| This study contributes to the small stream of audit literature that argues that social and individual factors, in addition to economic incentives and cognitive biases, play an important role in auditors' conciliatory behavior (i.e. Bamber and Iyer, 2007; McCracken et al., 2008). Putman (1994) claims negotiators aim for three types of goals -- instrumental, relational, and identity management. However, most auditor negotiation research to date focuses on the instrumental side of negotiations with minimal consideration of the social side.;The study, which uses an experimental design, finds that as accountability cross-pressures increase, auditors with more experience are more likely to be conciliatory towards client management. The study also finds that auditors' level of professional and client identification determines their perception of client conformity pressure.;The study also finds the relationship between audit committee preferences and auditors' conciliatory behavior varies according auditors' professional and client identification. Therefore, the audit committee is less effective in mitigating those auditors who have tendency to be conciliatory.;The premise of this thesis is that auditors are both group members and representatives who are accountable to and monitored by their peer groups as well as a wide range of constituents and third parties. Therefore their willingness to be conciliatory is affected by the level of accountability-cross pressures and commitment to the groups they represent. |
