Janne Chung

Exploring Social Desirability Bias

This study examines social desirability bias in the context of ethical decision-making by accountants. It hypothesizes a negative relation between social desirability bias and ethical evaluation. It also predicts an interaction effect between religiousness and gender on social desirability bias. An experiment using five general business vignettes was carried out on 121 accountants (63 males and 58 females). The results show that social desirability bias is higher (lower) when the situation encountered is more (less) unethical. The bias has religiousness and gender main effects as well as an interaction effect between these two independent variables. Women who were more religious recorded the highest bias scores relative to less religious women and men regardless of their religiousness.

An Examination of Auditor Choice Using Evidence from Andersen's Demise

The Enron/Andersen scandal provides a unique opportunity to examine the role of signaling in auditor choice. Not surprisingly, many clients dismissed Andersen quickly after Enron declared bankruptcy in some cases even before a replacement auditor was engaged and lawsuits against the audit firm were mounted. However, many clients did not dismiss Andersen until its auditing practice was shut down by the court. This study investigates why some clients did not make a quick auditor switch, that is: was the timing of the switch a signal? Our predictions are based on the theory that those that switched early (compared to those that switched late) were sending a signal that they were high-quality financial reporters. We test a sample of 711 companies from the final portfolio of Andersen auditees. Consistent with our hypotheses, we find that subsequent to the change of auditors, management of those companies that dismissed earlier was more likely to initiate the restatement of their financial statements than those that dismissed later. It appears as though the early switchers were attempting to distance themselves from Andersen and the financial reporting used with Andersen. In contrast, those clients that dismissed Andersen later had more restatements imposed on them than those that dismissed earlier, suggesting that their financial statements were of lower quality.

The effects of counterexplanation and source of hypothesis on developing audit judgment

Inheriting a hypothesis from a superior and explaining ones decision may lead to the use of a hypothesis-confirming strategy (Church, 1991; 1990). This study investigates whether generating ones own hypothesis and counterexplaining would mitigate such behaviour among auditing students in a classroom situation. We hypothesized that auditing students who inherit their hypothesis from an instructor would resort to a hypothesis-confirming strategy whereas those who generate their own hypothesis would not. Similarly, those who explain their decisions would be hypothesis-confirming but those who counterexplain would not. An experiment using an auditing case study was carried out and the results support our hypotheses. These results have instructional and assessment implications.