Dr. Karla Zehms

Dr. Karla Zehms

Professor

Karla Zehms is the Ernst & Young Professor at the University of Wisconsin – Madison School of Business. She received her PhD from the University of Connecticut in 1997 and has spent her entire career at Wisconsin. She is a Wisconsin alumnus, having earned her MACC in 1991. She has been a visiting Professor at numerous other universities, including the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Her research interests include auditors’ client acceptance and continuance decisions, how fraud risk and fraud brainstorming affect audit planning and audit fees, client-auditor negotiation, and audit budget-setting processes, among others. She has published over 40 papers in leading journals, including the Journal of Accounting and Economics, Accounting, Organizations, and Society, the Journal of Accounting Research, The Accounting Review, Contemporary Accounting Research, Review of Accounting Studies, and Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory, among others. Professor Zehms has served on the Executive Committee of the Auditing Section of the AAA in the role of treasurer, Vice-President, President, and Past-President. She was previously an Associate Editor at Accounting Horizons and an Editor at Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory. She serves on numerous other editorial boards, both in the U.S. and internationally. She focuses her teaching in auditing, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels. She is also a co-author on an auditing textbook.

Articles & Publications

Auditors’ Professional Skepticism: Traits, Behavioral Intentions, and Actions

Auditors’ professional skepticism is critical to applying auditing standards and achieving audit quality. Prior research

Professional Skepticism Traits and Fraud Brainstorming Quality

Auditing standards emphasize that fraud detection is an important objective of an audit and require

Using Field-Based Evidence to Understand the Antecedents to Auditors’ Skeptical Actions

KEY TAKE-AWAYS We provide field-based evidence on antecedents to auditors’ skeptical actions, using over 600