The causes and consequences of decision fatigue in auditors' judgment tasks

What is it about?

This paper reports two experiments that explore the role of decision fatigue (i.e., ego depletion) in auditors' judgment tasks. The first experiment investigates whether different types of auditing tasks lead to decision fatigue; I find that maintaining task focus and engaging in complex thinking leads to greater decision fatigue that resisting impulses. The second experiment investigates whether this decision fatigue impacts auditors' performance on a subsequent judgment task; I find that fatigued auditors are less able to engage in complex thinking than non-fatigued auditors.

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Why is it important?

This paper is important because it sheds light on how auditors' performance on tasks later in the day, or subsequent to other tasks, can be influenced by their prior tasks. This has implications for how individuals structure their daily work, as they should concentrate on their most complex tasks earlier in the day when they are less likely to be fatigued (i.e., depleted) by other tasks. Within auditing, this also has implications for work done during busy season, where reviewers should be more mindful that task performers may be fatigued/depleted and thus should allocate greater attention to the review process.

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