knowledge acquisition between the two groups.


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