Impact of personal, task, and environmental factors on auditor’s judgment and decision-making: Evidence from Lebanese certified public accountants

Abstract

This study aims to examine how audit judgment and decision-making (JDM) is impacted by personal variables, task factors, and environmental factors. Audit judgment is crucial for forming opinions on financial statements since it is not feasible to conduct an audit on every type of evidence. We sent a questionnaire to all auditors who are members of the Lebanese Association of Certified Public Accountants (LACPA) in order to collect the data. Before analysis, we collected and completed 310 questionnaires for the study. We employed various statistical analyses, such as multiple linear regression analysis, data quality tests, and regression assumptions tests, to examine the relationships between different factors and JDM. The findings of the study showed that there is a positive association between factors like professional skepticism, the use of decision aids, professional commitment, the structure of tasks, time pressure, and the effectiveness of corporate governance/internal controls, and audit JDM. Conversely, adverse correlations emerge between factors like knowledge levels, task complexity, and the level of accountability, and audit JDM. However, there were no statistically significant correlations between audit JDM and factors including skills, experience, familiarity, trust, professional development, relationships with audit firms, and group or individual information processing. By being aware of and recognizing these effects, audit companies in Lebanon may put strategies in place to improve the quality of JDM and the trustworthiness of audit results.