Auditors who are neither industry nor task specialists do not have the sub-specialty knowledge
of experts. Yet all auditors gain industry-based experience when auditing clients within an industry
setting and task-based experience via exposure to tasks performed for a variety of clients across a
range of industry settings. While it is not clear whether non-specialists benefit most from their
industry- or task-based experience, the findings ofBonner and Lewis (1990)andBiggs et al. (1993)
suggest that industry-based experience is the more important of the two