Prof. William Ciconte

Professor

William Ciconte is Assistant Professor of Accounting at the University of Kansas. He earned his PhD in Business Administration with a focus in Accounting from the University of Florida, and holds an MSA in Accounting from Villanova University as well as dual bachelor’s degrees in Business Administration and Political Science from the University of Delaware. Before entering academia, he worked as a tax senior in the financial services group at PwC.His research examines auditing, tax, and financial reporting, with particular emphasis on audit market competitiveness, auditor effort allocation, and the role of artificial intelligence in accounting and finance. He also studies how consultants influence firms’ operating and reporting quality and the usefulness of income tax disclosures. His work has been published in leading journals including Journal of Accounting Research, Review of Accounting Studies, Contemporary Accounting Research, and Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory. Recent projects explore auditor commercialism and its implications for audit quality, audit responses to illegal acts by clients, and the impact of AI regulation on investor risk.William teaches courses in auditing and tax and regularly engages with professional bodies and regulators to bridge academic research with practice. He previously served as Assistant Professor of Accountancy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and has presented his work at international conferences and workshops, including events organized by the Foundation for Auditing Research.

How is auditor commercialism related to audit quality?
It is taken for granted that a fundamental conflict exists between auditors’ professional responsibilities and their commercial interests. While there is no direct evidence to support this widely held belief, it  nonetheless fuels extensive, costly regulatory and standard-setting activities. We propose to examine whether auditors’ commercial and professional motivations actually conflict. Moreover, we argue that quality control mechanisms in audit firms, e.g., performance evaluation and technical consultation  procedures, create conditions in which the two sets of motivations are likely mutually reinforcing. To test our research question, we will examine whether auditors’ commercial activity is related to indicators of audit quality such as individual performance evaluations and engagement quality reviews. We expect to find that firms reward auditors’ commercial activity. However, contrary to critics’ concerns, we also hypothesize that auditors’ commercial activity will be positively related to audit quality. For reasons discussed in this note, we argue that auditors who base their professional identity more on being successful at commercial endeavors will be more willing to access quality control mechanisms (e.g., ask for help from consultations). As far as we are aware, our examination will provide the first direct evidence on the  beneficial effects of commercial motivations for auditors.
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How is auditor commercialism related to audit quality?
It is taken for granted that a fundamental conflict exists between auditors’ professional responsibilities and their commercial interests. While there is no direct evidence to support this widely held belief, it  onetheless fuels extensive, costly regulatory and standard-setting activities. We propose to examine whether auditors’ commercial and professional motivations actually conflict. Moreover, we argue that  quality control mechanisms in audit firms—e.g., performance evaluation and technical consultation  procedures—create conditions in which the two sets of motivations are likely mutually reinforcing. To test our research question, we will examine whether auditors’ commercial activity is related to  indicators of audit quality such as individual performance evaluations and engagement quality reviews. We expect to find that firms reward auditors’ commercial activity. However, contrary to critics’ concerns, we also hypothesize that auditors’ commercial activity will be positively related to audit quality. For reasons discussed in this note, we argue that auditors who base their professional identity more on being successful at commercial endeavors will be more willing to access quality control mechanisms (e.g., ask for help from consultations). As far as we are aware, our examination will provide the first direct evidence on the beneficial effects of commercial motivations for auditors.
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How is auditor commercialism related to audit quality and efficiency?
This literature review synthesizes research on whether auditors’ commercial activity conflicts with professional obligations, or whether the two can coexist and even reinforce each other through firm-level quality controls. It frames the debate between the “trade‑off” view, where commercialism undermines professionalism, and an alternative perspective that highlights complementary roles of both logics in audit practice. The review also traces the evolution of organizational control in public accounting firms, from collegial autonomy to more formal structures, and considers how mechanisms such as technical consultations may help align commercial goals with high audit quality and engagement efficiency. Based on gaps in prior evidence, the authors call for empirical tests linking auditors’ commercial activity to individual performance evaluations, promotion decisions, and indicators of audit quality, expecting that commercial efforts can be rewarded without compromising quality.
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Where does the time go? Auditors commercial effort, professional effort, and audit quality
This study tests the taken-for-granted assumption that auditors’ commercial motivation threatens audit quality using internal time reporting data from two Big Four firms in the Netherlands. The research team examined whether auditors’ commercial effort is associated with their compensation, total effort on their audit engagements, and audit engagement quality. The researchers find some evidence of a positive relation between commercial effort and compensation. They find no evidence that auditors’ commercial effort is associated with total audit effort in their portfolio and, most importantly, they find no evidence of a negative relation between auditors’ commercial effort and audit quality. This challenges widely held beliefs that commercial effort is necessarily problematic for auditing. Further, the researchers find that auditors’ commercial effort is positively related to their reliance on quality control—proxied as technical consultations—and that there is a positive indirect effect of commercial effort on audit quality via consultations. That is, they identify conditions in which auditors’ commercial effort increases audit quality, suggesting that further restrictions on commercial effort are likely unnecessary.
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