Enhancing auditors’ professional skepticism through nudges: an eye-tracking experiment

Jean-François Gajewski (), Marco Heimann (), Pierre-Majorique Léger and Prince Teye ()
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Jean-François Gajewski: MAGELLAN - Laboratoire de Recherche Magellan - UJML - Université Jean Moulin - Lyon 3 - Université de Lyon - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises (IAE) - Lyon
Prince Teye: MAGELLAN - Laboratoire de Recherche Magellan - UJML - Université Jean Moulin - Lyon 3 - Université de Lyon - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises (IAE) - Lyon

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Abstract: This article studies whether nudges – that is, gentle alterations of people's behaviour – increase audit quality. Although the utility of nudges is well-established in behavioural sciences, their applicability and efficacy have been less studied in accounting and auditing. To bridge this knowledge gap, the study extends nudge theory to financial audits, offering experimental evidence of the impact of social norms and justification nudges on auditor behaviour. A factorial 2 × 2 between-subject experiment (social norms and justification) shows that nudges amplify professional skepticism, a critical indicator of audit quality. A follow-up eye-tracking experiment involving an audit task identifies the underlying cognitive mechanism of this effect; nudges heighten auditors' visual attention to pertinent information, thereby refining their evaluations of audit evidence and increasing their professional skepticism.

Keywords: eye-tracking; behavioural auditing; nudge; Professional skepticism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-07-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-acc, nep-exp and nep-nud
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://univ-lyon3.hal.science/hal-04636343v1
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Published in Accounting and Business Research, inPress, pp.1-19. ⟨10.1080/00014788.2024.2364215⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04636343

DOI: 10.1080/00014788.2024.2364215

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