INVESTIGATING ERROR PROJECTION AMONG STATE AUDITORS: THE IMPACT OF INTENTIONAL AND SYSTEMATIC MISSTATEMENTS

This paper investigates state auditors’ decisions regarding the isolation or projection of sample misstatements to underlying sample populations. Seventy-eight state auditors completed four treatment cases that incorporate the complete 2×2 manipulation of intentional/unintentional and systematic/non-systematic misstatements in different case scenarios, enabling a test of the independent variables both across and within case scenarios.

The results indicate that both across and within case scenarios, auditors tend to project systematic misstatements more often than they project non-systematic misstatements. However, the auditors’ isolation/projection decisions are generally not influenced by whether the sample misstatements are intentional or unintentional.