The effect of communication between tax research team members on the use of new evidence

This dissertation addresses the task of tax research as it is performed in public accounting by examining the judgements of tax accountants performing their individual roles in this task. Experiment one considers the evidence evaluation judgements of staff accountants working for a manager from their firm. The supervisor's opinion was communicated to the staff accountant subjects. The subjects' initial opinions shifted toward the opinions of the supervisor to whom the staff subjects were accountable. This shift occurred primarily when the shift was towards a client favorable position. The first experiment also found an evaluation bias based on the subjects' revised opinion. Subjects evaluated court cases agreeing with their revised opinion as being more relevant to the client issue. This experiment demonstrates the importance of including factors such as accountability and client advocacy, which are important characteristics of the staff accountants environment, in examining tax professionals' decisions.; The second experiment considers how manager subjects are affected by communication of the staff accountant's pre-search opinion. This opinion was used by managers to make inferences regarding the objectivity of the staff accountant. This objectivity judgement was used to discount the information received from the staff accountant's information search. However, the discounting of the staff accountant's research memorandum occurred primarily when the content of the memo supported a position that was not favorable for the client. This experiment demonstrates how source reliability judgements affect the decisions of supervising accountants in a tax research context. However, the effects of source reliability are moderated by the supervisor's client advocacy.; Combining these two experiments reveals a one-way effect of including communication into the tax research task. Staff subjects bowed to the pressures of accountability and shifted their opinion to the opinion of the supervisor primarily when the opinion was for a client favorable position. Manager subjects were affected by source reliability only when the source was providing information content that supported a position that was not favorable to the client. This finding has implications for group decision research as well as for the structure of tasks in accounting practice.