The Effect of the Social Mismatch Between Staff Auditors and Client Management on the Collection of Audit Evidence

This study provides both survey and experimental evidence to consider how the interaction between staff-level auditors and client management may affect the auditors’ perceptions and influence their decisions regarding the collection of audit evidence. During fieldwork, staff-level auditors have extensive interaction with client management. Survey evidence suggests that these staff-level auditors are often “mismatched” with client management, in terms of their experience, age, and accounting knowledge. Further, survey respondents indicate that their clients have, at times, purposefully tried to reduce the extent to which staff interact with them. Experimental results indicate that staff-level auditors reduce the extent to which they collect evidence due to the avoidance of these interactions. Further, client’s intent to intimidate the young auditor was not necessary to create this result (i.e., mismatch alone was sufficient). Finally, the use of e-mail communication with client management helped to mitigate the reduction in evidence collected caused by the avoidance of in-person interactions. Interestingly, when not collecting all the evidence, several staff auditors documented their findings in such a way as to reduce the likelihood that reviewing auditors would identify a problem. These findings have implications for education and professional training programs, as well as the supervision of staff-level auditors.