THE JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING RESEARCH.1 May 2018
用上一年度评估结果预填充审计工作报告：默认选项对风险评级准确性的影响
作者：SARAH BONNER（University of Southern California）
TRACIE MAJORS（University of Southern California）
STACEY RITTER（University of Southern California）
摘要：风险评估是一项关键的审计任务，因为审计师的准确性会影响审计有效性和财务报告质量，以及审计效率。我们认为，与上一年相比发生变化的客户风险的风险评估准确性受到审计师获取上一年度风险评估方式的影响，具体是他们是否面临使用这些评估的当前年度工作报告而产生的默认选项。我们发现，预先填充（与未填充对比）工作报告的审核员对于已经发生变化的风险的准确性较低，因为他们更有可能坚持去年的评估，并且还能快速工作。然后，我们发现，反映了对准确性偏好的审核员特征会减少而不是消除这些影响。最后，我们提供了探索性证据，表明坚持和快速工作分别与动机性推理和浅显处理相关联。总的来说，这些发现表明了干预的迫切需要，并且对外部审计产生了影响。
关键词：默认选项；预填充；上一年的结果；审计工作报告；风险评估；审计有效性；审计效率；审计员特征
Prepopulating Audit Workpapers with Prior Year Assessments: Default Option Effects on Risk Rating Accuracy
SARAH BONNER (University of Southern California), TRACIE MAJORS (University of Southern California), STACEY RITTER (University of Southern California)
ABSTRACT
Risk assessment is a critical audit task, as auditors’ accuracy therein affects audit effectiveness and ?nancial reporting quality, as well as audit ef?ciency. We propose that risk assessment accuracy for client risks that have changed from the prior year is affected by the manner in which auditors access prior year risk assessments, speci?cally whether they face a default option created by the prepopulation of current year workpapers with those assessments. We ?nd that auditors with prepopulated (vs. blank) workpapers are less accurate for risks that have changed because they are more likely to stick with last year’s assessments, and also to work fast. We then show that auditor characteristics re?ecting a preference for accuracy reduce, but do not eliminate, these effects. Finally, we provide exploratory evidence that sticking and working fast are associated with, respectively, motivated reasoning and super?cial processing. Collectively, these ?ndings suggest the critical need for an intervention, and also have implications outside auditing.
Keywords: Default Options; Prepopulation; Prior Year Results; Audit Workpapers; Risk Assessment; Audit Effectiveness; Audit Ef?ciency; Auditor Characteristics
原文链接：https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1475-679X.12218
翻译：王霄霄
