ABSTRACT Auditing standards require that auditors’ reliance on a specialist is commensurate with the specialist’s competence. In assessing competence, auditors encounter cues diagnostic of the specialist’s social status but less so of competence. In an experiment, we manipulate specialist status and find that auditors mistake status for competence unless they are prompted to separate the constructs. This raises the possibility that auditors could over-rely on high-status specialists. However, auditors also assess high-status specialists as more influential, and when the specialist disagrees with the client, they rely more on high-status specialists because of this perceived influence. Thus, high-status specialists can increase auditors’ willingness to challenge the client by providing a strong ally. Additional analyses suggest that auditors are aware that they rely on the specialist’s influence rather than competence, indicating that auditors do not use the process that auditing standards envision to evaluate and rely on specialists. Data Availability: Data are available upon request. JEL Classifications: M42.

中文翻译：

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地位等于实质吗？专家社会地位对审计师对复杂估计的评估的影响


摘要审计标准要求审计师对专家的依赖与专家的能力相称。在评估能力时，审计员遇到了专家社会地位的诊断线索，但能力的诊断线索较少。在一项实验中，我们操纵了专家的身份，发现审计员会将身份误认为是能力，除非他们被提示分开结构。这增加了审计师过度依赖高级专家的可能性。然而，审计师也会评估地位高的专家更具影响力，当专家与客户意见不一致时，他们会因为这种感知影响力而更加依赖地位高的专家。因此，地位高的专家可以通过提供强大的盟友来提高审计师挑战客户的意愿。其他分析表明，审计师意识到他们依赖于专家的影响力而不是能力，这表明审计师不使用审计标准设想的流程来评估和依赖专家。数据可用性：数据可根据要求提供。 JEL 分类：M42。