Experimental judgment and decision research in auditing: the first 25 years of AOS

Description
We review the papers published in Accounting, Organizations and Society (AOS) during the period 1976–2000 that
report auditing judgment and decision experiments.We also review the AOS papers during the same period that
attempt to influence the future directions of such studies.Our review is focussed on describing the characteristics and
quantity of such papers and assessing their impact on the scholarly literature.We employ citation data and analysis as
the primary means of judging scholarly impact and we draw comparisons with other leading research journals.

Experimental judgment and decision research in auditing:
the ?rst 25 years of AOS
Ira Solomon
a,
*, Ken T. Trotman
b
a
Department of Accountancy, University of Illinois, College of Commerce, 1206 S. Sixth Street, Champaign, IL 61820, USA
b
University of New South Wales, School of Accounting, Sydney, Australia
Abstract
We review the papers published in Accounting, Organizations and Society (AOS) during the period 1976–2000 that
report auditing judgment and decision experiments. We also review the AOS papers during the same period that
attempt to in?uence the future directions of such studies. Our review is focussed on describing the characteristics and
quantity of such papers and assessing their impact on the scholarly literature. We employ citation data and analysis as
the primary means of judging scholarly impact and we draw comparisons with other leading research journals. Our
inquiry and analysis reveals that AOS papers reporting auditing judgment and decision experiments have been a sig-
ni?cant component of the audit judgment and decision literature, although the impact of the AOS papers is less than
that of papers appearing in the other leading journals. For the AOS future-directions papers, however, we ?nd a rela-
tively large number and citations that compare favorably with citations of both papers reporting experiments and
future-direction papers in other leading journals.
#2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Many accounting scholars adopted a new focus
during the mid-1970s. Previously, very little auditing
research was conducted and even less was reported
in scholarly journals. And, what was reported only
rarely dealt with the myriad of judgments and deci-
sions made during an audit. During the 1970s, with
conferences at the University of Kansas (1972)
and the University of Illinois (1974), creation of
the Research Opportunities in Auditing Program
(PMM, 1976), and publication of an in?uential
American Accounting Association Report (Com-
mittee on Human Information Processing, 1977),
auditing, and especially auditing judgment and
decision making, was thrust into the scholarly
limelight. And, when scholars pursued issues in
auditing contexts, they frequently employed one of
the researchers most powerful tools—the experi-
ment—to bring evidence to bear on those issues.
The ?rst issue of Accounting, Organizations and
Society (AOS) was published in 1976. While the
main focus of AOS has not been auditing nor
experimentation, AOS has published many of
these studies. In fact, we shall observe later that
the focus of AOS’s auditing papers has been on
judgment and decision experiments to a greater
extent than all other scholarly accounting journals
we examined. AOS also has published several
papers assessing the state of the art of auditing
judgment and decision experiments and discussing
future directions for research of that genre.
After 25 years, it is appropriate to characterize
and assess these AOS papers. Auditing research,
however, has been the subject of numerous review
0361-3682/03/$ - see front matter # 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PI I : S0361- 3682( 02) 00023- 5
Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 395–412
www.elsevier.com/locate/aos
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected] (I. Solomon).
papers, with three papers reviewing audit judgment
and decisions reported in a single volume in the mid
1990s (Libby, 1995; Messier, 1995; Solomon &
Shields, 1995). Consequently, rather than describe
the substantive ?ndings of this stream of scholarly
literature, we focus in the present paper on the sub-
set appearing in AOS and emphasize their impact on
the states of auditing knowledge and auditing
research. To examine this impact we draw compar-
isons with the other leading research journals. The
remainder of this paper is presented in ?ve sec-
tions. In Section 2, we de?ne key terms, we specify
the scope of the paper and we provide a breakdown
of audit research by research method over the 25-
year period 1976–2000. In Section 3, we describe, in
the aggregate, the characteristics and signi?cance
(using citation analysis) of the AOS audit judgment
and decision papers reporting experiments. This
section shows how the theoretical frameworks used
in AOS and papers appearing in other journals have
changed over the 25-year period. Section 4 then
focuses on the most cited individual AOS experi-
mental studies. We also compare citations of the
AOS papers to citations of papers published in other
journals. Section 5 discusses the future-directions
studies in both AOS and other journals. Concluding
remarks in Section 6 complete the paper.
2. De?nitions and scope
We use the term auditing to mean a process of
evaluating an assertion in terms of speci?ed criteria
and reporting the ?ndings to interested parties (see
Solomon & Shields, 1995). The most common form
of auditing for some time now has been audits of
?nancial statements by external auditors. Of course,
audits of assertions directly or indirectly related to
?nancial-statement matters can be conducted by
other persons (e.g. internal auditors) and the subject
matter of an audit can and is being expanded well
beyond ?nancial statements (e.g. to conformance
with international standards for product and service
quality, individual web-site’s standards for customer
privacy; see Solomon & Peecher, 2001).
Irrespective of the type of assertion under scrutiny,
an auditor makes numerous judgment and decisions
throughout the audit process. We use the term
judgment to refer to subjective assessments made
as a prelude to taking action. Consistently, we use
the termdecision to mean actions that people take to
perform some task or solve some problem. Thus, for
example, on every engagement, the auditor judges
matters like the competency of the auditee’s man-
agement, e?ectiveness of the auditee’s information
system architecture, and the signi?cance (materi-
ality) of elements of the ?nancial statements. In turn,
the auditor must decide how to acquire knowledge
about the veracity of each ?nancial statement ele-
ment, how much and what type of evidence to
gather, and ultimately, which report to issue.
Numerous research methods could be and have
been used to study auditors’ judgments and deci-
sions. Among the most powerful of these methods is
an experiment. By experiment, we mean a method of
inquiry in which the researcher randomly assigns
subjects within a controlled setting in which the
researcher reproduces some phenomenon (an indi-
vidual or social process), actively manipulates that
phenomenon and then makes various observations
(e.g. measurements) of or related to the phenom-
enon. Often these observations or measurements
could not be made in a natural setting (Reynolds,
1987, p. 156).
Using these de?nitions, we employ a simple rule to
identify the subset of AOS papers on which we will
focus. Speci?cally, we include papers published in
AOS during the period 1976–2000 inclusive in which
the experimental task involves some audit judgment
or decision and the subjects are auditors (external,
and in one paper, internal auditors) and auditor
surrogates, such as students.
1
We use the same rule
when making comparisons to other journals.
The American Accounting Association (AAA)
Auditing Section’s recently compiled database of
auditing articles from 1975 to 1999 facilitates
identi?cation of the journal in which a paper
appeared and the research method employed
1
Some of the AOS papers report experiments in which all of
the independent variables are actively manipulated, but in other
papers, only a subset of the independent variables are actively
manipulated and some are measured. In a small number of
AOS papers all of the independent variables are measured (e.g.
knowledge and experience e?ects). Although, strictly speaking,
these latter studies are not experiments (see Kerlinger & Lee,
2000), we include them in our review.
396 I. Solomon, K.T. Trotman / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 395–412
(AAA, 2000). We adjust this database to match
the ?rst 25 years of AOS by eliminating the papers
published in 1975 and adding papers published in
2000.
2
Using the revised database, we determine
that 670 auditing papers were published in ?ve
scholarly accounting journals in the years 1976–
2000. These papers are classi?ed by time period
and journal in Table 1. We use the top ?ve jour-
nals as de?ned by Brown and Huefner (1994).
These ?ve journals are AOS, Contemporary
Accounting Research (CAR), Journal of Account-
ing & Economics (JAE), Journal of Accounting
Research (JAR), and The Accounting Review
(AR). Of these papers, 181 (27.0%) are experi-
ments in which the focus is on auditors’ judgment
or decisions. In contrast, the next most popular
research methods are archival, analytical, and
surveys with 139 (20.7%) papers, 81 (12.1%)
papers, and 38 (5.7%), respectively. Only 16
(2.4%) of the published papers during this time
period use experimental economics.
3
In three of
the journals we examine, papers dealing with
judgment and decision experiments are the most
numerous of the auditing papers (excluding other
category). In CAR, there is a tie between analy-
tical and judgment and decision experiments. No
papers reporting audit judgment and decision
experiments appear in the JAE. Nevertheless,
from several perspectives experimentation is
widely used by auditing scholars and, judgments
and decisions often are the audit scholars’ focus.
Table 1 reveals that 38 papers reporting audit
judgment and decision experiments appear in AOS
since 1976.
4
These 38 papers are 21.0% of the
papers reporting audit judgment and decision
experiments during that time period.
5
CAR, JAR,
and AR published 14.4, 34.3, and 30.4%, respec-
tively of the papers reporting audit judgment and
decision experiments during that time period.
Relative to other journals, however, AOS pub-
lished proportionately fewer audit papers employ-
ing other research methods. The 38 papers
reporting audit judgment and decision experi-
ments constitute a concentration ratio (41.8%) of
audit papers published in AOS. This concentra-
tion ratio is the highest among the ?ve journals.
6
Thus, when an auditing paper appears in AOS it is
highly likely to report a judgment and decision
experiment. It also should be noted that 17 other
papers appearing in AOS during this time period
address future directions for audit judgment and
decision studies. Adding these 17 papers to the 38
experiments, 60.4% of the AOS audit papers have
a judgment and decision theme.
From Table 1 one also can see some distinct
trends over the 25-year period. First, we calculate
from Table 1 that the total number of auditing
2
We make other adjustments when we ?nd inconsistencies
in the database. Further, for some of the journals (e.g. JAR,
CAR) conference papers are accompanied by discussant’s
comments. Also, in early years some of the journals publish
comments and replies relating to previously published papers.
We place all such papers in the ‘other’ category. In addition, in
the database several entries addressing an audit issue relating to
users of audit reports (e.g. bankers, juries, analysts) are classi-
?ed as judgment/decision papers. As these papers do not ?t our
earlier de?nition of an audit judgment/decision study, we place
them in the ‘other’ category.
3
Many of the remaining papers are discussions appearing in
conference proceedings published in supplements to JAR and
CAR as well as a large number of comments and replies in the
earlier years of The AR. A substantial number of these papers
deal with statistical sampling while we could not identify a com-
mon thread for the others. The AAA Audit Research Committee
is continuing to review the papers in this set. Our review suggests
that any classi?cation updates will be minor and will not materi-
ally a?ect any of the conclusions in this paper.
4
We examine all issues of AOS during the period 1976–2000
to identify the papers that would meet our inclusion criteria. We
then reconcile our ?ndings with the AAA database. Three AOS
articles in the AAA database are identi?ed as auditing but do not
meet our criteria either because they do not use auditors or audi-
tor-surrogates as subjects or because they do not use audit tasks.
On the other hand, two AOS papers meet our inclusion criteria
even though they are not identi?ed as audit judgment and deci-
sion experimental papers in the AAA database.
5
AOS published roughly its proportionate share (1/5=20%)
of the audit judgment and decision experiments during its ?rst
25 years. Admittedly this is a highly simpli?ed computation
that ignores the fact that over the 1976–2000 time period, there
are di?erences in the number of issues published by the ?ve
journals and that not all of the ?ve journals were in existence
during the entire time period.
6
If the JAE were eliminated from the journal set (since no
experimental audit judgment/decision papers were published
therein), the mean concentration ratio for the remaining four
journals would be 27.9%. If we were to omit the ‘other’ cate-
gory from Table 1, AOS would have a concentration ratio of
73.1% compared to a mean of 39.8% for the ?ve journals.
I. Solomon, K.T. Trotman / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 395–412 397
Table 1
Auditing publications 1976–2000
Analytical Archival JDM
experiment
Experimental
economics
Questionnaire
survey
Other Total
Accounting, Organizations and Society
1996–2000 0 2 14 1 2 11 30
1991–1995 0 1 7 0 0 13 21
1986–1990 0 1 13 0 2 7 23
1981–1985 0 0 2 0 3 5 10
1976–1980 0 0 2 0 2 3 7
Total 0 4 38 1 9 39 91
Percentage 0 4.4 41.8 1.1 9.9 42.9
Contemporary Accounting Research
1996–2000 6 10 6 1 3 1 27
1991–1995 1 6 12 1 0 4 24
1986–1990 19 5 7 0 3 13 47
1981–1985 0 0 1 0 0 1 2
1976–1980 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Total 26 21 26 2 6 19 100
Percentage 26.0 21.0 26.0 2.0 6.0 19.0
Journal of Accounting and Economics
1996–2000 2 7 0 1 0 0 10
1991–1995 3 2 0 0 0 0 5
1986–1990 0 2 0 0 0 0 2
1981–1985 1 4 0 0 0 0 5
1976–1980 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Total 6 15 0 1 0 0 22
Percentage 27.3 68.2 0 4.5 0 0
Journal of Accounting Research
1996–2000 2 10 10 1 0 3 26
1991–1995 6 10 8 2 1 11 38
1986–1990 6 11 9 0 0 15 41
1981–1985 3 12 25 1 1 17 59
1976–1980 4 5 10 0 2 28 49
Total 21 48 62 4 4 74 213
Percentage 9.9 22.5 29.1 1.9 1.9 34.7
The Accounting Review
1996–2000 5 7 8 4 0 1 25
1991–1995 7 13 19 3 1 9 52
1986–1990 5 15 16 1 4 13 54
1981–1985 5 9 9 0 8 29 60
1976–1980 6 7 3 0 6 31 53
Total 28 51 55 8 19 83 244
Percentage 11.5 20.9 22.5 3.3 7.8 34.0
Grand Total 81 139 181 16 38 215 670
Percentage 12.1 20.7 27.0 2.4 5.7 32.1
398 I. Solomon, K.T. Trotman / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 395–412
articles over the 25 years is: 1996–2000, 118; 1991–
1995, 140; 1986–1990, 167; 1981–1985, 136; and
1976–1980, 109. The increase in the 1986–1990
period was mainly due to the 47 papers in CAR.
Since that period, however, the total number of
auditing papers across all ?ve journals has declined.
One reason for this decline has been the substantial
drop in auditing papers in JAR and AR during
1996–2000. Second, by adding together the judg-
ment/decision experiments in the ?ve journals by
period we compute the following: 1996–2000, 38
papers; 1991–1995, 46 papers; 1986–1990, 45 papers;
1981–1985, 37 papers; 1976–1980, 15 papers. These
statistics reveal a gradual increase over the ?rst 20
years but a decline in the 1996–2000 period. And,
the table suggests that the decline is not likely to be
due to a shift to other audit research foci. It is more
likely that JDM judgment/decision researchers are
using their skills to investigate users of accounting
information including analysts (see, Bloom?eld,
Libby, & Nelson, 2001). Third, there is substantial
variability in the frequency of publication over
time across the journals. AOS has two peak peri-
ods 1986–1990 and 1996–2000. The ?rst issue of
CAR was in 1984 with the bulk of the audit judg-
ment/decision studies are in 1991–1995. JAR has
published about ten audit JDM papers each 5-year
period with the exception of 1981–1985 when 25
papers were published. For AR, the most audit
judgment/decision papers appear in 1986–1995. It
is di?cult to con?dently discern the reasons for
such variability over time. However, for AOS, we
note that the ?rst peak corresponds to the appoint-
ment of Barry Lewis as Associate Editor whereas
the second peak is associated with appointment to
the editorial review board of several accounting
judgment and decision scholars.
3. Characteristics and signi?cance of the AOS
studies
What can be said about the foci of the audit
judgment and decision experiments published in
AOS? And, what is the signi?cance of the AOS
audit judgment and decision experiments in terms
of their impact on the scholarly literature? An
answer to the ?rst question may be discerned by
examining the audit tasks that were used within
the AOS judgment and decision experimental
studies. A wide variety of tasks is noted over the
25-year period. We observe, however, that during
the period 1976–1989, over half of the papers
employ an internal-control or other risk-assess-
ment task whereas during the 1990s the tasks
become more diverse.
Still another answer to the ?rst question as well
as an answer to the second question may be dis-
cerned by considering the primary judgment and
decision theoretical frame employed in the AOS
experimental audit judgment and decision papers
and the number of citations these groups of papers
have received.
We adopt the theoretical framework classi?ca-
tion scheme from Solomon and Shields (1995).
Their ?ve frameworks are: policy capturing,
probabilistic judgment, heuristics and biases, cog-
nitive processes and multiperson information pro-
cessing. We re?ne this classi?cation scheme,
however, by dividing the cognitive processes cate-
gory into two sub-categories: (a) knowledge and
memory and (b) environmental and motivational
factors. This ?ner partition is consistent with the
approach of Libby and Luft (1993). In addition,
we establish an ‘other’ category for the small
number of papers that do not ?t well in any of the
other categories.
We obtain the citation data for each paper by
searching Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) via
the Dialog Information System. The SSCI database
is an international, multidisciplinary index to the
literature of the social, behavioral, and related sci-
ences, produced by the Institute for Scienti?c Infor-
mation. It includes all signi?cant articles from more
than 1500 internationally refereed social sciences
journals from 1972 to the present. SSCI o?ers
citation indexing, which permits searching by cited
references. For the present paper, we obtain cita-
tions of each article by searching cited reference
?elds for the article in the journals identi?ed later.
The program we use ensures that all terms in a cited
reference ?eld related to each paper are displayed.
For the present paper, we choose all formats of
potential citations even though some of them have
errors on page or volume number, and some have
various abbreviations of the journal name. For
I. Solomon, K.T. Trotman / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 395–412 399
example, we ?nd three variations in how the Libby
and Luft (1993) paper was cited (Libby R, 1993, p.
425 Account Org Soc; Libby R, 1993, p. 425
Accounting Org S July; Libby R, 1993, v18, p. 425,
Account Org Soc). Note the three di?erent ways of
citing the journal and the di?erent ways of referring
to the volume. Furthermore, for authors with two
initials we search under both initials and the ?rst
initial. For example, J. S. Smith is often cited by
other authors as J. Smith. In summary, we employ a
comprehensive search strategy to obtain the max-
imum number of citations of each cited paper.
Experts in this area conduct the search for us.
We include citations of the 38 AOS articles from
all accounting journals included in the SSCI: AOS,
AR, JAR, Auditing: A Journal of Practice & The-
ory, Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, and
JAE. In addition, we include all non-accounting
journals contained in the Index. We separately
categorize Organizational Behavior & Human Deci-
sion Processes, and Psychological Bulletin because
they have a signi?cant number of citations to AOS
papers.
7,8
We begin by considering the tendency of
papers published in these journals to cite the AOS
experimental audit judgment and decision papers.
With 24.2% of the AOS citations, papers pub-
lished in Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory
are the most likely to cite papers published in
AOS. Interestingly, with 20.4% of the citations,
papers themselves published inAOS are the second
most likely to cite papers published in AOS. With
15.2% and 13.7% of the citations, papers pub-
lished in AR and JAR account for the third and
fourth most frequent citations to these AOS
papers. And, 7.1% of the citations to AOS papers
are inOrganizational Behavior & Human Decision
Processes or Psychological Bulletin. Lastly, an
additional 19.0% of the citations to AOS papers
are in journals other than the seven identi?ed,
none of which are accounting journals. These lat-
ter two statistics signal AOS’s non-trivial in?uence
outside of the accountancy scholarly literature.
Data on citations received by AOS experimental
auditing judgment/decision papers divided on the
basis of theoretical frame are shown in Table 2.
Three multi-person studies are in AOS, all since 1993
Table 2
AOS experimental auditing judgment and decision papers: theoretical frame citations
Theoretical frame Number of
papers
Mean (range of)
citations per paper
Mean citations per
paper per year
Multi-Person Judgment and Decision Making 3 8.33 (0–21) 2.08
Heuristics and Biases 10 8.70 (2–23) 0.88
Knowledge and Memory 4 2.75 (0–10) 0.79
Probabilistic Judgment 3 8.33 (5–11) 0.60
Environmental and Motivational 7 3.57 (0–13) 0.48
Policy Capturing 7 5.14 (0–9) 0.45
Other 4 0.75 (0–3) 0.20
Totals 38 5.58 (0–23) 0.68
7
The SSCI does not include CAR. There are no citations to
AOS papers from papers published in the JAE. Further, in
addition to the journals identi?ed, we include citations from all
journals in the SSCI in a category that we refer to as ‘other’.
8
Three points about our citation analysis follow. First, we are
aware of the controversy surrounding citation analysis as well as
the variety of metrics that can be used in a citation analysis (see
Brown, 1996). Second, we do not distinguish self-citations from
citations by other researchers and, later when we focus on indivi-
dual papers, we do not adjust for co-authorship. Third, we do not
distinguish between ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ citations.
9
It is especially di?cult to place some of the papers in only
one theoretical frame. The Libby and Trotman (1993) paper is
one such example. We place that paper in the multi-person
frame but recognize that some persons might place it in the
knowledge and memory frame. In most situations, the place-
ment of any single paper does not signi?cantly a?ect our con-
clusions. Because of its relatively high number of citations,
however, that is not the case for the Libby and Trotman (1993)
paper. If Libby and Trotman (1993) were to be moved from the
multi-person to the knowledge and memory frame, the number
of citations per paper and per paper per year for the multi-
person papers would fall to 2.0 and 0.80, respectively. Con-
sistently, the number of citations per paper and per paper per
year for the knowledge and memory papers would rise to 6.2
and 1.48, respectively.
400 I. Solomon, K.T. Trotman / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 395–412
(Ismail & Trotman, 1995; Libby & Trotman, 1993;
Yip-Ow & Tan, 2000).
9
These papers recognize that
teams or groups, as opposed to individuals, often
make auditing judgments and decisions. The
multi-person studies are cited an average of 8.33
times, with an average of 2.08 citations per year,
which is the highest average number of citations
per year (see Table 2).
10
Heuristic and biases papers are concerned with
employment of simplifying judgment/decision rules
such as representativeness, anchoring and adjust-
ment, and availability and whether such employ-
ment results in judgment/decision biases. There are
10 papers in this category: Asare and Wright (1997);
Bamber, Ramsay, and Tubbs (1997); Butt and
Campbell (1989); Holt (1987); Holt and Morrow
(1992); Kaplan and Reckers (1989); Pei, Reed, and
Koch (1992); Reimers and Butler (1992); Trotman
and Sng (1989); and Uecker and Kinney (1977).
There are more papers in this category than any
other category and they have the highest mean
number of citations per paper of 8.70, but the second
highest mean per year citations of 0.88 (see Table 2).
As the name implies, knowledge and memory
papers investigate issues like how knowledge is
acquired, how knowledge is stored in memory, and
the implications of knowledge for performance. The
knowledge-e?ects papers are: Libby and Tan
(1994); Choo (1996); Bonner, Libby, and Nelson
(1997); and Ricchiute (1999). Of the auditing
judgment and decision experimental papers in
AOS, those adopting this theoretical frame are the
youngest (average age is 3.5 years). These papers,
on average, have 2.75 citations, with a mean of
0.79 citations per year (see Table 2). However,
perhaps re?ecting their relative youth, two of these
four papers have received no citations to date.
Probabilistic judgment studies focus on sub-
jective probabilistic assessments and probability
combinations. The AOS probabilistic judgment
papers are Solomon, Krogstad, Romney and
Tomassini (1982); Shields, Solomon, and Waller
(1987); Waller and Felix (1989). Table 2 reveals
that these studies have, on average 8.33 citations,
with an average of 0.60 citations per year. We also
note that this is one of the two theoretical frames
in which all of the papers have at least one cita-
tion. Of the auditing judgment and decision
experimental papers in AOS, those adopting this
theoretical frame are the oldest (average age is
14.0 years).
Following Libby and Luft (1993) we use a sepa-
rate category for environment and motivation. We
include therein papers focusing on features such as
judgment guidance and technology aids, account-
ability relationships, sequential multi-period tasks
and monetary incentives for good performance.
Seven such papers (tied for the second largest
number in any of the seven categories) appear in
AOS (Braun, 2000; Pincus, 1989; Purvis, 1989;
Salterio, 1996; Salterio & Koonce, 1997; Wong-on-
Wing, Reneau, &West, 1989; Wright, 1988). Table 2
reveals that these papers have, on average, 3.57
citations, with an average of 0.48 citations per year.
Policy-capturing studies develop mathematical
representations of auditors’ judgment policies as a
means of shedding light on judgment strategies.
These studies commonly address the level of con-
sensus among auditors, cue usage, judgment sta-
bility and auditor self-insight. Table 2 reveals that
seven of the studies that appear in AOS in its ?rst
25 years employed this theoretical frame: Firth
(1979); Nanni (1984); Blocher, Mo?e, and Zmud
(1986); Colbert (1988); Harrell, Taylor, and Chew-
ning (1989); Simnett (1996); and DeZoort (1998).
These studies have, on average 5.14 citations, and, as
a group, they received 0.45 citations per year.
Lastly, AOS published four papers that do not
?t well into any of the earlier classi?cations and
thus, we place them into a category we call ‘other’.
These studies address the in?uence of individual
di?erence factors (e.g., personality traits) on audit
judgment and decisions (Hull & Umansky, 1997;
Sweeney & Roberts, 1997; Tsui & Gul, 1996; Wind-
sor & Ashkanasy, 1995). Of the auditing judgment
and decision experimental papers in AOS, those
adopting this theoretical frame are the second
youngest (average age is 3.75 years). Table 2 reveals
10
We computed the number of citations per year for theore-
tical frame groups of papers by adding the number of citations
each paper in a group received and then dividing that sum by
the total number of paper-years since publication for the group
of papers. For example, the three multi-persons papers received
a total of 25 citations and collectively these three papers were in
print for 12 years (21/12=2.08). The year of publication is not
counted as one of the years.
I. Solomon, K.T. Trotman / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 395–412 401
that these papers have, on average, 0.75 citations,
with an average of 0.20 citations per year. However,
three of these four papers have no citations to date,
perhaps because of their relative youth.
To summarize, while AOS studies employing
each of the theoretical frames have had some
impact, Table 2 reveals that the most in?uential
papers are those that adopt the multi-person
judgment and decision making framework, the
heuristics and biases framework and the probabil-
istic judgment framework.
Table 3 Part A provides data on the propensity
of AOS papers to adopt speci?c frameworks vis-a` -
vis the frameworks adopted by papers in the other
three journals in which audit judgment/decision
experiments have appeared (see Table 1). AOS
published about 21% of the audit judgment/deci-
sion experiments over the 1976–2000 period (see
Part A of Table 3).This statistic varies, however,
depending upon the theoretical frame. For exam-
ple, AOS published a high of 35.7% of the heur-
istics and biases papers to a low of 10.3% of the
knowledge and memory papers.
From Part B of Table 3 one can see how the
popularity of the various theoretical frames has
changed over time. Policy capturing and prob-
abilistic judgment studies, for example, are far
more common in the late 1970s and throughout
the 1980s but far less so in the 1990s. Interestingly
(and contrary to our priors), the number of heur-
istics and biases papers has remained relatively
constant over the 25 years. However, there is a
shift from documenting judgment and decision bia-
ses in the earlier years to more recently examining
pre-decisional biases. There also is a substantial
number of papers in 1991–1995 on belief revision.
The multi-person studies over the period 1981–
1985 mainly document process gains whereas more
recent papers consider cognitive aspects of multi-
person judgments. Most studies over the last 10 years
are based on two theoretical frames: knowledge and
memory, and environmental and motivation.
4. Individual AOS papers
Tables 4 and 5 identify the most frequently cited
experimental auditing judgment and decision
papers published in AOS since 1976. Table 4 is
based on the total number of citations and
Table 3
Theoretical frame across journals and time
Policy
capturing
Probabilistic
judgment
Heuristics
and biases
Multiperson
judgment and
decision making
Knowledge
and
memory
Environmental
and
motivational
Other Total Percentage
Part A: Journals
AOS 7 3 10 3 4 7 4 38 21.0
CAR 4 5 2 2 6 4 3 26 14.4
AR 14 4 10 1 18 5 3 55 30.4
JAR 20 5 6 6 11 13 1 62 34.3
Total 45 17 28 12 39 29 11 181
AOS as% of total 15.56% 17.65% 35.71% 25.00% 10.26% 24.14% 36.36% 20.99%
Part B: Time
1996–2000 3 0 4 5 10 13 4 39 21.5
1991–1995 5 2 10 2 16 8 2 45 24.9
1986–1990 12 6 7 0 10 6 4 45 24.9
1981–1985 17 4 6 5 2 2 1 37 20.4
1976–1980 8 5 1 0 1 0 0 15 8.3
Total 45 17 28 12 39 29 11 181
JAR—Journal of Accounting Research; AR—The Accounting Review; AOS—Accounting, Organizations & Society; CAR—Con-
temporary Accounting Research
402 I. Solomon, K.T. Trotman / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 395–412
includes all papers with at least six citations.
Table 5 is based on the number of citations per
year
11
and includes all papers with more than 0.60
citations per year. We start by comparing the
papers in Tables 4 and 5. Speci?cally, note that 4
out of the last 5 papers listed in Table 4, do not
appear in Table 5, suggesting that although these
papers have amassed a substantial number of
citations, their in?uence over time has dimin-
ished.
12
Notice further that ?ve papers in Table 5
do not appear in Table 4 (Asare & Wright, 1997;
Bamber et al., 1997; Ismail & Trotman, 1995;
Salterio, 1996; Salterio & Koonce, 1997). The
common feature of these papers is that they were
published within the last quintile of the 25-year per-
iod under study. Consequently, although they have
an impressive number of citations per year, their
total number of citations to date is insu?cient to
make the top-15 list in Table 4.
Tables 4 and 5 reveal that the most cited paper
is Libby and Trotman (1993) or Uecker and Kin-
ney (1977) depending on the citation metric
employed. Libby and Trotman has 21 citations
(three per year) while Uecker and Kinney has 23
citations (one per year). The next most cited
papers again depend on which metric is employed.
Butt and Campbell (1989); Trotman and Sng
(1989) are tied for third place based on the total
number of citations. However, if the number of
citations per year since publication is the metric
employed, Libby and Tan (1994) moves ahead of
these papers and is second after Libby and Trot-
man (1993). Using the labeling scheme established
by Brown (1996), only the Libby and Trotman
(1993) paper has enough citations per year (i.e.
53.0 citations per year) to earn a title (i.e. as a
near classic).
Lastly, from Table 4 one can see that the pattern
of citation varies considerably over time. While
some studies receive a considerable number of cita-
tions in the years just after publication (e.g. Libby &
Trotman, 1993), others (e.g. Pincus, 1989) received
few citations immediately after publication but
had a greater in?uence later. Table 4 also shows
Table 4
Most cited AOS experimental auditing judgment and decision
papers: total number of citations
Authors Date Number of
citations
Total number
of citations
A
a
B
b
Uecker and Kinney 1977 2 9 23
Libby and Trotman 1993 8 13 21
Trotman and Sng 1989 3 8 16
Butt and Campbell 1989 6 7 16
Pincus 1989 0 3 13
Solomon et al. 1982 5 7 11
Libby & Tan 1994 6 8 10
Kaplan & Reckers 1989 3 8 10
Shields et al. 1987 2 3 9
Blocher et al. 1986 1 3 9
Nanni 1984 3 3 8
Firth 1979 1 1 7
Pei et al. 1992 2 3 7
Wright 1988 0 2 6
Colbert 1988 2 3 6
a
A—number of citations during ?rst 3 years after publication.
b
B—number of citations during the ?rst 5 years after pub-
lication.
Table 5
Most cited AOS experimental auditing judgment and decision
papers: number of citations per year since publication
Authors Date Citations per year
Libby and Trotman 1993 3.00
Libby and Tan 1994 1.67
Trotman and Sng 1989 1.45
Butt and Campbell 1989 1.45
Pincus 1989 1.18
Asare and Wright 1997 1.00
Salterio and Koonce 1997 1.00
Uecker and Kinney 1977 1.00
Kaplan and Reckers 1989 0.91
Pei et al. 1992 0.87
Ismail and Trotman 1995 0.80
Salterio 1996 0.75
Shields et al. 1987 0.69
Bamber et al. 1997 0.67
Blocher et al. 1986 0.64
Solomon et al. 1982 0.61
11
To be included in this table a paper must have been pub-
lished prior to 1999. Otherwise a single citation would produce
a per-year citation average of 1.0.
12
Another possibility, given that all of the papers were pub-
lished prior to 1990, is that they remain in?uential but authors
are choosing to cite more recently published papers.
I. Solomon, K.T. Trotman / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 395–412 403
that many studies with only two or three citations
in the ?rst three years go on to have a signi?cant
impact on the literature. This observation suggests
that papers published in 1997 that appear in
Table 5, but not in Table 4, may very well end up
with a substantial number of citations.
To put the AOS citations into perspective we
also conduct a citation analysis for all of the
judgment/decision papers in Table 1 published in
JAR and AR. We are not able to conduct such an
analysis for CAR as it is not a Social Science
Citation Journal. We report our results in order of
Table 6
Total number of citations (greater than 20) for JDM audit experiments in AOS, AR and JAR
Author Date Journal Number of citations Total number of
citations
A
a
B
b
Joyce (1976) 1976 JAR 8 17 88
Libby (1985) 1985 JAR 8 22 82
Joyce and Biddle (1981a) 1981 JAR 12 23 70
Libby and Frederick (1990) 1990 JAR 23 35 59
Ashton and Brown (1980) 1980 JAR 16 22 57
Abdolmohammadi and Wright (1987) 1987 AR 8 19 53
Bonner and Lewis (1990) 1990 JAR 19 34 51
Ashton and Ashton (1988) 1988 AR 8 25 50
Joyce and Biddle (1981b) 1981 JAR 11 17 50
Frederick and Libby (1986) 1986 JAR 3 15 49
Bonner (1990) 1990 AR 18 27 48
Kinney and Uecker (1982) 1982 AR 10 15 41
Frederick (1991) 1991 AR 19 26 37
Bedard and Biggs (1991) 1991 AR 15 25 36
Weber (1980) 1980 JAR 1 2 36
Butt (1988) 1988 JAR 6 15 34
Hamilton and Wright (1982) 1982 JAR 6 7 33
Biggs, Mock, and Watkins (1988) 1988 AR 8 14 32
Felix (1976) 1976 AR 5 9 31
Kida (1980) 1980 JAR 1 3 31
Choo and Trotman (1991) 1991 AR 12 18 30
Heiman (1990) 1990 AR 12 18 30
Kida (1984) 1984 JAR 1 6 30
Bamber (1983) 1983 JAR 1 3 29
Gaumnitz, Nunamaker, Surdick, and Thomas (1982) 1982 JAR 12 13 28
Kennedy (1993) 1993 JAR 12 18 28
Tubbs, Messier, and Knechel (1990) 1990 AR 12 18 28
Libby, Artman and Willingham (1985) 1985 AR 4 9 26
Solomon (1982) 1982 JAR 7 10 26
Pratt and Stice (1994) 1994 AR 6 16 25
Asare (1992) 1992 AR 12 15 23
Trotman, and Yetton (1985) 1985 JAR 3 4 23
Trotman, Yetton and Zimmer (1983) 1983 JAR 4 7 23
Uecker and Kinney (1977) 1977 AOS 2 9 23
Hofstedt and Hughes (1977) 1977 AR 7 12 22
Libby and Trotman (1993) 1993 AOS 8 13 21
McDaniel (1990) 1990 JAR 6 12 21
Moeckel and Plumlee (1989) 1989 AR 5 8 21
Schultz and Reckers (1981) 1981 JAR 8 11 21
JAR—Journal of Accounting Research; AR—The Accounting Review; AOS—Accounting, Organizations & Society.
a
A—Number of citations during ?rst 3 years after publication.
b
B—Number of citations during the ?rst 5 years after publication.
404 I. Solomon, K.T. Trotman / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 395–412
total citations (Table 6) and in order of citations
per year (Table 7) using Libby and Trotman
(1993) as the cut o? point. Table 6 contains 39
papers of which the only AOS papers are Uecker
and Kinney (1977) tied for 31st on the list and
Libby and Trotman (1993), which is tied for 36th.
Thus, compared to JAR and AR, AOS audit
judgment/decision experiments have had less
in?uence. However, from other calculations we
determined that across the three journals over the
25-year period, only 76 audit judgment/decision
experiments have received ten or more citations.
Of those, eight are AOS papers included in
Table 4. In fact, Butt and Campbell (1989) and
Trotman and Sng (1989) are tied for 51st, Pincus
(1989) is tied for 60th, Solomon et al. (1982) is tied
for 69th, and Kaplan and Reckers (1989) and
Libby and Tan (1994) are tied for 73rd.
Table 7 provides the data using citations per
year. It contains 20 papers with three or more
citations per year. As only one AOS paper appears
in this list, again it appears that AOS audit judg-
ment/decision experiments have had less impact
compared with both JAR and AR. Further analy-
sis reveals that across the three journals only 78
papers over the 25-year period have on average
one or more citations per year. Of these, eight
AOS papers are included in our Table 5.
5. The future-directions papers
AOS has published 17 papers that we categorize
as future-directions papers. At ?rst blush, these
papers appear rather diverse. Some of the papers,
for example, discuss theoretical insights gleaned
largely from other literatures (e.g. Birnberg &
Shields, 1984; Libby & Luft, 1993; Rich, Solomon
& Trotman, 1997; Waller & Felix, 1984), and
some discuss methodological and other weak-
nesses of extant lines of inquiry (Be´ dard, 1989;
Gibbins & Jamal, 1993; Libby & Lewis, 1977,
1982; Shanteau, 1989). Still other future-directions
papers discuss the need to incorporate features of
the auditing setting in theories underlying audit
judgment and decision experiments and in the
Table 7
Citations per year (3 or more) for JDM audit experiments in AOS, AR and JAR
Author Date Journal Citation per year
Libby and Frederick (1990) 1990 JAR 5.90
Libby (1985) 1985 JAR 5.46
Bonner and Lewis (1990) 1990 JAR 5.10
Bonner (1990) 1990 AR 4.80
Ashton and Ashton (1988) 1988 AR 4.16
Pratt and Stice (1994) 1994 AR 4.16
Frederick (1991) 1991 AR 4.11
Abdolmohammadi and Wright (1987) 1987 AR 4.08
Bedard and Biggs (1991) 1991 AR 4.00
Kennedy (1993) 1993 JAR 4.00
Joyce and Bidle (1981a) 1981 JAR 3.68
Joyce (1976) 1976 JAR 3.66
Frederick and Libby (1986) 1986 JAR 3.50
Kennedy (1995) 1995 AR 3.40
Choo and Trotman (1991) 1991 AR 3.33
Hackenbrack and Nelson (1996) 1996 AR 3.25
Peecher (1996) 1996 JAR 3.25
Heiman (1990) 1990 AR 3.00
Ho?man and Patton (1997) 1997 JAR 3.00
Libby and Trotman (1993) 1993 AOS 3.00
JAR—Journal of Accounting Research; AR—The Accounting Review; AOS—Accounting, Organizations & Society.
I. Solomon, K.T. Trotman / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 395–412 405
experiments themselves (e.g. Bonner, 1994;
Hogarth, 1993).
13
All of these papers, however,
aim for a common penultimate goal—to in?uence
the direction of future research in terms of, for
example, issues addressed, theoretical frames
adopted, methods of inquiry employed. Their ulti-
mate goal is to expand the audit knowledge frontier.
We also search JAR and AR for future-direction
papers. We ?nd only three such papers: Gibbins
(1984), Felix and Kinney (1982) and Hogarth (1991).
Table 8 lists the above three papers plus the 10 most
cited future-directions papers in AOS in descending
order based on the total number of citations. We
report two metrics in Table 8: (1) the total number of
citations and (2) the number of citations per year.
First we discuss the 10 future-directions AOS
papers. Although their ranking shifts slightly, the
set of 10 papers does not vary by metric. From
Table 8, one can see that, as a set, these papers are
more highly cited than the papers reporting experi-
ments (see Table 4). Speci?cally, the top 10 AOS
experimental papers listed in Table 4 received, on
average, 13.8 citations whereas the ten AOS future-
directions papers in Table 8 received, on average,
26.2 citations. Interestingly, 37.8% of the citations
of the future-directions papers are from papers
appearing in AOS. The comparable statistic for
AOS papers reporting experiments is 20.4%. The
next most frequent source of citations for AOS
future-directions papers is from papers published
in JAR and AR, with 13.7% each. The future-
directions papers were cited less frequently than
the AOS papers reporting experiments by papers
published in Auditing: A Journal of Practice &
Theory (10.7% vs. 24.2%). Further, in comparison
with AOS papers reporting experiments, there is
less evidence of in?uence in the non-accounting
journals. Speci?cally, only 3.8% of the citations of
future directions papers are from papers published
in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision
Processes and Psychological Bulletin. However,
20.3% of the citations are from other non-
accountancy journals included in the SSCI.
Turning next to individual AOS future-direc-
tions papers, Table 8 reveals that 5 of the 10
papers listed have more citations than the most
cited AOS paper reporting an audit judgment and
decision experiment. Indeed, the Libby and Lewis
(1977) paper has almost three times as many cita-
tions as the most cited experimental paper. Also,
Table 8
Future-direction research papers
Author Journal Year Number of Citations Total number
of citations
Number of
citations per year
A
a
B
b
Libby & Lewis (1977) AOS 1977 11 30 67 2.91
Gibbins (1984) JAR 1984 6 15 58 3.63
Waller & Felix (1984) AOS 1984 5 15 43 2.69
Libby & Lewis (1982) AOS 1982 12 20 43 2.39
Felix & Kinney (1982) AR 1982 10 18 38 2.11
Be´ dard (1989) AOS 1989 8 17 26 2.36
Libby & Luft (1993) AOS 1993 9 16 23 3.29
Hogarth (1991) AR 1991 12 13 20 2.22
Birnberg & Shields (1984) AOS 1984 1 3 20 1.25
Shanteau (1989) AOS 1989 5 9 16 1.45
Rich et al. (1997) AOS 1997 8 8 8 2.67
Bonner (1994) AOS 1994 4 8 8 1.33
Gibbins & Jamal (1993) AOS 1993 6 6 8 1.14
JAR—Journal of Accounting Research; AR—The Accounting Review; AOS—Accounting, Organizations & Society.
a
A—Number of citations during ?rst 3 years after publication.
b
B—Number of citations during the ?rst 5 years after publication.
13
The links between speci?c future-directions papers and
speci?c foci are somewhat arbitrary as many of the future-
directions papers span multiple foci.
406 I. Solomon, K.T. Trotman / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 395–412
noteworthy is that if one were to apply Brown’s
(1996) labeling scheme to these future directions
papers, the Libby and Luft (1993) paper would be
labeled a near classic.
14
We note further that two
other future-directions studies (i.e. Libby & Lewis,
1977; Rich et al. Trotman, 1997) have more than
2.5 citations per year perhaps making them near,
near classics. The Libby and Lewis (1977) paper
has, however, stood the test of time whereas the
long-term impact of the Rich et al. (1997) paper is
unknown. In addition, if a ten-year post publica-
tion window were employed (closer to that used
by Brown, 1996), Libby and Lewis (1977) would
qualify as a classic and Libby and Lewis (1982)
would be a near classic.
Our review of these AOS future-directions
papers suggests that the number of these papers is
relatively large. We did notice, however, a decline
in the ?fth quintile of the time period of relevance.
For example, six such papers were published in
AOS over both the 1986–1990 and 1991–1995 time
periods whereas only one such paper was pub-
lished in the 1996–2000 time period. We do not
know the reason for this decline (e.g. perhaps
scholars may not be writing these papers, review-
ers may have lost their taste for them, or there
could be a general feeling that future-directions
papers are not as valuable today as they once
were). Irrespective of the reason, however, we
observe that given the extent to which prior AOS
papers of this genre were cited, the outcome seems
most unfortunate.
Table 8 also depicts the impact of time on citation
patterns for the future-directions papers. Notice
that some papers (e.g. Libby & Lewis, 1977, 1982;
Libby & Luft, 1993) have an immediate and con-
tinuing impact while others have a more delayed,
but still substantial impact (e.g. Birnberg &
Shields, 1984). Both citation patterns suggest that
these papers truly lead the literature.
To assess further the contribution of AOS
future-directions papers, we compare the citations
for the papers in Table 8 to those for the experi-
mental papers in Tables 6 and 7. Comparing to
Table 6 one can see that ?ve AOS future-direction
papers would appear among the top 40 judgment/
decision experimental papers. Using citations per
year, six AOS future-directions papers are above
2.3 putting them in the top 30 papers from Table 7.
It appears clear that the future-direction papers
published in AOS have had a major impact on the
literature. Given this impact, we suggest that an
opportunity would be lost if AOS were not to
increase the rate of publication of these future-
direction papers.
6. Concluding remarks
Our inquiry and analysis reveals that, during its
?rst 25 years, AOS has made a signi?cant con-
tribution to scholarly auditing research by pub-
lishing 38 papers reporting experiments focussed
on audit judgment and decisions. A related sig-
ni?cant contribution involves the 17 future-direc-
tions papers also appearing in AOS during its ?rst
25 years. Eight ?ndings are most salient from our
inquiry and analysis.
First, when an audit paper appears in AOS, it is
highly likely to report a judgment and decision
experiment. Second, across the ?ve journals exam-
ined there is a gradual increase in audit judgment/
decision papers over the ?rst 20 years but a decline
in the 1996–2000 period. Third, although there is
considerable within-frame variation, the most
cited AOS audit papers reporting experiments
adopt the multi-person judgment, the heuristics
and biases, and the probabilistic judgment theore-
tical frames. Fourth, papers appearing in Audit-
ing: A Journal of Practice & Theory are the most
likely to cite AOS papers reporting audit judgment
and decision experiments, but that is not the case
for future-directions papers. The next most likely
to cite AOS papers reporting audit judgment and
decision experiments are other papers published in
AOS, followed by papers appearing in AR and
JAR. The AOS future-directions papers are cited
most frequently by other papers published in
AOS, followed by papers appearing in JAR and
AR. Fifth, citations from papers appearing in
journals like Organizational Behavior & Human
14
Brown (1996) de?nes a classic as a paper with more than
4.0 citations per year and a near classic as one with more than
3.0 citations per year. More than 2.14 citations per year results
in a paper making a top-100 list.
I. Solomon, K.T. Trotman / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 395–412 407
Decision Performance indicate that AOS audit
judgment and decision experiments have in?u-
enced the non-accountancy judgment and decision
literature. Sixth, there are large variations in cita-
tion patterns over time. Some papers have an
immediate impact whereas for others, the impact
is more delayed. Seventh, although the number of
such papers published in AOS in recent years has
declined, the future-directions papers have been
cited substantially more frequently than the AOS
papers reporting audit judgment and decision
experiments. While the reason for this decline is
unknown, we observe that it is unfortunate not
only because AOS seems to have carved a niche
with respect to this type of paper but also because
the need for such papers is growing not declining.
Eighth, while the impact of audit judgment/deci-
sion experiments in AOS is less than that for audit
experiments in AR and JAR, the impact of future-
direction papers in AOS compares favorably with
audit experiments and future-directions papers in
AR and JAR.
We believe that there is an urgent need for further
research on audit judgment and decisions. In addi-
tion, we believe that experimentation continues to
be a viable means of testing and re?ning theories of
auditor behavior. This latter statement should not
be interpreted to mean that we do not see value in
research approaches such as ?eld studies and sur-
veys. On the contrary, we believe strongly in the
triangulation that results when researchers con-
duct studies employing di?erent research approa-
ches. On the other hand, because of its high
internal validity, experimentation is likely to con-
tinue to play a valuable role in advancing the audit
judgment and decision knowledge frontier.
One of the advantages of an experiment is that it
allows the researcher to study phenomenon that
may not be able to be studied in a natural setting
(Peecher & Solomon, 2001; Reynolds, 1987). We
believe that this aspect of experiments could be
exploited more by audit researchers. For example,
much of the multi-person audit judgment/decision
literature addresses the review process as it exists
in practice. These papers increase our knowledge
of the e?ectiveness of the review process under
various circumstances and provide an under-
standing of the process gains from the review
process as used in practice. However, there are
many ways of structuring audit teams (see Solo-
mon, 1987; Trotman & Yetton, 1985) and we
believe that some alternatives not presently used in
practice are worthy of testing via experiments.
Similarly, the large accounting ?rms have fre-
quently changed their audit approach over the last
25 years but there has been very little use of
experiments to test these changes in advance of their
adoption. Recent debate and suggestions about
alternatives for improving perceived and actual
independence, such as changes to the structure of
audit committees, also seem to provide excellent
opportunities for well-designed experiments.
The urgency of the need for research on audit
judgment and decisions is primarily attributable to
the rapid pace of change in how commerce is
conducted which, in turn, is dramatically in?uen-
cing the demand for and production of business
measurement and auditing (see Bell, Marrs, Solo-
mon, & Thomas, 1997). For example, some audit-
ing ?rms have begun to rely heavily on systems
thinking (see Richmond, 2000) to develop new
ways of thinking about fundamental audit con-
structs like audit risk and audit evidence. In turn,
the nature and types of the judgments and deci-
sions that auditors make are changing, as are the
processes of judging and deciding. Such funda-
mental changes cry out for attention from research-
ers and create numerous research challenges and
opportunities.
For example, analytical procedures are evolving
substantially under these new audit approaches,
both in terms of their nature and the centrality of
their role. According to systems-thinkers, knowl-
edge acquisition involving synthesis and diagnosis,
which are key features of analytical procedures, is
generally thought to be more powerful than
knowledge acquisition via decomposition-based
activities like sampling. Also, from the systems-
thinking perspective, it is critically important for
an auditor to understand the economic web within
which a client organization operates (e.g. includ-
ing competitors, external forces, how the organi-
zation is connected to suppliers, distributors, etc.).
In essence the auditor must develop a very deep
and broad mental model of the client organization
and be able to run that model (i.e., use mentally
408 I. Solomon, K.T. Trotman / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 395–412
simulation) to develop expectations. How and
how well auditors perform these activities, how
such performance can be improved, and what the
appropriate theoretical frame are for investigating
these issues, however, largely are unknown at this
time. Recent events, like the many earnings resta-
tements and the Enron debacle, highlight the
importance of developing answers to questions
such as these.
We have been engaged in auditing research since
AOS appeared on the scene. At no time in the
previous 25 years, however, have we seen a greater
need for auditing research. Concurrently, the
auditing scholar could bene?t greatly from future-
directions papers that describe the nature of ante-
cedents to changes in auditing thinking and how
auditing is being done as well as new theories for
framing and methods for studying the con-
temporary audit discipline. The auditing profes-
sion is rapidly advancing in response to change in
its environment. Auditing scholarship, however, is
advancing at a much slower pace. Perhaps AOS can
begin its second 25 years by publishing papers that
pose and test theories that are well suited to the
changing environment and task demands faced by
the auditor. By meeting this challenge, AOS can
help spark a new revolution in auditing scholarship.
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the able research assistance of
Andrew Bowman, Mahreen Hasan, Gary Hecht,
Amna Khalifa and Weiping Yue and the com-
ments on an earlier draft from Mark Peecher,
Michael Shields and Connie Wilson.
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