Partner influence, team brainstorming, and fraud risk assessment: Some implications of SAS No. 99

Brainstorming sessions are now a requirement on each audit per Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS) No. 99, Consideration of Fraud in a Financial Statement Audit, but concerns have been raised about their effectiveness in helping auditors better detect fraud. Standard setters recognize the potential for partners of the audit team to dampen the effectiveness of brainstorming by their influence on the brainstorming session, particularly when they stress efficiency over effectiveness. Additionally, audit team interaction has been shown to improve auditors' judgments, but interaction among individuals brainstorming has been shown to diminish the overall number of ideas generated. In an experiment, I test partner influence on a brainstorming session and the effects of this brainstorming session on auditor fraud judgments. I find that partners influence the amount of time spent brainstorming by the audit team. The results also indicate that, although brainstorming among the audit team does reduce the number of unique fraud ideas identified, it increases auditors' fraud risk assessments and questioning mind, potentially improving their ability to assess the risk of fraud.