Melbourne Accounting Research Seminar - Elaine Mauldin

Professor Elaine Mauldin from the University of Missouri will present a MARS seminar.

Topic: Client Autonomous Technology and Auditor Legal Liability

Abstract: Advances in technology allow client organizations to use fully autonomous transaction processing systems. Theory suggests that evaluators unconsciously reduce their perceptions of human control over negative events that occur in systems with more autonomous technology. In a between-participants experiment, we test whether jurors’ fall prey to this bias and make different assessments of auditor control over a misstatement in the presence of a more, versus less, autonomous client system. Though jurors should focus on the quality of the audit conducted and not on the nature of the client’s system, we find they do so only in the less autonomous system condition and only when they have lower unconscious technology success bias. Overall, technology-based perceptions have the unintended potential of changing auditor accountability for audit failures as jurors are influenced by the client’s choice of system.

This seminar will be conducted remotely via Zoom. Register for this seminar

Click here to register for all MARS seminars