Sanne Janssen, Kris Hardies, A. Vanstraelen, Karla M. Zehms
{"title":"Auditors’ Professional Skepticism: Traits, Behavioral Intentions, and Actions","authors":"Sanne Janssen, Kris Hardies, A. Vanstraelen, Karla M. Zehms","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3717615","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3717615","url":null,"abstract":"We integrate existing conceptual models of auditors’ professional skepticism with the Theory of Planned Behavior to develop an empirically testable model that explains the processes underlying the association between trait skepticism and skeptical actions. We use data from a sample of 663 auditors across all ranks who each completed an experiential questionnaire. The results reveal that partners and managers are more skeptical than seniors and staff and that individual differences and personality traits (agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, narcissism, and psychopathy) are associated with differential levels of trait skepticism. In empirical tests of our conceptual model, we find that trait skepticism is positively associated with attitudes, subjective norms (i.e., social pressure to behave skeptically), and perceived behavioral control over skepticism (i.e., self-efficacy), which in turn affect intentions to act skeptically. Subjective norms are the strongest predictor of intentions. Attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control are positively associated with skeptical actions (in terms of evidence collection and evaluation), and intentions to act skeptically positively mediate these associations. Results of testing the associations in our conceptual model do not differ by rank, revealing that antecedents to skeptical action do not differ based upon auditor experience.","PeriodicalId":231925,"journal":{"name":"DecisionSciRN: Personality & Decision Making (Topic)","volume":"60 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115042087","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Personality Effects in Participative Budgeting: An Experimental Investigation","authors":"Charles R. Boster, N. Busko, Michael A. Schuldt","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3231935","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3231935","url":null,"abstract":"We conduct a laboratory experiment to investigate the effect of individual personality traits on decision making in a participative budget setting. We predict that two personality characteristics from the HEXACO-100 scale, honesty-humility and conscientiousness, explain differences between individual misreporting decisions. We test our predictions in a participatory budgeting environment under three incentive structures to evaluate the pervasiveness of findings. Results suggests conscientiousness is significantly correlated with budgetary slack, and honesty-humility only reaches traditional levels of significance when interdependency is present. Specifically, conscientiousness scores are positively correlated with budgetary slack in a full model as well as each individual model for each incentive condition. Honesty-humility is not significant in a full model. However, evaluation of each individual incentive conditions finds honesty-humility is significant in conditions of interdependency. Supplemental analysis reveals gender acts similarly and separately from honesty-humility with significant results only in the incentive condition with interdependency. In addition, evidence indicates that older people request less budgetary slack than younger people.","PeriodicalId":231925,"journal":{"name":"DecisionSciRN: Personality & Decision Making (Topic)","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-08-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129973270","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}