감사판단의 사후평가시 기대차이, 직무책임 및 사후편견의 영향 (Effects of Expectation Gap, Accountability, and Hindsight Bias on Ex Post Evaluations of Audit Judgments)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국회계학회
· 수록지 정보 : 회계저널 / 23권 / 5호 / 1 ~ 36페이지
· 저자명 : 이재은, 배길수

초록

국내 감사보고서감리제도는 회계품질의 향상에 공헌을 했다는 평가와 함께 감독제도와 감리절차상 문제점들이 지속적으로 제기되어 왔다. 이러한 문제제기 중 대표적 항목으로서 회계기준 적용 판단, 회계추정의 판단, 감사절차의 판단 등 회계 및 감사사항에 대한 감사인의 전문적 판단에 대해서 잘잘못을 판단하는 것이 부적절하다는 문제제기를 포함한다. 이러한 논란의 배경에는 여러 편의(bias)의 영향에 따라 감사품질에 대한 제3자의 사후적 판단이 달라진다는 주장이 있다. 선행연구(Anderson et al. 1993; Lowe and Reckers 1994; Anderson et al. 1997; Kadous 2001 등)에서는 감사의견에 대한 제3자의 사후적 평가가 여러 편의의 영향을 받을 수 있다고 보고하면서, 이러한 편의의 발생원인을 기대차이(expectation gap), 직무책임(accountability), 사후편견(hindsight bias) 등을 제시하였다. 본 연구에서는 국내 감사 실무에서 감사판단의 평가가 이루어지는 대표적 절차인 감사보고서감리에서의 당사자인 개인공인회계사(이하, 감사인)와 금감원 감리검사역(이하, 금감원검사역)을 대상으로 이러한 편의가 감사판단 사후평가에 실제 영향을 끼치는지 조사한다. 연구 표본은 감사인 107명, 금감원검사역 44명이다.
연구 결과, 국내 감사인과 금감원검사역들이 공통적으로 감사판단에 대한 사후평가시 사후편견의 영향을 받는 것으로 나타났다. 또한 회계오류 발생가능성 사전예측이 높을수록(기대차이 영향), 감사인보다 금감원검사역이(직무책임 차이 영향) 감사품질을 더 낮게 평가하였다. 반면에 회계오류발생가능성을 높게 인식할수록 사후편견의 증분효과는 감소하는 (즉, 역[逆]사후편견의 영향을 받는) 형태로 나타났다. 그러나 금감원 검사역과 감사인의 사후편견 차이는 유의하지 않아서, 금감원검사역의 감사품질 판단시 사후편견의 영향은 감사인과 유사한 수준인 것으로 나타났다. 추가로 감사(감리) 경험기간을 통제한 경우에는 대체로 위에서 확인된 영향(계수값의 유의수준)이 작아졌다. 이는 감사(감리)경험기간이 감사판단에 대한 사후평가시 편의완화전략으로 활용가능함을 의미한다.
본 연구의 공헌점은 감사판단에 대한 편의영향을 조사한 Anderson et al.(1993) 등의 선행연구들이 잠재적 업무관련 가능성이 있는 배심원ㆍ판사 또는 감사인을 주로 대상으로 한 것과 달리 국내 감리절차를 실제 담당 또는 경험한 당사자인 금감원검사역과 감사인을 직접 조사 대상으로 한 연구라는 점, 국내 감리조사의 감사품질 평가에서 기대차이, 직무책임, 사후편견이 유의한 영향을 끼침과 경험기간이 길수록 위 편의가 완화할 수 있음을 발견한 것이다.

영어초록

Regulatory reviews on audit reports by the Financial Supervisory Service (the “FSS”) are generally believed to have improved the overall accounting and audit quality in Korea. Under the FSS's review program, the FSS staffs select samples of public companies listed in the Korea Stock Exchange, and evaluate the financial statements for any potential misstatements. However, there have been ever growing concerns among the accounting profession over the fairness and objectivity of the FSS's disciplinary decisions. In particular, one important issue with respect to the review procedure is a potential bias in the ex post evaluation on audit judgment. Despite the concerns about such bias in the accounting profession, little evidence that either refutes or validates the allegation is currently available. We attempt to fill this void.
Prior studies report a potential bias in the third party's evaluation of audit results. For instance, Anderson et al. (1993) report that one such a bias is so-called hindsight bias. Hindsight bias exists when individuals overestimate the extent to which outcomes could have been anticipated prior to their occurrence. That is, individuals judge audit quality (e.g., the likelihood of auditor negligence) in light of ex post adverse outcomes (e.g., unfavorable subsequent consequences or undetected material misstatements of earnings). One common and legitimate concern therefore is that adverse outcomes could bias individuals, causing overly harsh conclusions about the likelihood of auditor negligence. Also, Anderson et al. (1993) argue that the evaluation may be biased by a factor such as expectation gap. However, while hindsight bias may contribute to the professional legal disputes, this analysis alone may not resolve all issues since many studies attend on other biases by expectation gaps deriving from prior belief on estimated error occurrence (Peecher and Piercey 2008), or accountability difference by respondent's responsibility or roles (Kennedy 1995). Previous studies report that adverse outcome tends to cause lower evaluation of audit quality due to hindsight bias. Also, the higher the expectation for auditors' responsibility or audit standards to be accomplished is, the more stringent evaluations on audit opinions tend to be. Similarly, more accountable respondents are more likely to be assigned to tough evaluations on audit results. In addition, Peecher and Piercey (2008) find that the higher prior belief on error occurrence is positively associated with the lower level of hindsight bias of the jury ("the reverse hindsight bias"). Several prior studies attempt to design debiasing methods that could be implemented in the legal liability context, given that judicial litigants may be unable to ignore the knowledge about outcomes.
We investigate whether such a bias actually affects the professional evaluation on the auditor opinion in the course of the FSS’s review procedures. Specifically, based on the findings in the prior literature, we posit that bias arises from several factors: outcome knowledge (hindsight bias), expectation gap (prior belief on estimated occurrence of error), and accountability difference (i.e. regulatory reviewer's challenging positions vs. auditor's defending positions). We conduct an experimental field survey using 44 staff reviewers of the FSS and 107 auditors of various accounting firms, who are the counterparts involved in the FSS's review procedures.
Our results indicate that the FSS reviewers’ evaluation on the auditors’ performance is significantly lower than that of auditors, which is reflective of an accountability difference. Moreover, the higher prior belief on error is, the lower evaluation of audit quality is, which is also reflective of an expectation gap. Perhaps more importantly, our results reveal that evaluative judgments of auditors’ performance are subject to hindsight bias. These results together indicate that professionals including both of auditors and the FSS reviewers are affected by hindsight bias, expectation gap, and accountability in the third party evaluation of audit results. In addition, we find that higher prior belief on estimated error occurrence is positively associated with lower hindsight bias (the reverse hindsight bias). However, we do not find the reverse hindsight bias in the FSS reviewer's evaluation, which indicates that FSS reviewers tend to evaluate audit results lower than auditors, and their level of hindsight bias is similar with that of the auditor. Additional analyses also show that longer experience in the years of audit or regulatory review tends to mitigate the bias affecting the ex post evaluation of audit results. This suggests that longer experience can be used as debiasing method to mitigate the bias.
Our study has several contributions. First, most of prior studies on hindsight and other bias are based on the surveys or experimental studies using jury, judge, or auditors. In contrast, our study is based on a field survey on auditors and the FSS reviewers who are the actual counterpart of the FSS review procedures. Second, we find that the hindsight bias, expectation gap and accountability difference together actually affect the judgment of the professionals participating in the FSS review process. Lastly, we find that the audit or the FSS review experience reduces the level of such bias, and therefore can be useful as a debiasing method that mitigates biases.

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