Identifying Auditor Stopping Rules in Decision Making Under Uncertainty

A stopping rule is a mechanism whereby the decision maker chooses to stop the search for information and make a decision (Gigerenzer and Selten 2001). This study analyses rich verbal protocol data provided by experienced auditors completing a detailed risk identification case to increase our understanding how stopping rules are applied by auditors, the impact of different stopping rules on judgment performance, and the influence of taskspecific experience and the availability of a decision aid on the relationship between stopping rules and performance. The results revealed that while auditors use a combination of stopping rules, those rules involving the development of a mental model of the client were generally favoured and led to superior performance. Participants generally ignored a decision aid checklist that was made available as a structured alternative to their own stopping rule.

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