Group Judgment and Decision Making in Auditing: Research in the Time of COVID-19 and Beyond

What is it about?

The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed the ways auditors work and interact with team members and others involved in the financial reporting process. In particular, there has been a move away from face-to-face interactions to the use of virtual teams, with strong indications that many of these changes will remain post-pandemic. We examine the impacts of the pandemic on group judgment and decision making (JDM) research in auditing, specifically by reviewing research on auditor interactions with respect to the review process (including coaching), fraud brainstorming, consultations within audit firms, and parties outside the audit firm such as client management and the audit committee. Through the pandemic lens and for each auditor interaction, we consider new research questions for audit JDM researchers to investigate and identify potential impacts on the research methods used to address these questions during the pandemic and beyond.

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