The Effect of Communication Mode and Client Competence Information on Evidence Persuasiveness

This study investigates the effect of communication mode (e.g., visual, written) and client competence information (high, low, none) on evidence persuasiveness in a management inquiry setting. We perform a 2x3 between-participants experiment with 134 practicing senior auditors. We expect two main effects of both competence perceptions and evidence persuasiveness. First, we expect auditors assess client competence higher when the client is identified as more competent, and therefore the evidence is assessed as more persuasive. Second, using social presence theory, we expect auditors assess client competence higher in the visual mode due to its increase social presence, leading to more persuasive evidence. We find both main effects hold for competence assessments, but only the main effect of communication mode holds when testing the impact on evidence persuasiveness. Further, we find that higher competence assessments are associated with more persuasive evidence, with message plausibility mediating the relationship