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How Does Intrinsic Motivation Improve Auditor Judgment in Complex Audit Tasks?
Author(s) -
Kadous Kathryn,
Zhou Yuepin Daniel
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
contemporary accounting research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.769
H-Index - 99
eISSN - 1911-3846
pISSN - 0823-9150
DOI - 10.1111/1911-3846.12431
Subject(s) - audit , skepticism , psychology , salient , set (abstract data type) , quality audit , context (archaeology) , quality (philosophy) , information processing theory , cognitive psychology , information processing , variety (cybernetics) , cognition , social psychology , applied psychology , accounting , computer science , business , artificial intelligence , epistemology , paleontology , philosophy , neuroscience , biology , programming language
Intrinsic motivation is generally thought to be positively associated with performance on a variety of tasks. However, there is only sparse experimental evidence supporting this idea and we know little about the specific mechanisms behind any effect. We develop theory about how auditors’ intrinsic motivation for their jobs can improve their judgments about complex accounting estimates. We experimentally test whether a prompt to make auditors’ intrinsic motivation for their jobs salient improves the specific information processing behaviors necessary for high‐quality judgments in complex audit tasks. It does: Prompted auditors attend to a broader set of information, process information more deeply, and request more relevant additional evidence. Supplemental analyses show that these processing behaviors mediate between salient intrinsic motivation and an improved ability to identify a biased complex estimate. Our theory and analyses indicate that auditors’ intrinsic motivation for their work provides unique value for improving judgment quality, particularly in the context of performing complex audit tasks. Our study supports the view that high‐quality cognitive processing can improve auditors’ professional skepticism by providing a foundation for skeptical judgments.