The Outcome Effect and Professional Skepticism
实验发现，上级在评价下属审计师的职业怀疑行为时，会受到结果信息的影响：即使下属的怀疑判断合理，若最终未发现错报，其表现评价也会被降低。这揭示了审计评价体系可能无意中抑制了职业怀疑。
ABSTRACT Despite the importance placed on professional skepticism by the accounting profession and regulators, the failure of auditors to exercise an appropriate level of skepticism continues to be a global issue. We experimentally test a potential barrier to skepticism. We find that outcome knowledge biases supervisors' evaluations of skeptical behavior. Holding a staff member's skeptical judgments and acts constant, superiors on the engagement team evaluate the staff's skeptical behavior based on whether the staff's investigation of an issue ultimately identifies a misstatement. Our evidence suggests that evaluators penalize auditors who employ an appropriate level of skepticism, but do not identify a misstatement. Although consultation with their superiors while exercising skepticism improved staff auditors' performance evaluations, consultation did not effectively mitigate the outcome effect on their evaluations. Last, we observe that auditors in the field anticipate that their superiors will be influenced by outcome knowledge when they evaluate their skeptical behavior. Collectively, our results depict an evaluation system that may inadvertently discourage skepticism among auditors in the field. Data Availability: Contact the authors.