Research

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): Assurance Solutions and Services: Current and Future Opportunities  

Research team: Tim Bauer, Efrim Boritz, Krista Fiolleau, Brad Pomeroy, Adam Vitalis, Pei Wang.  

Objectives: The evolving expectations of stakeholders in a data- and technology-driven economy will dramatically reshape the services CPA auditors are expected to provide. In order to ensure that the CPA profession is viewed and well equipped to be a leading provider of trust in the digital world, we must consider future forms and uses of information and explore new ideas for assurance services and how those services are being delivered. The primary purpose of this project is to research the marketplace of assurance services and solutions currently being offered by CPA firms and non-CPAs.  

In Phase 1 the research team completed an initial review of practitioner-oriented sources and academic literature to compile a database of the evolution of assurance-related services, and tools and technologies used in such services, to date. The research team also conducted 20 interviews with practitioners addressing issues related to the development of new assurance services. Two papers and one preliminary summary of findings document this phase of the project. The research team presented a summary of their findings to the AICPA's Assurance Services Executive Committee on October 18, 2022. 

Phase 2 is underway. It involves conducting 1) a survey with mainly CPA firm representatives about technologies and tools used in assurance services (emailed to CPA Canada membership; accessible January 24, 2023 until the end of February 2023 with assistance from CPA Canada), 2) roundtable discussions with assurance leadership in Canada (January 27, 2023 with assistance from CPA Canada) and the US (February 1, 2023 with assistance from the AICPA) about priorities and competition for emerging assurance service areas, and 3) eight interviews with CPA and other professionals about the development of emergent assurance services (conducted throughout December 2022).

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): Cataloguing the Marketplace of Assurance Services 

Research team: Tim Bauer, Efrim Boritz, Krista Fiolleau, Brad Pomeroy, Adam Vitalis, Pei Wang. 

Objectives: Identify emerging assurance service areas and report on CPA firm market presence (or not) in these areas. 

Report: Cataloguing the Marketplace of Assurance Service Areas 

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): Cataloguing Emerging Technologies and Tools for Assurance Services  

Research team: Tim Bauer, Efrim Boritz, Krista Fiolleau, Brad Pomeroy, Adam Vitalis. 

Objectives: Identify emerging technologies and tools related to assurance services. 

A full report is available at the link below. This paper is scheduled to be presented at the 2023 Joint Midyear Meeting of the AIS, SET and International Sections of the AAA; this conference will be held in Las Vegas, NV in January 26-28, 2023. Results from the survey will be included in a future revised version of the report in an effort to provide additional insight from practitioners and CPAs into the use of emerging technologies and tools used in assurance services.

Report: Cataloguing Assurance Related Technologies and Tools

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): Developing New Assurance Services 

Research team: Tim Bauer, Efrim Boritz, Krista Fiolleau, Brad Pomeroy, Adam Vitalis. 

Objectives: Investigate how new assurance services are developed via interviews with CPA and other professionals. 

A preliminary report is available at the link below. Additional interviews were conducted in December 2022 and will be combined with the initial interview data in a full report that will describe the development of new assurance services as reflected in interview participant responses.

Report: Research on Emerging Assurance Service Areas

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): Business Models and Business Model Descriptions: A Research Synthesis. 

Research team is Efrim Boritz and Louise Hayes, University of Guelph.  

Objectives: This paper addresses a series of research questions aimed at exploring the nature of business models and business model descriptions to better understand how they are and can be used in accounting and auditing.  

It was presented at the AAA Annual Meeting in New York, NY, August 2016; the International Symposium on Accounting Information Systems (ISAIS) in Valencia, Spain, May 2017;  the AAA SET Midyear Meeting in Orlando, FL, January 23-25, 2020. 

It is being revised for submission to a journal.

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): How Reliable are the Hurtt Professional Skepticism Scale and Rotter Interpersonal Trust Scale for Audit Experimental Research? 

Research team is Efrim Boritz, Katharine Elizabeth Patterson, Kristian Rotaru, Monash University, and Carla Wilkin, Monash University. 

The objective is to compare the results obtained from two well accepted scales that have been designed to measure stable personality traits – the Hurtt Professional Skepticism Scale (HPSS) and the Rotter Interpersonal Trust Scale (RITS).  

This paper was presented at the AAA Auditing Section Midyear Meeting, Portland, OR, January 2018; the Annual Congress of the EAA Conference, Milan, IT, May 2018; the Canadian Academic Accounting Association (CAAA) Annual Conference, Calgary, AB, June 2018; and the AAA Annual Conference, Washington, DC, August 2018.

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): Neuro-Cognitive Measures of Professional Skepticism. 

Research team is Efrim Boritz, Katharine Elizabeth Patterson, Kristian Rotaru, Monash University, and Carla Wilkin, Monash University. 

The objective is to examine the moderating role of neurocognitive measures such as risk taking propensity, cognitive (inhibitory) control and social cognition during the decision-making process to reveal the impact of these neurocognitive traits on professional skepticism during individual decision-making processes associated with audit risk judgments.  

This paper was presented at the Annual Congress of the EAA in Paphos, CY, May 2019.

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): Neuro-Physiological Measures of Professional Skepticism. 

Research team is Efrim Boritz, Katharine Elizabeth Patterson, Kristian Rotaru, Monash University, and Carla Wilkin, Monash University.  

The objective is to examine the mediating role of neurophysiological measures commonly associated with the degree of cognitive and/or emotional arousal experienced during the decision-making process to reveal the mechanism through which professional skepticism affects individual decision-making processes associated with audit risk judgments.  

This paper was presented at the AAA Annual Conference, San Francisco, CA, 2019.

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): “Mandatory Disclosure of Engagement Partner Identity: Insights from Practice.”  

Research Team: Veena L Brown, Jodi L. Gissel, and Adam Vitalis

Published in Accounting Perspectives, 21(4), December 2022.
doi.org/10.1111/1911-3838.12308

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): Improving Specialists’ Contributions to Audits of Fair Values. 

Research team is Tim Bauer, Cassandra Estep, Emory University, and Emily Griffith, University of Wisconsin-Madison.  

The objective is to examine how to motivate specialists to deliver high quality work and communication to auditors even in situations where specialists may otherwise feel coerced or compelled to contribute in a limited fashion.  

Invited in September 2022 to revise and resubmit manuscript for review at Contemporary Accounting, Research. As part of this revision, survey data was collected from approximately 30 valuation specialists in November & December 2022. A revised manuscript should be completed in April 2023.

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): How Are Goodwill Impairments Audited? A Study of Auditors and Valuation Specialists. 

Research team is Efrim Boritz and Lev Timoshenko, University of Calgary.  

The objective is to examine how auditors and valuation specialists perform the audit of goodwill/cash generating unit (CGU) impairment under IFRS, focusing on both interpretation and application of fair value (FV) accounting and auditing standards by the two groups.  

The paper is being revised for resubmission.

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): Factors Affecting Individuals' Susceptibility to Cyber Attacks.  

Research team is Efrim Boritz, Jessie Ge, and Katharine Patterson.  

Objective: To explore personality traits related to susceptibility to cybersecurity threats. Support for this research was provided by Richter LLP.  

This paper was published in the Journal of Information Systems, 36(3), Fall 2022.
doi.org/10.2308/ISYS-19-053

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): Cybersecurity Research in Accounting Information Systems. 

Research team is Alec Cram, David Wang, and Jonathan Yuan.  

The objective is to uncover the unique insights that AIS research has contributed to the study of cybersecurity and what promising directions for AIS research into cybersecurity remain untapped.  

A literature review was performed, covering 56 articles published in eleven AIS-oriented journals. 

A paper was published in the Journal of Emerging Technologies in Accounting, February 2022.
doi.org/10.2308/JETA-2020-081

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): Addressing Anomalies in Audit Data Analytics 

Research team is Efrim Boritz, Greg Shields and Adam Vitalis.  

Objective: To investigate how auditors assess which anomalies to investigate in an audit data analytics context. 

Design of research instrument is in progress. We are planning to run the data with MAcc students in February 2023.

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): Information Integrity Control Guidelines. 

Project team is Efrim Boritz and Malik Datardina, Auvenir. 

The objectives are to: 1) define information integrity and to identify information integrity risks and controls for mitigating those risks; 2) define assurance practices for information integrity services; 3) interview or survey audit team members about their views on information integrity risks, controls and assurance practices. 

The Framework for Information Integrity Controls was published by CPA Canada in April 2019. In addition, Efrim Boritz assisted the AICPA to develop a guideline on data integrity assurance. 

Links: 

CPA Canada: A Framework for Information Integrity Controls 

AICPA & CIMA: Criteria for Describing a Set of Data and Evaluating its Integrity 

AICPA & CIMA: Describing a Set of Data and Evaluating its Integrity 

UWCISA: Information Integrity Controls

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): A Framework for Predicting Emerging Technology Adoption Research team: Theo Stratopoulos and Victor Wang. 

The objective of this study is to develop a framework for predicting technology diffusion and expected duration of competitive advantage for the average adopting firm. 

Accepted at the International Journal of Accounting Information Systems.

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): “JIS Workshop on Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Research: Views from RPA Industry Leaders and Researchers.”  

Research Team: Efrim Boritz and Theophanis C. Stratopoulos. 

This paper was published in the Journal of Information Systems, 36(1) Spring 2022.
doi.org/10.2308/isys-10809

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): Does Industry Classification Matter: Evidence from IT Budgets 

Research team: Duane Kennedy, Byron Song, and Theo Stratopoulos 

The objective is to discover if the industry classification and/or the level of aggregation within a selected classification matter. Empirical studies tend to control for industry structure using proxies from one of the common industry classifications (e.g., SIC, Fama-French, NAICS) and select a level of aggregation within this classification (e.g., SIC2 or SIC3). Given these choices are not justified, one could assume that they do not seem to matter. 

The paper was presented at the CAAA Annual Meeting in June 2020.

Activities during current fiscal period (cumulative): Content Commercialization on Social Media Platforms: Exploring the Viewership of Paid Q&A. 

Research Team: Jonathan Hua Ye (SAF), Xueping Yang (Auckland University), Xinwei Wang (Auckland), and Theo Stratopoulos. 

The objective of this study is to enlighten content providers and platform organizations on how to facilitate individual users to commercialize content for profits. 

This paper was presented at the AAA AIS Midyear Meeting in San Antonio, TX, January 2019 and published in the Journal of Management Information Systems, 38(2), 2021. doi.org/10.1080/07421222.2021.1912934