The Effects of Time Pressure and Audit Program Structure on Audit Performance
通过实验研究时间压力和审计程序结构对审计绩效的影响，发现两者共同作用时效果并非恒定，对审计实务有参考价值。
This paper addresses three questions. First, in auditing tests of details, do effectiveness and efficiency increase as time pressure is imposed? Second, does adding structure increase effectiveness, efficiency, and consistency? Third, are the effects of structure on audit effectiveness and efficiency constant across increasing time pressure? While psychology research relates to the independent performance effects of time pressure and program structure, both pressure and structure are imposed, for legal and economic reasons, in the audit environment (Cushing and Loebbecke [1986]). Therefore, this research attempts to determine whether and how the joint imposition of program structure and time constraints affects auditors' performance. One hundred seventy-nine staff auditors from a national public accounting firm participated in an experiment that involved implementing a partial year-end audit program testing details of inventory, a task which is an analogue of those normally performed by auditors under time pressure. Four levels of time pressure and two types of audit programs (structured and unstructured) were manipulated between subjects. Re-