The Effects of Client Identity Strength and Professional Identity Salience on Auditor Judgments
基于社会认同理论，通过两个实验发现，审计师与客户价值观越一致，越容易同意客户偏好的会计处理，但提升职业身份显著性可增强专业怀疑，为不依赖轮换制度维护审计师独立性提供了低成本替代方案。
ABSTRACT Considerable recent audit regulation, both proposed and mandated, and accounting research has focused on auditor independence threats arising over long auditor tenure. Psychology research, however, suggests independence threats also likely arise when auditor tenure is short because auditors can quickly develop a strong client identity, raising questions about the effectiveness of mandatory audit partner or firm rotation to address independence concerns. Relying on Social Identity Theory, I examine mechanisms for promoting auditor independence that can be implemented regardless of auditor tenure or rotation. I conduct two experiments in a setting with no prior auditor-client history. As predicted, auditors who identify more strongly with their clients, by sharing their values, agree more with the client's preferred accounting treatment, unless the salience or arousal of their professional identity is heightened. Further, as predicted, heightening professional identity salience increases professional skepticism. My results provide an improved understanding of the joint effects of identity strength and salience on auditor judgments and suggest a cost-effective alternative to auditor rotation to maintain auditor independence, even when auditor tenure is short.