This practice note explores whether auditors confuse a specialist’s status with actual work quality when auditing complex estimates. Professional standards require auditors to assess specialists based on experience and reputation, but the study finds that auditors often attribute high status to irrelevant factors such as social connections, confidence, and any certification, regardless of relevance. This can lead to overreliance on specialists and increased audit risk.
Preliminary survey results show that status strongly influences auditors’ perceptions, even when substantive evidence is weak. The authors recommend focusing on evaluating the specialist’s work rather than background, and suggest centralizing specialist assignments within firms to reduce bias.
Future experiments aim to test how status interacts with justification strength and client alignment in shaping auditor judgments.
