SUMMARY We synthesize academic literature related to fraudulent financial reporting with dual purposes: (1) to better understand the nature and extent of the existing literature on financial reporting fraud, and (2) to highlight areas where there is need for future research. This project extends the work of Hogan et al. (2008), who completed a similar synthesis project, also sponsored by the Auditing Section of the American Accounting Association, in 2005. We synthesize the literature related to fraud by examining accounting and auditing literature post-Hogan et al. (2008) and by summarizing relevant fraud literature from outside of accounting. We review publications in accounting and related disciplines including criminology, ethics, finance, organizational behavior, psychology, and sociology. We synthesize the research around a model that illustrates the auditor's approach to fraud. The model incorporates auditors' use of the fraud triangle (i.e., management's incentive, attitude, and opportunity to commit fraud), their assessment of the existence and effectiveness of the client's anti-fraud measures (e.g., corporate governance mechanisms and internal controls), and their consideration of possible fraud schemes and concealment techniques when making an overall fraud risk assessment of the client. The model further illustrates how auditors can incorporate this assessment into an overall strategy to detect fraud by implementing appropriate fraud-detection procedures. We summarize the recent literature of each component of the model and suggest avenues for future research.

SUMMARY: A company’s internal audit (IA) function can be maintained in-house, outsourced to an IA service provider, or cosourced (a combination of the in-house and outsourced IA functions). This study explores the effect of these sourcing arrangements on the external auditor’s assessed quality and reliance on the IA function. We predict that external auditors consider the cosourced and outsourced IA functions to be equal in terms of assessed quality and reliance. Furthermore, we predict that the external auditors’ assessments of objectivity and competence will be greater for cosourced and outsourced IA functions compared to in-house IA functions; therefore, external auditors will have greater reliance on the cosourced and outsourced IA functions. Finally, we predict that when the IA service provider also provides additional tax services to the client, external auditor reliance is significantly decreased compared to when the service provider does not provide tax services. One hundred and eight CPAs participated in this study and were randomly assigned to one of five treatment conditions: in-house, cosource, outsource, cosource with tax services, and outsource with tax services. The results support our predictions and indicate that external auditors place more reliance on cosourced and outsourced IA functions compared to in-house IA functions. Furthermore, external auditors’ reliance on cosourced and outsourced IA functions decreases when tax services are also provided by the IA service provider.

Prior research indicates that external auditors are willing to rely to a greater extent on the work of the internal audit (IA) function when the function has been outsourced, or co-sourced, as opposed to maintained in-house. This article addresses the extent to which this relationship between IA sourcing and external auditor reliance is moderated by the use of continuous auditing. One hundred forty-two auditors, all CPAs, participated in an experiment in which we manipulated both IA sourcing type (in-house versus outsourced) and audit type (periodic versus continuous) and measured ratings of external auditor reliance on the IA function. Results indicate that when the IA function uses periodic auditing, external auditors rely more on an outsourced function than an in-house function. However, when the IA function uses continuous auditing, external auditors do not differ in reliance on an outsourced or in-house function. The prior literature suggests that outsourcing an IA function can lead to higher levels of external auditor reliance and subsequently lower external audit costs. The results here suggest that maintaining the IA function in-house and employing continuous auditing may lead to similar external audit effects.

SYNOPSIS This study examines fee premiums earned by Big 4 auditors in India and identifies the primary reason for such fee premiums. There are three primary drivers of Big 4 fee premiums. Big 4 auditors charge a fee premium for their reputation, for providing a superior quality of audit, and for indemnifying losses for a company's stakeholders. Since the risk of auditor litigation in India is relatively low, Big 4 premiums in India would not be driven by the need for auditors to indemnify losses. The results indicate that Big 4 auditors earn significantly higher fees in India and also that their clients enjoy significantly higher earnings response coefficients compared to non-Big 4 clients. However, there is no difference in the quality of audit provided by Big 4 and non-Big 4 auditors as measured by the magnitude of reported discretionary accruals.

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SUMMARY: We examine how auditors' consideration of material items is affected by each item's directional impact on income. Prior research indicates that auditors face greater litigation risk for non-detection of fraudulent income-increasing items compared to income-decreasing items. Therefore, we expect that auditors will spend greater cognitive effort evaluating material income-increasing (as opposed to income-decreasing) items, resulting in superior memories for such items. However, in an effort to direct auditors' attention to both increasing and decreasing material items, we manipulate whether or not auditors were asked to form expectations about the future effects of material items. Our results indicate that auditors' memories for income-increasing items are significantly greater than that for income-decreasing items when auditors are not asked to form expectations about the future effects of the items. However, this difference is not observed when auditors are asked to form expectations about future effects of each item. Furthermore, our results indicate that auditors are less likely to refer back to the work papers to verify the accuracy of income-decreasing items compared to income-increasing items. This suggests that auditors are not inclined to compensate for their poor memory of income-decreasing items by referring to working papers. However, it also suggests that auditors compensate for the greater risk associated with income-increasing items by requiring greater verification of such items. Data Availability: Contact the authors.

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