Audit anticipation: does it impact job performance?

Purpose – To determine if the anticipation of an initial audit affects an individual's accuracy in preparing vouchers – an accounting task – in a business environment. Design/methodology/approach – A laboratory setting was chosen to maintain greater control over the variables influencing an individual's performance of a typical accounting activity. Findings – The results of the analyses indicated that anticipation of the audit does influence accuracy of performance of the participants, who made a statistically significant smaller number of errors than their counterparts not anticipating an audit. The research design involved varying the content and source of the communications which subjects received describing the purpose and conduct of the audit. The subjects chosen for the experiment were 90 College of Business and Economics students. Research limitations/implications – The study uses students to surrogate for internal audit personnel and it is based in the USA, which may limit its usefulness elsewhere. Practical implications – The results of this study indicate that management should continue or consider using an audit as a component of its overall control system. Further, they should be as forthcoming as possible concerning the scope of the audit since study results indicate that employees are inclined to focus on management‐provided measurement points. Originality/value – This paper helps fill a void in the literature as to whether audits improve performance.