The results of this study must be considered in light of its limitations. Trust is a
personality trait, and there is a potential for correlated omitted variables to influence the
results. For example, less trusting auditors may have other personality traits, such as lower
tolerance for risk, that influence their attention and judgment. Next, the attention measure
was collected prior to the judgment measure. The attention measure could influence subsequent
auditor judgments. In addition, this study predicted that fraud experience would
influence judgment indirectly through attention. Path analysis reveals, however, that fraud
experience influences judgment directly. There are at least three possible explanations for
this finding: (1) auditors who have experienced fraud in the past are simply more likely to
believe that intentional misstatement has occurred, due to their higher base rates of fraud
exposure; (2) auditors who possess more fraud-based explanations for evidence of aggressive
reporting are more likely to rely on these explanations during the judgment process
than auditors who have fewer fraud-based explanations in memory; and (3) auditors may
not activate their knowledge of fraud-based explanations for evidence until they make a
fraud-related judgment. This study was not designed to differentiate between potential explanations
of the direct effect of fraud experience on judgment, and future research will be
necessary to understand why fraud-specific experience alters judgment but not attention to
evidence.
In addition to expanding our knowledge of the effects of auditor traits on the audit
process, the findings for trust and fraud experience have some potential implications for
practice. Audit firms may benefit from audit team structures that include members with
varying levels of trust and varying levels of prior fraud experience. Audit teams without
less trusting auditors may pay too little attention to aggressive reporting and fail to detect
aggressive reporting and/or evidence indicative of fraud, while audit teams without members
with prior fraud experience may lack the knowledge structures necessary to develop
fraud-based explanations for evidence. On the other hand, teams consisting entirely of less
trusting auditors may focus too heavily on aggressive evidence. Additional research will be
necessary to investigate optimal combinations of prior experience and individual trust for
improving fraud detection and promoting professional skepticism in audit teams, while
maintaining audit efficiency. Understanding the role of trust in auditing and fraud detection
appears to hold substantial promise for improving practice.