Trust and suspicion: The effects of situational and dispositional factors on auditors' trust of clients

The relative importance of situational and dispositional factors to the auditor's determination of subjective trust of a client is determined. The results indicate that historic experience with the client and the situational factors are more important than dispositional factors in determining the extent to which auditors trust clients. Specifically, length of service, historic client accuracy, a situation-specific incentive for misstatement, quality of communication, and the gender of the person being trusted influenced client trust in specific situations. Global measures of trustworthiness, independence, and client trust generally were not significantly related to subjective trust. The findings suggest that providing auditors with adequate opportunities for broad experience and training is important in aiding their ability to calibrate the appropriate amount of trust to demonstrate.