Determinants of Auditor Expertise; Discussion

A view of expertise is explored in which specific experiences and training create knowledge and knowledge is combined with innate ability to perform specific audit tasks. A test is conducted of the extent to which cross-sectional variation in auditors' performance in several audit tasks can be explained using various types of knowledge and ability measures that have been identified in the literature as important determinants of auditor expertise. These results are compared to the explanatory power of a simple measure of general audit experience. The results indicate that, although more experienced auditors outperform less experienced auditors on average, knowledge and innate ability provide a better explanation of variation in performance. A discussion prompted by this analysis suggests an alternative framework for conceptualizing the role of various factors in performance: think of performance as the output, and identify the inputs and their relations.