The Potential of the Review Process to Detect and Mitigate Advocacy Bias

• In Event: Tax, Policy, and Behavior

Abstract

Prior research suggests that tax accountants are subject to advocacy bias when conducting professional research; however, work in professional firms is typically subject to a hierarchical review process intended to mitigate problems that might arise at the individual-decision-maker level. Two potential cues to advocacy bias in the preparer’s work-product are the consistency of the preparer’s conclusion with the client’s preferred position and the extent to which the preparer’s analysis is stylized to support that conclusion. We experimentally examine the joint effects of these cues on experienced reviewers’ assessments of the possibility that a preparer’s work-product reflects advocacy bias and reviewers’ reliance on that work-product when forming their own judgments. We find that the cues do increase re
viewers’ assessments of the possibility that the preparer’s judgment was impacted by advocacy bias
but, as predicted, only when both cues are present. Further, while either cue alone positively influenced reviewers’ reliance on the
preparer’s conclusion, the presence of both cues mitigated the impact of either.

Authors

• Andrew D Cuccia, University of Oklahoma

• Anne M Magro, George Mason University