This study provides insights that should be useful for CAEs and boards of directors (or audit committees) in discussions related to (1) internal audit philosophy regarding its potential contributions to an organization, (2) alternative staffing models, (3) resource allocation, and (4) embracement of audit technology. The study could also help guide external auditors’ evaluation of client internal audit functions. The authors find that the mission of internal audit functions differs from organization to organization. Additionally, the results suggest that internal audit functions used for leadership development purposes (i.e., a rotational staffing strategy) are larger, presumably because the staff have less experience and staff are rotating in and out of the department more frequently. Finally, these findings help illustrate the importance of internal audit proving that it is ‘‘value added’’ to the organization. Management and audit committees are often looking for more than financial statement compliance, and those internal audit functions that have responded to these greater needs are rewarded with more resources, likely because they are perceived to deliver more value.

For more information on this study, please contact Karla Johnstone.
 

Anderson, U. L., M. H. Christ, K. M. Johnstone, and L. E. Rittenberg. 2012. A Post-SOX Examination of Factors Associated with the Size of Internal Audit Functions. Accounting Horizons 26(2): 167-191

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The results of this study are important for audit firms to consider providing decision aids and/or on job training. The results suggest that considerable practical experience is necessary to achieve good judgment performance. In addition, the evidence indicates that auditing firms may wish to concentrate their training earlier to more quickly create a basis for high-quality auditor judgments.

Wright, William F. 2007.  Academic Instruction as a Determinant of Judgment Performance. Behavioral Research in Accounting 19: 247-259.

The study provides a real-life setting, offering external validation, allowing the authors to analyze the performance and the characteristics of an audit team, as opposed to an individual as it is done in most experimental studies. As they measure audit performance by the tax adjustment resulting from a tax audit, the study also contributes to the tax audit literature by further explaining the determinants of a corporate tax audit outcome. The authors provide additional insight on audit and audit team characteristics that are associated with tax adjustments.

Alissa, W., Capkun, V., Jeanjean, T., & Suca, N. 2014. An empirical investigation of the impact of audit and auditor characteristics on auditor performance. Accounting, Organizations & Society 39 (7): 495-510.

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This study provides evidence that there were significant differences in the pre-negotiation judgments of partners and managers. Since an outcome of an auditor-client negotiation of a contentious issue may have a significant impact on financial reporting quality, the findings of the study suggest that the using partners in the negotiation process is likely to lead to improved reporting quality. The results have implications for audit firms in allocating manager and partner time to handle negotiation.

Trotman, K. T., A. M. Wright, and S.Wright. (2009). An Examination of the Effects of Auditor Rank on Pre-Negotiation Judgments. Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory 28(1): 191-203

The results have implications on two fronts. First, the findings indicate that auditors pursue different production and pricing strategies in different segments of the market, suggesting that the Big 4 audit firms respond to the competitive pressures in each submarket. Second, the evidence raises questions about the construct validity of market share-based measures of industry specialization, which have been used extensively in the literature. The evidence suggests that auditors who obtain a large market share by auditing a large proportion of the industry sector may actually do so by producing lower quality, lower cost audits. As such, these auditors are not acting as true specialists in the sense of using specialized training and knowledge to raise the quality of the audit performed.

Cahan, S. F., D. C. Jeter, and V. Naiker. 2011. Are All Industry Specialist Auditors the Same? Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory 30 (4): 191-222.

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