This paper extends previous work by examining how clients’ use of contending tactics affect auditors’ decisions during a negotiation, which separates itself from the research of the past by investigating the clients’ current negotiation tactics, not the tactics of the past. This paper also introduces the level-of-aspiration theory into consideration for auditor negotiation literature.

Bergner, J. M., S. A. Peffer and R. J. Ramsay. 2016. Concession, Contention, and Accountability in Auditor-Client Negotiations. Behavioral Research in Accounting 28 (1): 15-25

This study focuses on investigating how tactics employed by a client during negotiations impact experienced auditors’ propensity to waive material adjustments and whether the salience of a concurring partner review (CPR) can affect these negotiations. The audit profession as a whole remains fixated upon auditor independence and financial statement quality, so it is important to examine potential tactics by a client since negotiations directly affect the resulting financial statements. The authors of this study hope to expound upon existing literature by examining how a client who is concessionary or contentious during the negotiation may affect its outcome. In addition, they study whether a CPR reduces auditors’ propensities to waive material adjustments. 

The authors conduct an online experiment in which auditors make decisions about the audit of a hypothetical client. They manipulate two independent variables: client tactics and CPR salience.

• The authors find that auditors are more likely to waive material adjustments when clients use contending tactics during negotiations. This particular results varies from previous studies that examined negotiation outcomes involving contentious clients. The former studies examine pre-negotiation situations where the client has been contentious in the past, this study finds that auditors react differently when the client is being contentious during the current negotiation.
• The authors find that the level-of-aspiration (LOA) theory may describe auditors’ decisions regarding contentious clients. Reciprocity theory has been used in the past but does not explain these results. Reciprocity theory predicts that auditors will respond to a contentious client by becoming more contentious, while LOA predicts the opposite. Because this study finds that the auditor conceded to the wishes of the contentious client, the results follow LOA.
• The authors find that the presence of an existing quality control procedure mitigates the auditors’ propensity to waive material adjustments.

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The results of this paper are of interests to both the management and the auditors in practice. While there are various concession-timing strategies, it is normal for the auditors to make a large concession towards the end of the negotiation and for the management to make a large concession at the start of the negotiation. Violating these norms will lead to ineffective outcomes. However, both the parties can make small, gradual concessions along the negotiation process and this gradual strategy will lead to the most effective outcomes. The findings can be generalized to other negotiation settings, such as the negotiation between the buyer and seller in transfer pricing settings.

Sun, Y., H. T. Tan, and J. Zhang. 2015. Effect of Concession‐Timing Strategies in Auditor–Client Negotiations: It Matters Who Is Using Them. Contemporary Accounting Research 32 (4): 1489–1506.

There are three types of concession-timing strategies available to the auditors and the management in an audit adjustment negotiation: 1) start strategy- offer large concessions only at the beginning of the negotiation; 2) end strategy - offer large concessions only near the end of the negotiation; and 3) gradual strategy – offer small, gradual and reciprocal concessions along the negotiation process. The paper first considers the norms on who should use certain types of the strategies and then investigate whether norm-violation will render the negotiation strategy ineffective. Specifically, the authors expect it is the norms for the auditors to adopt either the start strategy or the gradual strategy and for the management to adopt either the end strategy or the gradual strategy. Norm-inconsistent behaviors mean the auditors use the start strategy and the management use the end strategy.

General negotiation studies have examined the effectiveness of the three concession-timing strategies but those studies neither examine party-specific effectiveness nor consider reactions from the counter-party. The purpose of this paper is to take those considerations into account and examine the norm effect in an auditor-client negotiation context.

The authors collected the evidence via an experiment conducted in China during the early 2010s. A group of auditors from the Big 4 accounting firms and a group of financial managers participate in the experiment. The audit disagreement is related to an impairment charge. Through manipulating the negotiation strategies of the hypothetical counter-party, the authors record the concession amounts made by the auditors and the financial managers respectively.

• The authors find the financial manager participants concede more if the hypothetical auditors adopt either the start or the gradual strategy and the two strategies does not have significant different impacts on the concession amounts.  
• The authors find the auditor participants concede more if the hypothetical financial managers adopt either the start or the gradual strategy but the impact on the concession amounts is greater for the gradual strategy than the start strategy.
• The authors also find the financial manager participants and auditor participants response with less norm-consistent behaviors if the hypothetical counter-party adopts a norm-inconsistent strategy.
• The authors elicit the beliefs of the financial manager participants and the auditor participants about the norms on the use of specific strategies. They find evidence consistent with their expectations. Specifically, the general beliefs from both parties are that the auditors should adopt either the end or the gradual strategy and the managers should adopt either the start or the gradual strategy.

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The results speak to the importance of recruiting competent professionals to the workforce and making specific requests for assistance that include required deliverables. As individuals build confidence in their expertise and understand exactly how to assist, they will be able to provide higher-quality responses to share knowledge. This study extends the literature by operationalizing and studying mediating mechanisms to motivation to contribute and contribution quality separately. This study extends this research in an experimental setting to analyze factors expected to affect the motivation to contribute and contribution quality. By incorporating a collaboration platform included in the Microsoft Office Suite (i.e., a single technology), the effect of technology was controlled in the research design.

Du, H., Lehmann, C. M., & Willson, V. L. 2014. Technology-Facilitated Contribution Behavior: An Experimental Investigation. Behavioral Research In Accounting 26 (2): 97-130.

Contribution behavior is described as voluntarily providing assistance or sharing knowledge when a colleague makes a request for assistance. The importance of knowledge sharing, specifically in the form of “contribution behavior” is an area of interest to accounting professionals. An inability or unwillingness to share professional knowledge and expertise within an accounting firm can lead to lower-quality or less-efficient audits. The purpose of this study is to examine the motivation to contribute but also examines contribution quality. This study also evaluates the mediating mechanisms of knowledge about the individual requesting assistance, the expertise level of the contributor, and the specificity of the request in the motivation to contribute, as well as the contribution quality.

The theoretic research model is structured to focus on the three key elements in contribution behavior: awareness, searching and matching, and formulation and delivery. The experiment was designed using a collaboration application that is included in the Microsoft Office Suite. One hundred eighty-three graduate and undergraduate students enrolled in Accounting Information Systems classes (both graduate and undergraduate levels) and a graduate IT Auditing class at a large commuter university served as participants in this study. The evidence was gathered prior to April 2014.

While knowledge about a requester motivates the individual to contribute and the individual’s prior positive experience with the requester enhances the motivation, the individual’s expertise level on domain knowledge and the specificity of request are not associated with motivation to contribute. However, with regard to contribution quality, domain knowledge and specificity of request are positively associated with higher contribution quality, making these mediating effects pronounced in contribution quality, but not in motivation to contribute.

The results indicate that individuals are more motivated to respond to a request for assistance if they feel at ease with the requester. Their domain knowledge and the specificity of a request further improve the contribution quality. The implications of this study point to the importance of developing a collegial and interactive environment in which professionals are more likely to share knowledge to help each other. Creating opportunities for friendly and positive experiences with colleagues encourages employees to respond to requests for assistance. Accounting firms can foster an environment that promotes contribution behavior by developing cooperative and positive relationships among employees so that when someone needs help, there is a higher likelihood that there will be responses because of familiarity with the requesting colleagues. Moreover, the professional’s expertise level or domain knowledge and the specificity of the request are relevant. While not directly related to the motivation to assist the requester, expertise and specificity of the request are associated with the contribution quality.

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The results of this study offer initial evidence that manager narcissism is an observable measure of elevated fraud risk. These findings have clear implications for audit practice. The results suggest that auditors are aware of the link between client narcissism and increased fraud attitude risk. Public accounting firms should emphasize the linkage between specific client manager personality traits and the increased likelihood of fraud-related behaviors in fraud risk assessment training. This study may also be useful to standard setters and auditing firms as a means to improve professional guidance regarding how to assess fraud attitude and the resulting effect on auditors’ fraud risk assessments.  

Johnson, E. N., J. R. Kuhn, B. A. Apostolou, and J. M. Hassell. 2013. Auditor Perceptions of Client Narcissism as a Fraud Attitude Risk Factor. Auditing 32 (1).

Despite increased emphasis on fraud detection in the auditing standards since the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, fraudulent financial reporting continues to be a serious concern. Auditing standards state that the auditor should consider client management’s attitude toward fraud when making fraud risk assessments. Very little guidance, however, is provided in the auditing standards or existing fraud literature on observable indicators of fraud attitude. This study tests whether observable indicators of narcissism, a personality trait linked to unethical and fraudulent behavior, is viewed by auditors as an indicator of increased fraud attitude risk. 

The authors developed an audit judgment case scenario that included specific indications of client fraud attitude and fraud motivation. Narcissism and motivation were each manipulated at two levels (high or low) in a 2 X 2 design. Participants selected were 101 practicing auditors from several U.S. offices of a large international public accounting firm. The data was collected in an experimental setting, where the participants were randomly assigned to one of four possible experimental conditions and individually completed the experimental materials. Responses were gathered through a combination of: (1) “live” administration at firm training events attended by the researchers; and (2) mail responses, where the managing partners of four firm offices agreed to distribute questionnaires and coordinate their completion and return. The overall goal was an initial experiment of client narcissism as a fraud risk factor in an audit context. 

• Results indicate a narcissism effect, with significantly higher assessments of fraud risk when a client manager was described as exhibiting narcissistic characteristics. 
• Auditors assessed fraud risk as significantly higher in the presence of motivations for the client manager to commit fraud.
• Narcissism did not interact with fraud motivation in influencing auditor fraud risk judgments; high levels of either fraud attitude risk or fraud motivation risk were sufficient to increase auditors’ fraud risk assessments.

Given the extent of audit evidence collected by young staff auditors, the findings of this study have direct implications for workpaper and audit quality. The mismatch of age, experience, and knowledge between staff-level auditors and client management can result in a potentially intimidating situation for the staff-level auditor, and impact decisions made in collecting information and conducting testwork. These results provide new evidence regarding the impact of auditor-client interactions on audit quality. This suggests that firms may want to consider how to manage these social mismatches of their staff.

For more information on this study, please contact G. Bradley Bennett.
 

Bennett, G. B., and R. C. Hatfield. 2013. The Effect of the Social Mismatch between Staff Auditors and Client Management on the Collection of Audit Evidence. The Accounting Review 88 (1): 31–50.

This study analyzes social interactions between staff-level auditors and client management to determine how differences in perceptions may influence decisions regarding the collection of audit evidence. During fieldwork, staff-level auditors have extensive interaction with client management, and evidence suggests these auditors are often socially “mismatched” with client management, in terms of their experience, age, and accounting knowledge. Concerns exist over these staff-level auditors’ desires to avoid the interactions and how it may affect the amount of audit evidence collected. The authors of this study attempt to determine the overall effects of these relationships.

Surveys were conducted to gather evidence about audit staff interactions with client management. The results of these studies were used to develop and experiment. Graduate auditing students with approximately 2.5 months average internship experience over one busy season were considered an appropriate and practical proxy for staff-level auditors with minimal experience. Participants in the experiment included 138 Master’s of Accountancy students, 52 percent female and 48 percent male, from a large state university in the Southeast. Participants in the experiment were put into a simulated work environment and asked to review accounts receivable confirmations in which additional information was needed from the client’s controller. Results of the experiment were used to determine the participant’s perception of the audit client and their ability to collect sufficient audit evidence.

• Social differences between staff-level auditors and client management reduce the likelihood that staff-level auditors will request additional audit evidence via face-to-face meetings with the audit client.
• Client’s explicit behavior to intimidate the auditor does not necessarily result in a difference in auditor behavior.
• Allowing participants to request evidence via email increased the likelihood that such evidence was requested.
• Participants often document their findings in such a way as to minimalize the chance of a reviewer identifying the issue.
   

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