The effect of constrained processing on auditors’ judgments

7/29/2019 The effect of constrained processing on auditors judgments

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The effect of constrained processing on auditors judgments

Vicky B. Hoffmana, Jennifer R. Joeb, Donald V. Mosera,*aKatz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA

bGeorgia State University, School of Accounting, 35 Broad Street, Atlanta, GA 30303, USA

AbstractThis study examines whether constraining experienced auditors processing by having them process evidence in a

pre-established sequence (an experimental control technique used in previous studies) prevents them from using their

usual processing strategies and thereby affects their judgments. We compare the relative attention to evidence and

judgments of experienced and inexperienced auditors in a constrained versus an unconstrained processing condition.

Consistent with expectations, experienced auditors going-concern judgments differed from inexperienced auditors

judgments only when processing was unconstrained. This difference in judgments was the result of differential attention

to evidence. These results demonstrate that the failure to consider how experienced auditors process evidence can result

in inadvertently adopting control techniques that limit the generalizability of experimental findings. Although our

study used a going-concern task, our conclusions are likely to apply to a variety of ill-structured audit tasks that

require a goal-oriented, directed evaluation of evidence.

# 2002 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction

Many auditing experiments constrain the way

experienced auditors are permitted to process

information in order to achieve experimental con-

trol. Such processing constraints are often neces-

sary to isolate the effect of interest. To the extent

that the processing constraints used in experiments

are consistent with constraints found in the nat-

ural audit environment, constraining auditors

processing in the lab is not a problem. For exam-

ple, when examining recency effects, experimenters

present information cues to auditor-subjects in a

pre-established order to determine whether the

most recent cues received have the greatest influ-

ence on auditors judgments (see Trotman &

Wright, 2000 for a review of such studies). While

the techniques used in these recency-effect experi-

ments are simplifications of the natural environ-

ment, auditors on actual audits are sometimes

similarly constrained because they receive different

information items at different times. Thus, in these

types of studies, constraining processing does not

prevent the researcher from providing insights into

auditors judgments in natural settings.

However, experimental researchers need to be

careful not to use processing constraints that pre-

vent experienced auditors from evaluating evi-

dence the way they normally do in actual audit

settings. While such processing constraints might

achieve experimental control, they could also force

auditors to evaluate information in an unnatural

way, and thereby limit the ability to generalize the

experimental results to real-world audit settings.

Thus, when employing a processing constraint in

the lab, researchers need to consider how experi-

enced auditors would normally perform the task

0361-3682/02/$ - see front matter # 2002 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/S0361-3682(02)00068-5

Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 699714

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* Corresponding author. Fax: +1-412-648-1693.

E-mail address: [email protected] (D. V. Moser).
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in actual audit settings. In this study we examine

how imposing processing constraints on experi-

enced auditors in the lab can influence their judg-

ments and decisions.Previous studies in psychology and accounting

demonstrate that experienced auditors tend to

perform a goal-oriented, directed evaluation of

audit evidence (e.g. Bedard & Chi, 1993). That is,

experienced auditors typically do not process evi-

dence sequentially in the manner in which it is

presented to them, but instead use processing

goals that guide their evaluation of information.

Therefore, if one is studying how experienced

auditors make ill-structured audit judgments or

decisions (e.g. going-concern judgments, fraud

risk judgments, client acceptance decisions), pre-senting information in a pre-established sequential

order could prevent experienced auditors from

making the judgment or decision the way they

normally would. Indeed, Krull, Reckers, and

Wong-on-Wing (1993) call for research on this

issue, speculating that asking more experienced

auditors to process information sequentially when

they are unaccustomed to that mode of processing

could have a detrimental effect on their judgments.

Trotman and Wright (2000) concur with Krull et

al. (1993), and suggest that it is important tounderstand the effects of forcing experienced

auditors to use an information search process in

an experiment that does not match the process

they normally use.1

The purpose of this study is to examine whether

constraining experienced auditors processing in a

going-concern task by making them process

information items in a pre-established sequence

prevents them from using their usual processing

strategies and alters their judgments. We test this

by comparing the relative attention to information

and the judgments of experienced auditors in a

constrained processing condition versus an

unconstrained processing condition. In the con-

strained processing condition, we use an experi-mental control technique used in previous

experiments (e.g. Phillips, 1999; Ricchiute, 1992).

That is, subjects are provided with information

sequentially, and are not allowed to refer back to

and reorganize the information. In the uncon-

strained processing condition, subjects are pro-

vided with the same information, but the

information is presented simultaneously and sub-

jects are allowed to process the information in any

manner they wish.

In this study, we also examine the judgments of

inexperienced subjects (i.e. auditing students). Weuse this group for comparison purposes because

previous literature (e.g. Larkin, McDermott,

Simon, & Simon, 1980; Patel, Evans, & Groen,

1989) suggests that inexperienced individuals nor-

mally do process information sequentially in the

order it is presented to them. Thus, the con-

strained processing condition would not be unna-

tural for inexperienced auditors. Our

inexperienced subjects serve as a benchmark in

two ways. First, in contrast to our expectations for

experienced auditors, we expect inexperiencedauditors to process information similarly in the

constrained and unconstrained processing condi-

tions, and, therefore, we expect their going-con-

cern judgments to be similar in the two

processing conditions. Second, the inexperienced

auditors judgments provide a benchmark against

which to compare experienced auditors judg-

ments in the constrained processing condition.

We expect that constraining experienced auditors

from using their usual search and evaluation

strategies will make them perform more like

inexperienced auditors.

Our results show that when experienced audi-

tors processing is constrained they perform like

inexperienced auditors, and it is only when

experienced auditors can apply their usual proces-

sing strategies that their judgments reflect their

expert processing. Specifically, we find that

experienced auditors in the unconstrained proces-

sing condition made more positive going-concern

judgments than auditors in any other condition,

1 In this study we use experience as a surrogate for expertise

because, as Marchant (1990, p. 23) argues in his discussion of

Bonner and Lewis (1990), using years of experience as a

measure of expertise is appropriate when examining general

auditing expertise. He notes that auditors with more years of

general auditing experience will have well-developed strategies

for organizing and representing knowledge. Because the task in

this study requires general audit knowledge, we expect that

experienced auditors processing will be more expert than that

of inexperienced auditors.

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where judgments were all very similar to each

other. Further analysis shows that the reason that

experienced auditors going-concern judgments

were more positive in the unconstrained versus theconstrained processing condition was that they

were able to attend to more mitigating informa-

tion in the unconstrained condition. Finally, we

find that the reason that inexperienced auditors

going-concern judgments did not differ across the


tions was that there was no difference in how they

attended to mitigating information across these

conditions.

These results suggest that failure to consider

how experienced auditors process evidence can

result in inadvertently adopting experimental con-trol techniques that constrain their processing in

ways that limit the generalizability of the experi-

mental results to actual audit environments. This

concern is an example of the broader concern

regarding experimental auditing research raised

by Gibbins and Swieringa (1995). They point out

that auditors in experiments are expected to act

as they normally would in practice, but under

closer scrutiny and with more structure imposed

on the task. In order to maintain experimental

control it is often necessary to develop anexperimental task that is a simplified representa-

tion of an actual audit task. Although main-

taining experimental control is essential to any

good experiment, care must be taken to ensure

that in attempting to achieve control, the

experimental techniques employed do not pre-

vent auditors from successfully performing the

task in the manner they would in the natural

environment.2

The next section describes our hypotheses. The

two subsequent sections describe the experimental

method and the results of our experiment. The

paper concludes with a discussion of our results

and their implications.

Theory and hypothesis development

On every audit, auditors are required to evaluate

the companys ability to continue as a going con-cern. We use a going-concern task in our experiment

for several reasons. First, making a going-concern

judgment is an example of an ill-structured task that

requires experience (Kennedy, 1993; Trotman &

Wright, 1996). Second, professional guidance

(SAS No. 59, AICPA, 1988) instructs auditors

how to perform the going-concern task, which is

useful in understanding how experienced auditors

make such judgments. Third, the going-concern

task requires auditors to integrate information

from a number of separate audit areas. As such, it

provides the auditor with a processing objectivethat leads to the purposeful evaluation of relevant

items of evidence, rather than a passive evaluation

of evidence in the order that it is received (e.g.

Shelton, 1999). In this way, the going-concern

judgment task is a good example of a situation in

which requiring auditors to process evidence in a

pre-established order is inconsistent with their nor-

mal processing tendencies. Thus, the going-concern

task provides a useful context in which to examine

the effects of a potential mismatch between experi-

mental and real-world processing conditions.Previous studies suggest that when auditors

make going-concern judgments, negative informa-

tion looms larger than positive information (e.g.

Abdolmohammadi & Wright, 1987; Anderson &

Maletta, 1994; Asare, 1992; Kaplan & Reckers,

1989; Kida, 1984; Libby & Trotman, 1993; Smith

& Kida, 1991; Trotman & Sng, 1989). Although

the current study takes into account this general

tendency toward conservative information proces-

sing, it is not the primary focus of this study.

Rather, the current study focuses on the effect of

constrained versus unconstrained processing on

auditors attention to information and the impact

of the resulting differential attention on their

going-concern judgments.

A considerable amount of prior research sug-

gests that experienced individuals perform goal-

oriented, directed evaluations of evidence (e.g.

Anderson, 1988; Be dard & Chi, 1993; Biggs, Self-

ridge, & Krupka, 1993; Bouwman, Frishkoff, &

Frishkoff, 1987; Cuccia & McGill, 2000; Hodge,

2 As Swieringa and Weick (1982) note, it is not necessary to

model every aspect of the natural environment in the labora-

tory (i.e. the experimental task need not possess mundane

realism). However, care should be taken not to omit an ele-

ment essential to understanding how the task is performed (i.e.

the experimental task should possess experimental realism).

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Kennedy, & Maines, 2002; Larkin et al., 1980;

Patel et al., 1989; Thibodeau, 2001).3 In addition,

experienced individuals have well-developed

knowledge structures (e.g. Frederick, Heiman-Hoffman, & Libby, 1994; Tubbs, 1992) that help

them consider not only consistent evidence, but

also inconsistent evidence (e.g. Bouwman, 1982,

1984; Choo & Trotman, 1991; Fiske, Kinder, &

Larter, 1983; Mautz & Sharaf, 1961; Myles-Wors-

ley, Johnston, & Simons, 1988; Taylor & Crocker,

1981; Waller & Felix, 1984). Experienced indivi-

duals can more effectively consider inconsistent

evidence because repeated performance of a task

leads to the routinzation of basic aspects of the

task (Bargh, 1984; Fazio, 1986, 1990; Langer,

1978; Rau & Moser, 1999; Schneider & Shiffrin,1977). This routinization of the basic aspects of

the task (i.e. attending to consistent evidence)

frees up processing capacity for performing the

more cognitively demanding parts of the task

(i.e. attending to and integrating inconsistent

evidence).

Thus, in the current study, we expect experi-

enced auditors well-developed knowledge struc-

tures to guide their processing of information

(Ricchiute, 1992; Shelton, 1999), allowing them to

not only consider evidence consistent with a going-concern problem (i.e. negative evidence), but also

evidence inconsistent with a going-concern prob-

lem (i.e. positive or mitigating evidence). Interest-

ingly, the going-concern judgment guidelines

specified in SAS No. 59 (AICPA, 1988) are con-

sistent with this expectation regarding experienced

auditors processing. The standard guides auditors

to first determine whether substantial doubt

exists regarding the firms ability to continue as a

going concern, and then if substantial doubt

exists, to look for mitigating evidence that might

alleviate this doubt. Consistent with SAS 59, Biggs

et al. (1993) found that experienced auditors first

recognize that there is a going-concern problem

and then evaluate mitigating factors.4

There are additional reasons that experienced

auditors may attempt to attend to evidenceinconsistent with a going-concern problem. For

example, experienced auditors are likely to have a

sense of the infrequency of actual failures (i.e.

base-rate knowledge) and the importance of client

retention (i.e. knowledge of the firms loss func-

tion), both of which would lead them to attend

to information that could mitigate going-concern

problems. Therefore, when cues are presented in a

manner that allows experienced auditors to pro-

cess evidence any way they wish (i.e. the uncon-

strained processing condition), they are expected

to attend to and integrate both consistent (i.e.negative) and inconsistent (i.e. positive or mitigat-

ing) information the way they normally would

when making going-concern judgments.

In contrast to the unconstrained processing

condition, in the constrained processing condition

(in which the cues are presented in a one-time-only

sequential manner) experienced auditors are

expected to have difficulty processing evidence in

their usual manner. Specifically, they will be

unable to perform a directed search for evidence

that might suggest specific going-concern pro-blems. Instead, the processing constraint forces

them to evaluate the evidence in the sequence it is

presented, interfering with their search strategies

and making it more difficult to identify potential

going-concern problems.5 As a result, much of the

auditors cognitive capacity will be used up trying to

perform this basic aspect of the task (i.e. identifying

going-concern problems), leaving less capacity to

focus on inconsistent evidence (i.e. positive evidence

that could mitigate such problems). Furthermore,

3 Cuccia and McGill (2000) suggest that experienced tax

practitioners conduct a goal-oriented evaluation of evidence,

and that this can mitigate recency bias in their judgments. In

going-concern studies, Biggs et al. (1993) and Thibodeau (2001)

found that experienced auditors know where problems are

likely to arise (e.g. liquidity and operating performance) and

use this knowledge to guide their evaluation of the evidence.

4 In a process-tracing study, Biggs et al. (1993) identified

four reasoning processes that auditors use when making going-

concern judgments. The first two processes relate to determin-

ing that there is a going-concern problem, while the third and

fourth processes relate to evaluating the effect of mitigating

evidence.5 Cuccia and McGill (2000) make a similar argument

regarding tax professionals, suggesting that forcing them to

process evidence in a predetermined order can produce a

recency bias in their judgments, whereas giving them a choice

over the order in which they examine evidence can mitigate this

bias.

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until potential going-concern problems are identi-

fied, experienced auditors will not focus much

attention on the positive evidence that could miti-

gate such problems. When the auditors finally areprovided with the evidence necessary to identify

potential going-concern problems, the processing

constraint prevents them from revisiting and

attending to any positive evidence that was pre-

sented earlier, or from looking ahead for specific

types of positive evidence in places they might

expect to find it.

Consequently, experienced auditors in the con-

strained processing condition are expected to

attend to relatively less positive or mitigating evi-

dence than experienced auditors in the uncon-

strained processing condition. That is, even if theprocessing constraint results in experienced audi-

tors attending to fewer total cues than when their

processing is unconstrained, our prediction is that

it will be particularly difficult for them to attend to

the positive cues when their processing is con-

strained. Thus, when their processing is con-

strained, we expect experienced auditors to attend

to fewer positive cues as a proportion of the total

cues to which they attend. This difference in relative

attention to positive information is expected to lead

to differences in going-concern judgments. Specifi-cally, because experienced auditors are expected to

be able to attend to relatively more positive infor-

mation in the unconstrained processing condition

than in the constrained processing condition, their

going-concern judgments are expected to be more

positive in the unconstrained condition than in the

constrained condition. Thus our first hypothesis is:

H1. Experienced auditors going-concern judg-

ments will be more positive in the unconstrained

processing condition than in the constrained pro-

cessing condition because they will be able to

attend to relatively more positive cues in the

unconstrained condition.

In order to provide a benchmark against which

to compare the performance of our experienced

auditor subjects, we also had inexperienced sub-

jects (auditing students) perform the going-con-

cern task under the same two processing

conditions. In contrast to experienced auditors,

inexperienced auditors typically lack a well-

developed knowledge structure to guide their

evaluation of evidence, and thus are more data

driven in their processing (e.g. Taylor &Crocker, 1981; Waller & Felix, 1984). That is,

individuals who lack experience with a task tend

to process information sequentially in the order

it becomes available rather than performing a

goal-oriented integrative evaluation of the evi-

dence (e.g. Anderson, 1988; Be dard & Chi, 1993;

Larkin et al., 1980; Patel et al., 1989). Therefore,

irrespective of the processing condition, inexper-

ienced auditors are expected to start at the

beginning of the list of presented information

and proceed sequentially through the list (e.g.

Yates, 1990).When evaluating evidence sequentially, inexper-

ienced auditors are expected to attend more to

evidence consistent with a going-concern problem

(i.e. negative evidence) than inconsistent with a

going-concern problem (i.e. positive or mitigating

evidence) for several reasons. First, inexperienced

auditors have been shown to process information

conservatively and attend more to negative infor-

mation than positive information (e.g. Anderson

& Maletta, 1994). Second, inexperienced auditors

are less likely to be influenced by issues learnedthrough experience such as base rates of company

failure, the importance of client retention, or the

specific guidelines of SAS No. 59. Finally, because

inexperienced auditors will not have regularly

performed the going-concern task, the task will

not be routine for them, and thus most of their

processing capacity will be consumed attending to

the basic aspects of the task (i.e. attending to evi-

dence consistent with a going-concern problem).

Consequently, irrespective of the processing con-

dition, inexperienced auditors are likely to have

difficulty attending to and integrating positive or

mitigating evidence (i.e. evidence inconsistent with

a going-concern problem). Thus, our second

hypothesis is:

H2. Inexperienced auditors going-concern judg-

ments will not differ in the unconstrained versus

the constrained processing condition because their

relative attention to positive cues will not differ in

the two processing conditions.



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As mentioned earlier, the results for our inex-

perienced subjects provide a benchmark against

which to compare the results for our experienced

subjects. The judgments of the two groups can becompared to determine whether constraining

experienced auditors processing results in them

performing more like inexperienced auditors.

Because the constrained processing condition pre-

vents experienced auditors from using the very

essence of their expert processing strategies (i.e.

their tendency to perform a directed, goal-oriented

evaluation of evidence), we expect experienced

auditors in the constrained processing condition to

perform like inexperienced auditors, whose per-

formance is not expected to differ in the con-

strained and unconstrained processing condition(see H2). However, in the unconstrained proces-

sing condition, where experienced auditors are

able to process evidence in their usual manner, we

expect that they will attend to and integrate rela-

tively more mitigating evidence, resulting in rela-

tively more positive judgments (see H1). Thus, our

third hypothesis predicts that experienced audi-

tors judgments in the unconstrained processing

condition will be more positive than the judgments

in all other conditions.

H3. Experienced auditors in the unconstrained

processing condition will make more positive

going-concern judgments than auditors in the

other three conditions, which will not differ from

each other.

Method

Subjects

Two groups of subjects participated in the

experiment: experienced and inexperienced. The

experienced subjects were 64 in-charge auditors

from an international public accounting firm who

had an average of 3.5 years of experience. In-

charge auditors typically perform a going-concern

evaluation and their assessments are generally

documented in the workpapers (Choo & Trotman,

1991; Libby & Trotman, 1993; Ricchiute, 1999).

The inexperienced subjects were 35 undergraduate

accounting majors in their last week of an auditing

course.6

Design

Our study is designed to examine the effect of

manipulating the processing condition on both

experienced and inexperienced auditors going-

concern judgments. There are two independent

variables: processing condition (constrained versus

unconstrained) and experience level (experienced

and inexperienced). The two dependent variables

collected were: (1) subjects going-concern judg-

ments, and (2) the cues subjects recalled. We col-

lected cues recalled as a measure of subjects

attention to evidence (e.g. Choo & Trotman, 1991;Libby & Trotman, 1993; Phillips, 1999; Rau &

Moser, 1999; Tan, 1995). We use the proportion

of positive cues recalled (i.e. the number of posi-

tive cues recalled divided by the sum of positive

and negative cues recalled) as a proxy for relative

attention because our predictions regarding differ-

ences in going-concern judgments are based on

auditors relative attention to positive informa-

tion. Using the proportion versus the raw number

of cues recalled also has the advantage of adjust-

ing for any differences in the total number ofpositive and negative cues recalled across experi-

mental conditions.

Materials and procedures

The experimental session consisted of four

parts: (1) processing of information cues, (2)

making a going-concern judgment, (3) performing

a cued-recall task, and (4) making a second going-

concern judgment. Subjects could not look ahead

to subsequent parts of the experiment or return to

parts completed previously.

In the first part of the experiment, subjects

viewed 48 workpaper cues that were adapted from

Ricchiute (1992) to create an at margin case

regarding the companys ability to continue as a

6 The undergraduate students were enrolled in an auditing

class at one of three universities. Students from each of the

three universities were included in each of the experimental

conditions. There were no statistical differences in subjects

responses across the three universities.

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going concern.7 The cues were categorized as they

would appear in audit workpapers under the fol-

lowing headings: Audit Planning, Cash, Accounts

Receivable, Long-Term Assets, Long-Term Debt,Sales, Expenditures, Review of the Minutes, and

Contracts, Commitments, and Contingencies (see

Appendix).

Following Ricchiute (1992), our experimental

task included four types of cues: positive, negative,

both, and neither. Using various types of cues

served several purposes. First, a mix of cues is

typical of information included in audit work-

papers, and thus increases the realism of the task.

Second, including some clearly positive cues (11

cues) and clearly negative cues (14 cues) provides a

means of subsequently checking whether subjectsunderstood and attended to the experimental

materials. Third, cues that have both positive and

negative aspects (14 cues) are an inherent part

of the going-concern task. For example, as

explained by Ricchiute (1992, p. 51), the cue The

company will try to issue bonds next year has

both positive and negative aspects; it is positive in

that the company will have more cash, but it is

also negative because of the additional burden

associated with an increase in the companys

debt. Finally, cues that are neither positive nornegative with respect to the going-concern task (9

cues) not only add realism to the task, but also

allow us to control for order effects.8 While using

this mix of cues served the design purposes

described earlier, for reasons discussed later, our

analysis is based on subjects self-reports of how

they thought the cues they attended to affected

the firms viability.

Subjects in each of the two experience-level

conditions were randomly assigned to either the

constrained or unconstrained processing condi-

tions. All subjects were provided with instructions

that briefly described a medium-sized company

and the nature of the audit engagement. Theywere also informed that they would subsequently

make a going-concern judgment based on the

workpaper information presented.

The two processing conditions were adminis-

tered in separate rooms. The only difference

between the two conditions was the manner in

which the cues were presented. In the constrained

processing condition, subjects were informed in

advance that each heading and cue would be pre-

sented in sequence and shown only once on a

monitor in front of the room. Each cue remained

on the monitor long enough for subjects to readand comprehend each fact (as determined by pilot

testing).9 Subjects were not permitted to take

notes or to return to any cue shown previously.

The total presentation time was approximately

8 min.

In the unconstrained processing condition, sub-

jects were given a page containing all of the head-

ings and cues, and were allowed to process the

cues in any manner they wished. Total processing

time was held constant between this condition and

the constrained processing condition describedearlier. The page of cues was collected from the

subjects before they made their going-concern

judgments.10

After they viewed the cues, subjects in both the


tions assessed the probability that the company

7 We conducted pilot testing to develop an at margin case

in order to avoid a ceiling or floor effect on subjects judgments.

Pilot subjects were PhD and MBA students who were former

auditors with at least 3 years of audit experience.8 We controlled for both primacy and recency order effects.

We controlled for primacy effects by presenting cues that were

neither positive nor negative with respect to the going-concern

task at the beginning of the list. We controlled for recency

effects by presenting positive and negative cues on an alternat-

ing basis at the end of the list.

9 Because the cues differed in length, we could not present

them to subjects for a uniform duration of time. Instead, we

performed pilot testing to determine how long it took to read

and comprehend each cue while still attending to the task. We

determined that to understand the meaning of the cue, it should

be kept on the monitor long enough for a subject to read it

aloud twice. In the experiment, we kept each cue on the moni-

tor for this duration of time.10 It is possible that processing on a monitor could be more

difficult generally than reading from a page, but any effect due

to such difficulty should be the same for both experienced and

inexperienced subjects. In contrast, our prediction is that the

constrained processing condition causes a differential effect on

experienced and inexperienced auditors relative attention and

judgments.

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would continue as a going concern.11 Subjects

placed their going-concern judgments in envelopes

and set them aside. Subjects then performed a

cued-recall task. They were provided with cate-gory headings and asked to recall as many cues as

they could. Subjects listed each cue they recalled

on a separate line, and raised their hands when

they had completed the recall task. When subjects

raised their hands, the experimenter gave them an

instruction sheet asking them to indicate whether

they thought each cue they recalled was positive

(indicating the company was more likely to con-

tinue), negative (indicating the company was less

likely to continue) or neutral (does not affect

whether the firm will continue). We asked sub-

jects to indicate how they interpreted the cuesthey recalled because previous studies (e.g.

Greenwald, 1968; Hastie & Pennington, 1989;

Lingle & Ostrom, 1979; Moser, 1992) have

shown that it is subjects interpretation of infor-

mation rather than the experimenters classifica-

tion that influences subjects judgments.

Moreover, because, by design, some cues had

both positive and negative aspects, it was critical

that our analysis be based on subjects inter-

pretations of such cues. Subjects placed their

completed recall instruments in a second envel-ope and set it aside.

After all subjects completed the recall task, they

were asked to make a second going-concern judg-

ment, and to place their responses in a third

envelope. Subjects were asked to provide a second

going-concern judgment to determine whether

the act of recalling cues changed their judg-

ments.12 All three envelopes were collected from

the subjects, and this concluded the experiment.

Results

We begin by testing H3 because the first two

hypotheses are embedded in H3, which predicts

the overall pattern of going-concern judgments.

We then test H1 and H2 to assess the reasoning

underlying the overall pattern predicted in H3. H3

predicted that experienced auditors in the uncon-

strained processing condition would make more

positive going-concern judgments than subjects in

the other three conditions, and that in the other

three conditions subjects going-concern judgmentswould not differ from each other. The pattern of

results predicted by H3 is the nonsymmetrical

ordinal interaction illustrated in Buckless and

Ravenscroft (1990, Fig. 2, p. 938). We follow

Buckless and Ravenscrofts (1990) recommenda-

tion to use contrast analysis to test for this pattern.

Fig. 1 depicts subjects going-concern judgments.

Using the contrast weights recommended by Buck-

less and Ravenscroft (1990, Table 4, p. 939) we find

that the overall pattern of results is consistent with

H3.13

That is, the contrast is statistically significant

11 Subjects responded on either a continue scale or a fail

scale. If they thought the company would continue, they indi-

cated their estimate of the probability that the company would

continue (from 50 to 100%) on the continue scale. If they

thought the company would fail, they indicated their estimate

of the probability that the company would fail (from 50 to

100%) on the fail scale. We explained to subjects that prob-

abilities from 0 to 50% were not included on either scale

because a less than 50% chance of continuing (failing) would

mean that the subject really thought the company would fail

(continue). All analysis of going-concern judgments reported in

the paper are based on the probability that the company would

continue as a going concern.

12 The first and second going-concern judgments are highly

correlated (r=0.87, P


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(F=6.42, P


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We now test the reasoning underlying H3 by

testing H1 and H2. H1 predicted that experienced

auditors going-concern judgments would be more

positive in the unconstrained processing conditionthan in the constrained processing condition

because they would be able to attend to relatively

more positive cues in the unconstrained condition.

We test this hypothesis by performing a path ana-

lysis examining whether the processing condition

influences experienced auditors relative attention

to positive cues, which in turn influences their

going-concern judgments. We measure subjects

relative attention to positive cues as the propor-

tion of positive cues recalled (i.e. the number of

positive cues recalled divided by the sum of posi-

tive and negative cues recalled) and refer to thismeasure as Relative Attention.14 Table 1 presents

mean Relative Attention measures, the mean num-

ber of positive and negative cues recalled, and mean

going-concern judgments for experienced and inex-

perienced auditors in each processing condition.15

We test the causal path hypothesized in H1

using three regressions. The first is a univariate

regression of subjects going-concern judgments

on Processing Condition, which shows that, con-

sistent with H1, experienced auditors made sig-

nificantly more positive going-concern judgments(t=1.6, P=0.055, one-tailed) in the unconstrained

processing condition (mean=0.60) than in the

constrained processing condition (mean=0.51).

The second is a univariate regression of Relative

Attention on Processing Condition, which shows

that, as expected, experienced auditors relative

attention to positive information was significantly

greater (t=1.8, P0.75) in the

unconstrained (Relative Attention=0.41) and

constrained (Relative Attention=0.40) processing

conditions. Thus, consistent with H2, processing

condition did not affect either inexperienced audi-

tors relative attention to positive information or

their going-concern judgments. Because there was

no effect of processing condition on inexperienced

auditors going-concern judgments, there is no

reason to test for the mediating effect of relative

attention on judgments (i.e. no reason to perform

the third regression performed for the experienced

auditors earlier).

Overall, the results above indicate that experi-

enced auditors going-concern judgments were

more positive in the unconstrained processing

condition because they were able to attend torelatively more positive information. Moreover,

inexperienced auditors judgments did not differ

across processing conditions because their relative

attention to positive information did not differ

across processing conditions. In combination with

the results of H3, these results show that when

experienced auditors are constrained from using

their usual processing strategies, they do not per-

form the way they normally would when uncon-

strained, but instead perform more like

inexperienced auditors.

Discussion

This study examined whether constraining the

processing of experienced auditors by forcing

them to process information items in a pre-estab-

lished sequence prevents them from processing

information in their usual manner, and thereby

alters their judgments. We examined this issue

Table 1

Mean (standard deviation) of positive and negative cues recalled, relative attention measure, and going-concern judgments of experi-

enced and inexperienced auditors in the constained and unconstrained processing conditions

Positive

a

Negative Relative

b

Going-concern

c

Cues Cues Attention Judgment

Experience auditors

Unconstrained processing 9.2 11.8 0.45 0.60

Condition (3.8) (5.4) (0.16) (0.23)

Constrained processing 6.6 10.6 0.38 0.51

Conditons (3.6) (4.8) (0.15) (0.22)

Inexperienced auditors

Unconstrained processing 5.7 8.2 0.41 0.46

Condition (2.1) (2.7) (0.13) (0.21)

Constrained processing 5.4 8.7 0.40 0.47Conditons (3.6) (5.0) (0.18) (0.23)

a Cue type is based on subjects classifications of the cues they recalled.b The measure of Relative Attention for each subject is the proportion of positive cues divided by the sum of positive and negative

cues recalled. The mean of individual subjects proportions is reported here (not the proportion of the mean positive divided by the

mean negative cues).c Going-concern judgment is the probability that the company will continue.

http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-http://-/?-


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using a going-concern task, but expect our con-

clusions to apply to a variety of ill-structured

decision tasks that require experienced auditors to

perform a goal-oriented, directed evaluation ofevidence. We found that constraining experienced

auditors processing prevented them from attend-

ing to as much positive evidence as they did when

their processing was unconstrained, and this

resulted in lower going-concern judgments in the

constrained processing condition. For comparison

purposes, we also examined the relative attention

to positive evidence and the going-concern judg-

ments of inexperienced auditors. As expected, the

processing condition manipulation did not affect

either inexperienced auditors relative attention

to evidence or their going-concern judgments.Finally, because constraining experienced audi-

tors processing prevented them from using the

very essence of their expert processing strategy,

their going-concern judgments were statistically

indistinguishable from those of inexperienced

auditors.

This study provides evidence regarding Krull et

al.s (1993) and Trotman and Wrights (2000)

speculations that forcing experienced auditors to

process information sequentially when they are

more accustomed to processing it simultaneouslycan have a detrimental effect on their judgments

(i.e. it can cause them to perform like inexper-

ienced subjects). As such, our results have poten-

tial implications for previous auditing studies that

constrained auditors information processing in a

way that is inconsistent with their normal proces-

sing strategies. Phillips (1999) and Ricchiute

(1992) are two studies that used the same experi-

mental control technique used in the constrained

processing condition of the current study (i.e.

requiring subjects to view the evidence items in a

pre-established sequential order without being

able to reorganize or revisit the cues). Our study

extends their studies by manipulating the proces-

sing condition to be either constrained or uncon-

strained to demonstrate the importance of this

factor.

Like the current study, Ricchiute (1992) exam-

ined auditors going-concern judgments. Because

his research question concerned the effect on judg-

ment of two different ways of organizing audit

workpapers (i.e. causal order versus workpaper

order), the processing constraint was necessary to

attain experimental control and to answer the

research question. However, to the extent thatexperienced auditors would naturally reorganize

evidence and perform a goal-oriented evaluation

of that evidence, it might not be necessary to

change how workpapers are ordered on actual

audits.

Phillips (1999) examined auditors judgments in

a workpaper review task. His research question

was whether viewing riskier items earlier in the

review process would influence the interpretation

of ambiguous cues viewed later. Again, to achieve

experimental control to answer his research ques-

tion, Phillips needed to restrict the order in whichhis experienced auditors evaluated the evidence

items. However, to the extent that auditors in

actual audit settings normally review high-risk

accounts earlier in the review process, it would not

be necessary to change the order in which work-

papers are reviewed.

Our study also has potential implications for

studies of expertise. Libby (1995) and Libby and

Luft (1993) propose guidelines to help predict and

explain how experienced auditors superior

knowledge affects their performance. They pointout that it is critical to consider the knowledge

necessary to perform the experimental task and

when and how that knowledge is acquired. They

also note the importance of considering the pro-

cess by which auditors knowledge is brought to

bear on their judgments. Although many previous

auditing studies (e.g. Abdolmohammadi &

Wright, 1987; Bonner, 1990; Frederick & Libby,

1986) have adopted the first suggestion (i.e. selec-

ted an experimental task that required superior

knowledge), little attention has been paid to how

experienced auditors processing strategies influ-

ence their judgments.

The current study demonstrates that in addition

to selecting an expert task that requires superior

knowledge, it is critical to consider whether the

experimental procedures allow experienced audi-

tors to process evidence in their usual manner. In

our study, experienced auditors knowledge and

the task they were asked to perform were both

held constant across the two processing condi-



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tions. The only factor that differed was the man-

ner in which they were permitted to process the

evidence. While experimentally manipulating pro-

cessing condition (constrained versus uncon-strained) influenced experienced auditors

attention to information and their going-concern

judgments, it had no effect on inexperienced audi-

tors attention or judgments. These results reflect

the fact that the constrained processing condition

is incompatible with experienced auditors natural

processing, but is more compatible with inexper-

ienced auditors processing. Thus, consistent with

the guidelines proposed by Libby (1995) and

Libby and Luft (1993), our results demonstrate

the importance of considering how experienced

auditors normally process evidence to ensure thatthe experimental procedures adopted do not inad-

vertently prevent such processing, resulting in

experienced auditors performing like inexper-

ienced ones.

Finally, our results show that relative attention

to mitigating factors mediated the relation

between the processing condition and experienced

auditors judgments. However, it is possible that

in addition to attending to a greater number of

mitigating factors (as documented in this study),

attention to mitigating factors reduces subjectsrelative weighting of the negative information to

which they attend. Although our study was not

designed to assess the relative weights subjects

placed on positive and negative cues, such weights

could potentially add explanatory power beyond

the number of positive versus negative cues exam-

ined in this study. This additional aspect of the

going-concern judgment process could be investi-

gated in future studies.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to KPMG Peat Marwick for

financial support to Jennifer Joe through the

PhD Project. We also appreciate the comments

of workshop participants at Duke University,

the University of Connecticut, the University of

Iowa, New England Behavioral Accounting

Research Series (NEBARS), and the University

of Pittsburgh on earlier versions of the paper.

Appendix. Cues used in experiment

Note: The design of the experiment included four

types of cues: 11 cues that were clearly positive (+),14 cues that were clearly negative (), 14 cues that

have both positive and negative aspects (B), and 9

cues that are neither positive nor negative with

respect to the going-concern task (N). These classifi-

cations are indicated below. However, subjects own

classifications of the cues they recalled are used in

data analysis, because it is subjects interpretations of

the cues that are expected to drive their judgments.

AUDIT PLANNING

N Inherent risk is low.

N Control risk is low.N Allowable detection risk is high.

N The preliminary estimate of materiality is

moderate.

The company will report a net loss for the

second consecutive year.

CASH

N There are various arrangements with financial

institutions for compensating balances.

The companys current ratio is the lowest in

the industry.N A confirmation verified that one of the

companys bank accounts is overdrawn.

ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE

B All trade receivables more than 30 days old

have been factored.

+ The number of days sales in receivables is

lower than in any of the previous five years.

+ There are no trade-receivable accounts more

than 90 days old.

LONG-TERM ASSETS

+ Unused fixed assets are readily marketable.

B The company plans to delay scheduled

maintenance on some of its productive fixed

assets.

B The replacement cost of fixed assets is not

fully insured.

B The company is operating at 70% capacity.

A patent for a unique production process

expires next year.



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LONG-TERM DEBT

+ The debt-to-equity ratio is down slightly this

year.

B A director has agreed to accept deferredpayment on a loan he made to the company.

+ The company has no bond indebtedness

outstanding.

SALES

+ Total revenues rose 5% over last year.

The companys market share has declined.

EXPENDITURES

N Results of tests of controls indicate that

projected error did not exceed tolerable error

for any expenditures.N Substantive tests did not reveal any problems

with reported expenditures.

B The company postponed a consulting project

related to new product development.

B The company plans a 50% reduction in

budgeted research and development

expenditures.

REVIEW OF THE MINUTES

B The company will try to issue bonds next year.

B The company contemplates an initial publicoffering of preferred stock next year.

Competition from foreign imports has risen

sharply.

N Two competitors reported net losses last year.

+ The company is negotiating a long-term

contract to ship copper products to a Pacific

rim country.

The president has accepted a job offer from a

competitor, and a successor has not been

found.

In midyear, there was a two-day work

stoppage related to employee fringe benefits.

B A dividend has not been declared in four

consecutive quarters.

B A personal injury insurance policy was

canceled.

The company was denied credit from a

copper supplier.

The vice-president for manufacturing

announced his resignation effective in six

months.

The companys largest customer, representing

30% of sales, has not placed an expected

order.

B The company sought to finance the purchaseof a subsidiary that had significant NOL

carry-forwards.

Domestic demand for wire and cable products

is down.

B The companys production employees voted

not to strike.

CONTRACTS, COMMITMENTS AND

CONTINGENCIES

The company defaulted a payment on its only

bank loan.

+ The company renegotiated its only bank loan. Loan covenants restrict the disposal of some

fixed assets.

+ The lawyers representation letter indicates no

current litigation outstanding against the

company.

B A newspaper clipping indicates the company

may be sued for patent infringement.

+ There were no violations of standards

requiring disclosure of a loss contingency.

The company entered into an unprofitable

long-term purchase commitment for copper.+ The company entered into a long-term contract

to supply copper tubing to a new domestic

customer.

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