Essays on Auditors’ Judgments and Decisions in Negotiation and Communication

Abstract

Auditors conduct various audit tasks during an audit in order to arrive at an audit opinion regarding whether the financial statements are fairly presented in accordance with the applicable financial reporting framework. To perform these audit tasks and arrive at a decision about the audit opinion, auditing standards require auditors to exercise their professional judgment. From this requirement, two important terms emerge, judgment and decision. Bonner (1999, p. 385) defines judgment as “forming an idea, opinion, or estimate about an object, an event, a state, or another type of phenomenon,” and a decision as “making up one’s mind about the issue at hand and taking a course of action.” In short, judgment involves subjective assessment established before taking actions, and decision refers to actions taken to perform tasks or solve problems (Solomon & Trotman, 2003). In a more formal term defined by the auditing standards, professional judgment refers to “the application of relevant training, knowledge, and experience, within the context provided by auditing, accounting, and ethical standards, in making informed decisions about the courses of action that are appropriate in the circumstances of the audit engagement” (IAASB, 2018, para. 13).