The Effects of Specialization in Audit Workpaper Review on Review Efficiency and Reviewers' Confidence

Abstract

Accounting firms are currently re‐engineering their audit processes with the aim of delivering a quality audit more efficiently. One area of potential efficiency gains is the sequential and hierarchical workpaper review process. This study examines the potential for specialization to improve review efficiency and reviewer confidence. Auditing literature advises focusing each review level on specific kinds of errors (i.e., seniors on mechanical errors and managers on conceptual errors), rather than having seniors and managers perform successive all‐encompassing reviews. We find that seniors but not managers performing specialized reviews were more confident in their reviews. However, both seniors and managers performing specialized reviews required on average more time than those performing all‐encompassing reviews. Additional analysis suggests that specialized reviewers were also less calibrated. We attribute these results to specialization interfering with auditors' mental model of review. The results su...