The effect of an Audit Judgment Rule on audit committee members’ professional skepticism: The case of accounting estimates

Abstract

Changes to the audit environment have led to suggested changes to the regulatory framework for evaluating auditors’ judgments including the introduction of an Audit Judgment Rule (AJR), whereby courts and inspectors will not second-guess auditors’ reasoned judgments provided they are made in good faith and in a rigorous manner. We examine the potential effect of the AJR on the skepticism of Audit Committee Members (ACMs) in terms of the extent to which they ask probing questions to external auditors, CFOs and Heads of Internal Audit concerning an accounting estimate. This level of professional skepticism is a critical element of the duties of an ACM in the oversight of the financial reporting and auditing processes, especially for complex and future orientated accounting estimates. Because an AJR would likely encourage adoption of innovative audit procedures, we further examine the effect of these procedures, as compared to standard procedures, on ACMs’ skepticism given an AJR. Our findings show that an AJR increases ACMs’ perceived accountability in ensuring the reasonableness of the financial statements, and that a movement towards more innovative audit procedures under an AJR framework increases ACMs’ perceived overall comfort regarding the treatment of the accounting estimate. On average, these factors do not affect the overall level of ACMs’ skepticism in terms of the number of questions asked or the extent to which the questions are probing. However, these results differ depending on the demographic background of the ACM participants.