Metaphors and Auditor Professional Judgment: Can Metaphors Activate Professionally Skeptical Mindsets?

• In Event: Professional Skepticism and Fraud Detection

Abstract

Results of an experiment with 99 senior auditors from Big 4 firms indicate that reading simple metaphors promotes professional skepticism and influences auditors’ skeptical judgments. Relative to auditor participants who did not read a metaphor, participants who read a metaphor related to concerns about the honesty of sources of information (client-skeptical metaphor) or concerns about one’s own ability to detect problems (self-skeptical metaphor) assessed higher levels of fraud risk, assessed greater needs for a risk management partner, and perceived that fraud-based explanations were more likely to cause fluctuations in client ratios. Further, the client-skeptical metaphor caused auditors to increase audit hours and increase audit testing for accounts likely to be influence by fraud. Results suggest that metaphors represent powerful and efficient tools for promoting professional skepticism.

Authors

• Mary Parlee, Bentley University

• Jake Rose, victoria university of wellington

• Jay C. Thibodeau, Bentley University