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An Investigation Into Pcaob Reporting Deficiencies, James Samuel Wainberg

Open Access Dissertations

The PCAOB inspection reports for large audit firms are primarily anecdotal in nature, providing only a list of deficiencies found without any statistical context (e.g., the inspection sample size). This is problematic when trying to determine the extent of a firm's audit weaknesses. However, simply adding statistical data to the reports, as currently provided in the PCAOB reports of small firms, may not solve the problem. Prior research suggests that statistical data are often ignored or underweighted when anecdotal data are present. This study investigates whether a bias for anecdotal data overwhelms the statistical data as currently presented in small …