Knowledge management: The effect of knowledge transfer on professional skepticism in audit engagement planning

The objective of this study is to test how the transfer of auditing knowledge, along with other variables, work together to impact the level of professional skepticism in auditors and answer the crucial question of how auditors’ competencies and expertise jointly interact with the knowledge transfer process. The study attempts to test these components in an empirical model, decomposing them and showing how they affect skepticism by comparing how knowledge is transferred in experts as compared to novices. The results of this study show that the differences between the expert auditors and the novices strengthened support for the role of knowledge and expertise in improving skepticism in engagement planning. The results of our study illustrate that knowledge transfer plays an important role in enhancing auditor professional skepticism, thereby improving the accuracy of auditor judgments. Also, as suggested by Nelson (2009), expert knowledge, position, and judgment were significant factors in the planning of an audit engagement. However, trait effects (as captured by firm effects) were not significant in explaining auditors’ judgments. These results are important in that they illustrate the significance of the role that knowledge transfer functions in facilitating auditors’ exercise of appropriate professional skepticism in audit engagement planning.