Structured versus non-structured interacting electronic fraud brainstorming in hierarchical audit groups

Abstract

Both international (ISA 240) and U.S. (SAS No. 99) accounting standard-setters require audit firms to organise a discussion session/ brainstorming session at the audit planning stage for each audit, in order to discuss how and where a company’s financial statements might be susceptible to material misstatement due to fraud. This study introduces a structured interacting electronic brainstorming platform into the audit context and examines whether it improves auditors’ fraud brainstorming performance in the fraud hypotheses generation task when compared with the non-structured interacting electronic brainstorming platform which has been investigated in prior literature. In the structured interacting electronic brainstorming platform, idea inputs are shown by categories rather than in chronological sequence on a computer screen.

Understanding the comparative effect of different forms of electronic brainstorming and exploring the most appropriate interacting electronic brainstorming method are important since it is likely to improve the effectiveness of brainstorming sessions in audit firms. The structured interacting electronic brainstorming platform has been found to be useful in improving users’ productivity and creativity in psychology. However, this study finds that the structured interacting electronic brainstorming platform has no effect on the brainstorming performance of the three-person hierarchical audit groups. Moreover, the use of the structured interacting electronic brainstorming platform has no effect on fraud brainstorming performance and mental simulations of seniors, but it even has a negative effect on the fraud brainstorming performance and mental simulations of managers. Furthermore, this study finds that there is no significant correlation between auditors’ brainstorming performance in the fraud hypotheses task and changes in their fraud risk assessments.