The Influence of Documentation Specificity and Priming on Auditors' Fraud Risk Assessments and Evidence Evaluation Decisions
实验研究审计计划阶段舞弊文档的具体性如何影响后续审计工作，发现具体文档提高未启动审计师的评估，但启动效应复杂，可能降低对具体文档审计师的敏感性。
ABSTRACT: The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) recently suggested that auditors' lack of specific fraud planning documentation has led auditors to devote insufficient attention to fraud risks in subsequent audit work. Guided by Support Theory, we experimentally investigate how the specificity of fraud risk documentation during audit planning influences auditors' subsequent audit work. We also examine the effect of priming auditors about the fraud risks identified during planning before they begin subsequent evidence evaluation. We find that auditors' planning stage efforts affect subsequent fraud risk assessments and evidence evaluation decisions. Unprimed auditors who receive more specific documentation increase their fraud risk assessments and evidence requests. Priming's effects are more complex. Priming auditors who receive summary documentation also increases fraud risk assessments and evidence requests; however, priming auditors who receive specific documentation reduces these judgments because the priming makes the client-specific risks seem less typical. Accordingly, the PCAOB's call for more documentation can have the unintended consequence of reducing auditors' sensitivity to fraud.