Outcome Information and the "Expectation Gap": The Case of Loss Contingencies
通过实验分解审计师事前判断与非审计师事后判断之间的差异，探讨或有损失报告中的期望差距成因，为缩小差距提供教育或制度改进方向。
This paper reports the results of an experiment designed to assess two components of a possible between auditors' ex ante judgments about appropriate audit report reference to a loss contingency and the ex post judgments of nonauditors (e.g., regulators, jurors, and investors) who have knowledge that the same contingency has been unfavorably resolved (Guy and Sullivan [1988], GAO [1991], and Carmichael and Pany [1993]). The first component is the difference between ex ante judgments of auditors and nonauditors when both receive only preresolution information, and the second is the difference between ex ante judgments of nonauditors who receive preresolution information and ex post judgments of nonauditors who are informed that the contingency has been unfavorably resolved. Decomposition of the difference between auditors' ex ante judgments and nonauditors' ex post judgments is relevant to understanding and possibly resolving any gap between auditors' performance and the expectations of nonauditors. To the extent that an expectation gap is due to differences in ex ante perspectives of auditors and nonauditors, the gap may be reduced through education about the uses and limitations of ex ante reference to loss contingencies. To the extent that a gap is due to nonauditors' ex post evaluations of auditors' ex ante judgments being influenced by information that was not available at the time that the auditor's reporting decision had to be made, the gap may be reduced by