Psychological Distance and Auditor Assessment of the Severity of an Internal Control Deficiency
Scott C. Jackson et al.
Abstract
Auditors often underestimate the severity of internal control deficiencies, particularly when associated misstatements are immaterial. We find that auditors are more likely to correctly classify a material weakness when no misstatement information is provided than when misstatement information is available, and that this finding may unconsciously arise from auditors’ construal level in judging control deficiency severity. Through a series of experiments, we manipulate misstatement information related to an internal control deficiency designed to represent a material weakness. We hold the size of potential misstatement constant and find that auditors and graduate auditing students are less likely to correctly assess the severity of a deficiency as the size of actual misstatement decreases. When no information is provided about a misstatement, we hypothesize and find that this leads to lower construal levels, causing auditors to be more likely to correctly classify a material weakness compared to when an inconsequential misstatement occurred. Data Availability: Data and code publicly available via Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/3jbty/overview?view_only=9897c972ce754a3f81beaf1535966760). JEL Classifications: M42; D91; G41.
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
| M · momentum | 0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.