Auditor Evaluation of Manager's Competence After a Failure in Internal Control
研究发现，在关键控制失败前管理者未采取预防措施时，审计师会认为其能力更强；但若审计师事先向管理者表达过担忧，此效应消失。
SUMMARY Audit guidance requires auditors to assess management's competence with respect to internal controls over financial reporting (ICFR) based on the recommendations of COSO's integrated framework. The omission bias theory suggests that after internal control failures, auditors may assess managers' competence in a manner inconsistent with these requirements. Results from four experiments using 313 experienced audit and accounting professionals support this concern and a means of mitigating it. I find that auditors view the manager to be most competent when prior to the failure in the key control the manager did nothing to prevent the failure versus reinforced the key control. I do not find this effect when auditors had shared their concerns about the key control with the manager prior to the control's failure. My results also show that auditors incorporate their competence judgments about management into evaluations of the ICFR, as required by the audit guidance.